MDR Mojave 250
April 1, 2006
Race report, Jeepspeed 1790
Fat City Off-Road Racing
Driver: Eric Filar
Co Driver: Ryan Filar

1790 took the green flag in the 22nd starting position shortly after 8:30 am, with confidence that the car was prepped and ready to give the top dogs a run for there money. Almost immediately in the first three miles the Fabtech car and 1747 took us by surprise on the left, making me realize that we would have to push a little harder to have any chance. We grabbed a gear and put it to the wood. By mile marker twelve we had reeled in the two places we lost and six more Jeepspeeds on top of that. Fighting hard to keep in to keep in front of the pack. Around mile thirteen we hit a long soft sandy wash, not wanting to give up any more positions we kept the slender pedal on the floor and worked the tranny back and forth between boggin and screamin. At mile sixteen we saw the temp. needle was on the bad side of the gauge after the wash and backed out of the throttle just a little, only to have the engine give up completely as we slowed for checkpoint two. Not realizing yet that we were no longer running I gassed it to the sight of a waving flag, but to our surprise we coasted about ten feet past the check point without the screaming engine sounds we'd been used to hearing for the last thirty minutes. The motor had no interest in even trying to start for the next ten minutes and once it did, it knocked louder than a diesel. We blew it up. At that point we took off our helmets and helplessly watched our lead drive by, one Jeepspeed at a time. Ryan and I thru the hood off and started dumping ever last drop of drinking water we had in the car and then some (special thanks to the MDR guys at check point 2) in an attempt to cool it off, only to have it burp back out once the cold stuff met the hot stuff. Almost an hour went by and we finally had the radiator filled and the engine cooled off. We started the motor with hopes that it would rattle it's way thru the desert to at least get us back to main pit, it cranked four times and fired. Purred like a kitten. We were flabbergasted at how well she sounded, within half a second Ryan yelled out "lets go racin". We shoved our heads into the helmets and off we went. Peltzer passed us about a minute later on his second lap.

The next five miles we tried to keep up with Charlie, but lost him in the dust and to make matters worse, he's fast! We pulled thru start/finish with 1:57 min. on the clock. Second lap we started with a fifteen-minute pit to asses any damage, tighten the driver seat bolts and restock our water. Everything went dapper for the next thirty-five miles turning in a time of 1:18:55. Not bad with such a long pit. Fifteen miles into our third we took an unlucky bounce off a huge roller and came down extraordinarily hard on the left front corner blowing out what little shock we had left. One spectator later came by to tell us we had enough air to clear a motor home and couldn't believe we didn't go down side up. Now driving with limited visibility, due to the shock oil on the windshield and a suspension that was bouncing out of control we decided to slow it down and just finish the next lap and a half. Although probably the most miserable fifty miles either of us had to endure in the last year, we were able to nurse it in for fifteenth with a disappointing time of 6:10:51.

Fat City Off-Road Racing would like to thank DRIVETRAIN DIRECT in Corona Ca. for all their support, and ALLOY USA also in Corona for their support and the Chromoly rear Dana 44 axle shafts, we haven't had any more broken shafts since they went in. Thanks again.

Also special thanks to our crew Fernando, Mike, Rob and Snack for such an awesome job, and Giti Gowland and his crew for all their help in the main pit.

Fat City Off-Road Racing
Eric Filar & Ryan Filar