Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Family fun in the desert

Flying back out to Vegas to do some video and photograph Marc taking the kids out for rides in the truck.
A lake shaped like a bird.
Landing at 5:30 p.m. So dark and shiny.Oops too much oil. Looks more like Harv had another accident...
Test run behind the shop.
Some boys stopped to watch.
The electrical SOS tape from the SNORE race.
Out in the desert to take the kids for some rides.
Braxton
Harv
Father and daughter
Harvey cracking Ira up.

Friday, November 6, 2009

SNORE 250- Stranded in the desert

Prepping the pre-runner for the next race, SNORE 250, also in Primm, Nevada. Gotta find the one wire causing the battery to drain...
Here's that tire that got torn up in the last race. It's a keeper.Ira, the I can't believe it's not butter Handyman.An upside-down view of the reflection in the pool.
My pretty black widow again.
She's flicking TJ off because he tried to spit on us. (Note spit on left)
A new tail light.
Rick Geiser, one of our truck builders. Him and that trail mix.
Getting ready to practice some tire changes.
Ready, set, go.
We love contingency and tech.
Will someone take off with the trailer in the middle of the night?
This is what everything looks like at 5am on race mornings.
At pit 2, waiting for the truck. And waiting. And waiting...
We never saw the truck because the motor died at mile marker 12. To make matters worse, we had no radio contact with the truck. So Marc and TJ spent an hour or so trying to fix the truck on their own. When they realized it was a lost cause they tried to communicate with other racers to get word back to us. At this time we were only hearing rumors about where they were and that the hood was off and they were sitting on top of the truck. They had spelled out "RADIO" on the underside of the truck's hood with random pieces of electrical tape. I wish I had a pic of that! We gave another race truck some new radios to give them. Finally we had some communication. But the race officials wouldn't let us go onto or near the course to get them, so they had to navigate back to the main pits on foot. It was about an 8ish mile hike through the desert and a nice steep mountain (the ridge in the picture below), and they hadn't eaten and only had some water left after being stuck out there for hours.
A closeup with a 400mm lens of the tower that they passed on their descent. I thought I could see them and then realized there was no way...So we waited around.
"Hmm... why did the motor die."
Braxton stole my lookout lens to take some sweet action shots of other trucks at the finish.
"We were so hungry that if we saw a lizard, we were gonna eat it!" TJ
So we got the racers back, but we couldn't go out onto the course to get the truck until the race was over. And I had a flight out that night that I couldn't miss, so I had to leave before they went out to go get it. I was so pissed. But I've got some pics of it taken by Matt Stanger, I believe. They didn't have power steering because the truck was dead, so it took hours to get through the course and out to the flatbed to tow it back to Vegas.
Below photo by Matt Stanger
Harvey forgot his helmet. Look at that face!
Photo by Matt StangerBack at the house. Waiting for my dumb flight... Until next time.