Luck is a funny thing, sometimes hard or even impossible to find, but painfully obvious when it is present. As the Riot team waited our turn to run in the time trial for the Mint 400 starting position, we were not really thinking about luck. With a new truck, or next to new, freshly prepped by both Geiser Bros and our own team, confidence in the machine was high. The weather was cool and bright, and the SNORE team had put together a great loop for the trial that had a little bit of everything: high speed, potentially huge air, technical ridge top running and some molar chattering g-out chassis twisters.

After what seemed like a very long wait, #68 rolled up to the start box and got the green. Marc Ewing’s new machine exploded off the line and into the first straightaway like a scalded rabbit. With a conservative game plan for the jumps and the sketchy ridge line, the flatter sections were seeing no reservation at all. The lap fell away in a blink and as Marc charged down the last straight section. He yelled @#$%&* and the truck started to veer left. A marker stake jumped right up in front of the truck, and Marc yelled, “No STEERING!” He lifted and every warning light on the dash turned on. This was not good. The truck was quickly shut down and after a very quick chat Marc started the truck back up and moved it off the track.

Under the hood we found the crank pulley assembly lying below the motor and the drive belts for the oil pump, alternator and steering pump all spread around like Mardi Gras beads. Not a good look. Luck though, was there. This was not race day. Hard to imagine after multiple test sessions and the careful inspection by many skilled eyes that this had happened, but it was repairable. While starting 44th rather than somewhere in the top 20 was not as desirable, we were not stuck 15 miles into the rock garden on the race course thinking about all of the other places we could be. Luck.

Race morning came and after a long night that left all a little wanting for sleep we shuffled around the Riot camp with the usual list of pre-flight jobs to do. Laura Ahlquist rocked the griddle and hot pancakes with maple syrup and bacon for some unexpected comfort. After a long day of repairs at Kroyer Racing and then tech inspection at the last hour and then more thrashing at the Riot shop, the truck was ready and the team rolled it towards the staging area with high
hopes.

The start came and the webbed clad truck rocked off the line and into the infield chicane. These first turns were no more than a blur and the desert opened up and the real course called for the ante. Miles three to nine were fast and fun with some high speed graded road, some wash action and a few road crossings. Then the coin dropped. The rock garden that rolled for the next 15 odd miles is hard to describe. Imagine a dry mountain riverbed with a single lane scratched out in it designed to give the racers a photo op of each large boulder. We passed a handful of vehicles either fixing flats or wisely picking their line at a less grinding pace. The hail of rocks coming into the cab as we closed on a couple of rigs was pretty impressive and a little scary as 10 pounders flew around like confetti. We tapped the #44 truck once or twice, and in a spot that was almost wide enough to pass we caught an unlucky bounce off of a rock on the front left and sort of side swiped the whole right side of their truck. Sorry, guys.

Eventually, we came out of the lunar mine field and into better running— this was short lived. With dust trails to chase #68 blasted into a straight section somewhere around mile 35 that at first glance looked like endless small whoops of high speed fun. The reality that was quickly revealed was a bit different. The interval between bumps was painfully short, the whoops were square-faced and every quarter mile or so a gotcha peek-a-boo truck flipper was hidden in the dust cloud like the mythical Halloween apple razor blade.

Marc charged on but had reported that the throttle had stuck on once or twice. Huh, that is not good. The sight of another truck’s dust will do wonders for forgetting about sketchy terrain. The track braided out into two or three pretty equal lanes with two rigs ahead of us in the far right lane. We took the left and caught up quickly. A moment after passing the other two a g-out appeared just ahead of us. Without time to really check up the truck compressed into the hole and launched out like a jack in the box on steroids and crack. Nose down and almost vertical with the throttle stuck wide open we both were damn sure the next part was going to hurt. Somehow though, Marc kept driving and with some violent correction as the ass end bounced side to side and in a second it was over and we were cruising through the desert again. Marc dialed the speed down for a minute and then poured the coal back on and started flying again. No sooner had the truck regained race pace when the exact same sequence played out a second time.

We were flying through the air, nose way down and really, really hoping that Marc could squeak it out again. He did. Cool. Maybe we should slow down…. Nah. The sticking throttle thing was a concern. We hailed Pit B and gave our Pit Captain Jeff Edwards as much information as we could. The guys in Pit B dove in and inspected everything they could think of and sprayed WD-40 on each link and ball joint between the pedal and the throttle body. They reported a hose that could have been causing a snag near the throttle body. This was zip tied out of the way, and we blasted out of the pit and into the back half of the course. The course alternated between hellishly rough to just flat and treacherous over the next 30 odd miles. The service road that followed under the power line would open up in straight sections just long enough to lure you into speeds, just big enough for a good pucker on the next loose hairpin turn with high stakes for blowing the turn in the form of a 150-foot drop on one side or the other for miles.

