Lucerne Dust to Senior Prom In Less Than 5 Hours-1709 Race Report
The latest stop on the Jeepspeed tour brought us to Lucerne CA - a fast course if your suspension and motor will cooperate.
1709 was essentially a brand new car rebuilt by Ryan Filar with help from Eric Filar:
http://www.pirate4×4.com/forum/showthread.php?t=871760
The biggest challenge for Team Stobaugh and our lead driver 17 year old Austin Stobaugh would be scheduling, as his Senior Prom was on the same night as the race. The plan was for Austin to run lap 1, turn the car over to Dad for a lap, and then Jeff Belknap would finish out the last two laps. There were multiple plans to pull Austin from the car if there was down time and get him back to the highway for a ride, but the best plan was for him to run a good solid lap with no down time.
Start was right on time, as MORE ran a professional race all the way around. Austin left the line at 1:37.
Co-dogging for the first two laps was Brian Hartman, son of 1706 Scott and Tandi Hartman, and Brian was on his game. We knew from testing the day before we were off on shock valving for a winning pace, but knew if we could run a consistent trouble free 4 laps, we would be in a decent finish.
Austin and Brian ran a solid lap, with no problems. Off he went to fight traffic and many miles to try and beat the clock for his Prom. Ron Stobaugh took over for the next lap, and again, ran with no problems (yes, the younger Stobaugh beat dads lap time by 17 seconds).
Lap 3 would be our tough lap, Jeff Belknap and Chris Armien were on a good pace when the lower link failed (the only parts we didn’t replace!). The Dust Junkies 1706 crew jumped on the problem, and LJ had his welder on it and repaired - awesome!
Lap 4 was uneventful, as Jeff and Chris ran trouble free and brought the 1709 car in for a 6th place out of 15 finish. This moved Austin up in the points to 5th.
Gotta thank BF Goodrich for zero flats, Motive Gear and TEN Factory for awesome drivetrain parts, Currie Enterprises for the new rear end and sway bar, 4WPW for so much help and Pro Comp Wheels, LightForce for the super bright lights, FOX Shox, Tracy Stobaugh, The Hartmans, The Belknaps, Chris Amrien, and Fat City for the build, prep and help!!
And yes, Austin made it down to the OC for his Prom with 20 minutes to spare. I’m a proud dad!
Race photos courtesy of super cool Dave Taylor