Snowflake Off Road Race Report
by Mike Doherty

The Doherty Motorsports attempt at the 30-something annual Snowflake Off Road Race, was another Wet and Wild event. "The Race" as the promoter calls it, is held on public land, way up in the Arizona White Mountains, at an elevation of a cool 6000'.

The daytime temperature (with the overcast sky), was around 80 for the high, and dipped down to a cool 40 at night.

Our race weekend began with our arrival at the main (and only) pit area, on Friday.

We set up our pit, around our 40' trailer, and strung out the caution tape to keep out the throngs of Arizonans escaping the heat.

There is a limited pitting area, and someone always manages to try to squeeze in between our pit and the next. Later as the sun set, we fired up the generator and the lights, to get them set-up just right for the next nights running of the race. The race was to include 5-twenty five mile laps in the morning, and 5 twenty five mile laps in the evening.

Race morning dawned, and our team rolled out of tent-trailers, pick-up beds, and sleeping bags. Coffee was served, as we went over last minute checks such as tire pressures and tools. The Pro Buggy and Trucks were to leave the line at 8:15. We had drawn 5th out of the 6 entries in our class, and it had not rained in many days. THIS, was going to be a dusty race, although shouldn't be to hot with the overcast sky.

We had a pretty un-eventful 1st lap, and waved as we passed our pit heading out to the table-top jump. The second lap was fun, but a little more dust than the last. We passed one truck in our class. On completing the second lap, there is a little "infield" section in the pits, including two big jumps. As we cleared the second jump, something went BANG! It took two seconds to figure it was a tie rod. We had just completed a major front suspension up-grade, including new tie-rods with spherical rod ends. What we had broken, was the new welded joint between the new outer rod ends and the older inside joints. Basically, we had run out of time, as we had planned on changing everything on the steering to rod ends.

Where we broke in the pits, was right in front of the Whitton Plumbing pit, and they had a welder ! In the time they took to drive to us, my co-driver Mike Kerr had the old one off. After a quick weld, it was replaced. I told the welder to re-weld over the one on my side, as they were both welded by the same guy ! After approx 20 minutes ? we were back on our way.

The next 3 laps were un-eventful, (if you can say that about racing a big horsepower truck across the Arizona desert at a high rate of speed !). On the 4th lap I even managed a little "bicyclical action" out in the middle of no-where. Where's that camera guy when you need him ? I was not sure of our finish position, until we got the checker flag, and our crew told us the count. THIRD huh ? Well I planned on doing something about that, during the next up-coming night race. I was finally going to get to use those four new Hella lights I had purchased for the Baja 500 last June.

They then started the Sportsman race. Probably 30 cars and "Flatbillers type" trucks. They were to only race one heat during the daylight.

WE were still on track. We still had 125 miles to go, and five hours to get ready. The guys changed two tires. They pumped in 65 gallons of fuel. They began to install and wire all 6 lights. I had some lunch. Then, it happened. A few rain drops began to fall, then a few more. We placed the EZ-UP canopy over the truck. It was now a steady drizzle.

I thought, "if it stops now, it will be perfect conditions instead of all that dust"

After 15 more minutes, I thought "if it stops now, there's still time for it to soak in"

After 30 minutes, the ground began to really shine.......

After one hour, the steam of water running by our pit, was 12" deep, and four feet across. The proposed start time of 5 PM was quickly approaching...At around 4:30 the race was called. Every available 4WD sweep truck was then sent out to retrieve the 15 or so Sportsman cars stranded and soaked, out on the 25 miles of race course. I heard there were places out on the track where the water was crossing it at three foot deep. There was also a 4X4 truck driving back and fourth through the pits towing out little import cars covered in mud. We watched all this circus from the under the awning of the trailer.

The sun eventually came out to make a cameo appearance just before sundown. Everybody was now slowly drying out. And the smell of campfires and loud music now filled the air.

I have to thank my co-driver Mike Kerr (his first time with me) and: Johnny Ernst, Kirk, Mark Dorman, Matt, Shawn, Ellen, Paul Doherty, Tom Wittges, Chuck and Clinton McDuffy, Lowell Arnold,