Between the throttle still sticking and a distinct feeling that the rear suspension was not quite right, a bit of the competitive ferocity had faded. Unable to predict the next crazy Ivan that the truck was going to throw, Marc dialed the volume down from 11
to about a six. We pitted at D for another inspection of the throttle and same intermittent sticking. The last 30 odd miles back into the main pit were long and down speed. Designed to absorb the dynamic energy of high-speed induced loads. the suspension
system was throwing us around like a rat in a terrier’s mouth at the slower pace. Reaching the main pit the crew hit the truck with everything they had and in a minute or two the truck was back out on the course and flying. Somewhere around mile six or seven the throttle stuck again for a second— just enough to keep the thought of it close to the front of Marc’s mind as he picked his way into the hellish rock garden. We ground through the waterless riverbed, and just before the end of the worst we tagged an erratic boulder that was big enough to take out the left rear tire. Marc carried on to the beginning of a wash before we stopped for a quick tire swap. Rolling again and glad to be out of the relentless rock pile, Marc started to stoke the speed.

No sooner had we established a good pace when the throttle stuck wide open. Marc tried to pull the pedal up without success, and we spun out and stuffed up into a berm on the right side of the wash before the ignition could be ripped down to cut the motor. Stopped perpendicular to the course with the nose of the truck up on a bank and the rear end sticking out on the track was not a comfortable place to be while Marc feverishly worked to free up the gas pedal. In 10 seconds that felt quite a bit longer the linkage freed up and we started. Unable to go up the bank we had to back into the course and get moving forward fast. This spin out was a game changer mentally. Most of the other throttle-related events had been at mid range revs— this one was full bore. Pit A was not that far down the track, and we immediately hailed them to let them know we were inbound.

Entering the pit the thing stuck again causing us to overshoot the ready crew by about 100 yards. Marc stopped and we rolled upstream to the waiting pit, wanting to exit right way around we went to spin around before stopping. About two-thirds of the way through the turn the damn throttle stuck again and with people diving out of the way and Marc simultaneously standing on the brakes and trying to free up the pedal under his right foot we nosed into the open tailgate of another team’s support truck parked in the pit. Pretty scary for everyone both in and out of the truck. Darryl Putman and about four others worked intensely to sort out the gremlins in the linkage. Adding several return springs and replacing the existing ones with heavier versions seemed like the best option as nothing else looked obviously wrong. The guys gave us the thumbs up, buttoned the hood back up and sent us. Not 200 feet out the pit and it happened again. Marc hauled it back around for another look. After further inspection and the addition of another spring we were on course. The gas pedal could have had a Bowflex sticker on it as it required about 70 pounds of pressure to move the thing with all of the return springs pulling it up. This solution was not going to be a sustainable one. Working along to pit B was slow. Jeff and the others in B jumped back in. Marc hopped out to allow a more complete inspection of the area around the pedal and the linkage within the cab. A couple of new springs were removed and everything was hit with WD-40 again from stem to stern.

We rumbled back out onto the course just as the green Ashcraft TT #78 rolled through. Still down speed and questioning when the next convulsive burst of power was going to appear we humped along and put miles behind us. Pit C cheered and called for more speed as we passed them. The course between Pit C and D was a gyroscopic carnival of monster holes, steroid-grown moguls and ragged trenches of silt. Climbing up onto a narrow ridge without any really standout hits, the brake pedal went to the floor. Marc pulled back into first gear and pumped the brake like mad as we descended a 30 degree hill. Reeling the speed in as he found a bit of pedal, Marc hauled over and I hopped out. A quick glance showed brake fluid all over the left side of the rear axle housing. We repositioned the truck and I grabbed a cap out of the tool bag thinking we had just torn a brake line. Crawling under for a closer look and to throw the cap on I realized that our problem was bigger than just a torn line. The left track rod was broken exactly in the middle. I worked to wire the two ends away from other things they would damage as they flogged around, and Marc radioed in to Pit C/D and explained the trouble. With no rear brakes and the back end flopping back and fourth like a fish that had met the priest we hobbled in to Pit D.

Jordan Poole, Todd Salazar, Graig Dickinson, Skylar Nielsen, Smitty and a few others all jumped in and started the work of swapping the track bar— not a common failure and definitely not a quick fix. Eventually, with the help of a boom truck from a neighboring crew the new rod went in and the truck was back on all four and sitting a little more squarely after about an hour and forty-five minutes. Still with no rear brakes we rolled back out onto the course. The two or three miles we rolled before reaching the pit after the rod had broken had hurt the sway bar link rods and had definitely caused some alignment issues in the rear end. Speed over 70 mph created a heavy vibration, and with no rear brakes the cornering was a bit spicier than normal. Traffic was pretty light on the last 30 miles to the main pit. We traded positions with BJ Baldwin as he passed us like we were parked, only for us to roll back over him as they changed a tire. Baldwin hunted us back down about four miles from main in another uncontested pass at speed.

Riot rolled back into main and the guys dove right in to address the brakes and a handful of other smaller jobs, but sadly we were done. Grossly out of the hunt for a finish that was not in the cheap seats and uncertain still about more than a few components, a brief meeting led to the decision to retire. The truck could have probably made it around the last 200 miles of course, but in an effort to manage the time on the engine and on a course that had already proven to be a complete wrecking yard the towel was tossed as damage control trumped completion.