Saturday night was the banquette. The food was awesome and the house was packed. Most of the Class ones guys were there, except for the large Rescue Racing team (They were missed).

The awards for Class 1 went as follows: Third place to Steve Sullivan, Second Place to Shannon Harwell and first to Sam Berri. That's right, we took second in points for 2009.

Last was the trophies for the over all winners and they went as follows: Third place to Bruce Field running in Group T, Second place to Shannon running in Class 1 and First place to Sam Berri running in Class 1.

This was our first complete season and we took second place. What a great year, can't wait until next season...

The fist moto, we start off the line fast and miss second gear (Again). We end up dropping back to about 6^th place. We quickly move up to forth, behind the Rescue Racing 124 car. We make the pass and end up staying in third for the moto.

The second moto we don’t miss second gear, but it doesn’t matter much anyway, we are still in about 6^th position around the first corner. We make our way to forth, behind the 1572 car of Brad Falin. We battled with Brad for almost 4 laps, unable to get around him.

  We took forth place for the day. This was the last race of the season and we now found ourselves firmly in 2^nd place in Class 1. We were also the only class 1 car to finish all the laps throughout the season.

On Saturday, during qualifying, Sloan (Our Daughter) was my co-pilot and had a great time. She was very quite during the laps and loved every minute of it…

The first moto was exciting, after the first corner, we found ourselves in about 5^th place, behind the 2 Rescue Racing cars 124 and 125, it took a few laps, but we worked our way past them and kept them behind us for a 3^rd place finish.

The second moto was a little easier. We got a good start and after the first turn, we settled into 3^rd and kept it there for the entire 10 laps.

Looking forward to the final race of the season. We are currently in 2^nd place in the Class 1 points for the year.

What a great weekend… Even with the mishap (rock crawler 321 driving into our camp). We drew 6^th to start in class 1, which was last in our class. We weren’t concerned, knowing that there were a couple new class 1 cars in this race that looked to be fast. We planned on just finishing the race, as we always do…

Our neighbors, who had been pitting for us didn’t show up (had other things to do like work or something). My daughters had been prepped on how to fuel the car and I was confident that they would pull it out. We also got with Dustin from Sam Berri’s crew, and he was going to take a couple tires out to pit 3 for us and support us however they could.

We started the race and all was god. We got through the 8 miles of rocks and could see the chicken. We know it was time to put the pedal down and get rollin. We past pit 1, then pit 2 (following and eating the dust of 511X the whole time). Then we saw Sullivan broke at what came to be “Sullivan Corner”. We cruised by and headed up the long sandy section. That is where we were able to see far enough to finally put the pass on 511X.

We finished our first lap, then our second, then our third. On the 4^th lap, we started having fuel pump issues. Of course, we weren’t sure what the problem was, at the time. Thought it might be the air filter, but it would run the downhill sections fine, so figured it wasn’t that. Started the 5^th lap feeling good, then the fuel pump issue started again. Made it all the way to mile marker 51 and just stopped on the last up hill. Got a little bump from 1025, just to be sure we were awake, I guess (they actually tried to push us up the hill, and then decided better). We got it running, sort of, and got up the hill and down the other side, only to stop in the flats.

I got out and started trouble shooting the problem. The fuel pump was surging (cavitating). I took the pressure side filter out, the gauge mount in the tank and tried finding the reason for the problem. Well, after about 20 minutes of screwing with all that, I put it all back together and tried it again. It fired up and was running great. We buckled up and pulling into the finish in 2^nd place for class 1.

Just a few more miles down and we see some dust coming up behind us, It was none other than Sam Berri, who started in 6^th position. We let Sam by and kept up our pace. We were going strong for lap 1.

We start up the grade on the pipeline and we notice some oil at the bottom of each valley we cross (someone was leaking bad). Continuing on, we see a truck on fire on the side of the road, it was Rick Massie. We pulled over as they were climbing out and removing tires and other parts they could save. They had used their extinguisher and were looking for another option. We unbuckled and took the nets down in a panic, not really thinking of what we could do. We slowed our thinking down a second and decided to just give them our extinguisher (there wasn’t much else we could do anyway). They used that extinguisher up and started using a shovel and dirt. (I’m now going to carry a shovel in my car because those extinguishers don’t do a whole lot with that kind of heat).

I know some cars passed us while we had stopped, but I didn’t really know who they were, I wasn’t paying attention. We headed out again and put the pedal to the metal. We were starting to lap some of the slower cars. The dust was just sitting on the track, which mad getting close to pass really difficult.

It was lap 3 or 4 it was dusk or dark (don’t really remember), and the 125 car of Rescue Racing (which had passed us during the fire) had stopped to pick up Rick and his co-driver. We caught them at check 3 and had to follow in the dust for the rest of the lap (The dust was so thick, we just couldn’t get close enough for the pass). They stopped and dropped off their hitch-hikers and we pass. The 125 car was now just behind us.

All was going well. The pipeline was not overheating us anymore, due to the cooler weather. We were dealing with the dust and passing the slower vehicles. We get to check 3 on the 5^th lap and they stop us to tell us that there was a truck and an overturned car in the wash ahead about 1.5 miles. We take it cautiously from there. We come up on the scene and see Sam Berri standing next to his car which had just been up righted by a truck. We go around and head out. It was at this point we figured we were in first position and that Sam was going to be coming up on us again if his car would run (which I figured it would, being that it wasn’t too bad of a roll). We put the pedal down again and kept up the pace.

We completed our final lap and no one had passed us, so we knew we had it. The #125 car pulled in about 5 minutes later for 2^nd place.

We had no issues besides a little heat in the engine and all was good. It was a great time and we look forward to Hawthorne.

We drew for 3rd starting position, behind Rescue Racing #24 and #124, in the first position. We started the race in 30 second intervals. The race started great. Apparently the #24 caught the #124 car in a matter of minutes and passed them. Because we then caught the #124 car at around 10 minutes in. We followed the #124 car for a good 5 minutes before they would let us pass (Not sure if there was some strategy there, of he just didn't know we were there (It's hard to hear or see if someone is behind you).

We finally passed the #124 and started thinking about the #24 truck. It was clear sailing up to check point 2 of 3. That's when the speedster Sam Berri in his #149 car passed us. Sam started in 10th position in our group and had passed everyone now except the #24 truck, which wasn't going to take long, being that we could already see his dust trail...

We kept up the pace and caught the #24 truck at the "Horse Power Hill". We didn't find away around him and had to fallow him into the start finish area. (He kept on the gas and we couldn't have passed him at that point anyway.

We pulled into the pits, so we could do a visual inspection of the car. The pit crew informed me that the CV boots on the wheel side had come off. I jumped out of the car (which isn't as easy as it sounds with all the safety equipment). We cleaned out the rocks and gravel from the CV grease, greased them up and installed the CV boots once again and headed out onto the course.

I was a little worried about the boots for the next 100 miles, but then figured they would be ok if they had stayed on this long. We continued the race and kept up a good pace, stopping into the pits every lap, which wasn't good for our time, but made us feel better having the inspections each time.

Lap 5 we were cruising along and found the guys from #511X on our tail. We let them by and then decided we must be going to slow. We followed them close behind, until the "Horse Power Hill", where they decided to go the less steep route. We put the peddle to the metal and made the pass back. We kept the lead going into the main pits.

We ended up finishing 3rd in our class, which was a good day. We'll have to wait until the next race to see if we can improve on that... :)

Moto1 starts and OCR gets off the line in about 6th position. They battle for the first corner and come out in 6th. They have a little race bump with the 124 Rescue Racing car and end up with a right front flat. They continue anyway and are able to hold on for a 7th place finish.

The second moto starts and OCR ends up in the all to familiar position of 7th. They battle with Bradley racing in the second lap. OCR gets a little out of control on the back stretch of the dusty track and slides into Bradley Racing. No harm to either car. They continue on and end up in 6th position at the end with the 24 Rescue Racing truck close behind.

Sunday morning and the wind is blowing. The round 1 race is set to begin at 12:30. Shannon and Sabrina get off the line in 5th position. They work there way up to 3rd by the 2nd lap. They trade positions with Bradley racing and the 124 car of Rescue Racing. It was a close race for the 3-5 positions and OCR ended up with 4th.

Round 2 begins at 3:30. OCR gets off the line in second position, but then miss second gear and fall back to about 6th or 7th. They work there way back up to 3rd and there they stay.

OCR took 3rd overall for the day.

There was only 2 choices at this point; get a trailer and drag the car onto the deck, or get the knuckle welded. The pit crew showed up on quads (Shianne, Tyler and Joel) and they got to work. The knuckle was removed and taken back to the main pit were Joel found a camp with a welder (Thanks car #1203). The knuckle was brought back to mile 39 and assembled. Shannon and Sabrina headed for the first lap finish line. They completed 1 lap (4:20:10) and called it a day. (didn't want to chance the part breaking again) DNF

They lost the lower left a-arm bushings, cracked the right rear trailing arm, cracked the searing bracket and blew a seal in the power steering pump. Brian said " we'll get it fixed and be back again."