Great Salt Race - Updates from Utah

[drdestructo]

Eight FB cars ran the open track day at Miller today with JR Osborne topping the time charts. No major mechanical issues sidelined anyone and the weather was crystal clear and about 90f.

Manufacturers represented were:

Stohr...Osborne, Palmer

Phoenix... Werner, La Brie

Edge...Hickman

Speads...Waterman, Cottrill

Novak...Mitchell


JR is going to be tough to beat. Everyone says his motor sounds very strong.

More tomorrow.

[Mike B]

I heard the second Speads is being driven by Richard Cottrill of Rilltech Racing.

[drdestructo]

Oops! Fixed that.

[Nicholas Belling]

FB truly is the best class to be racing in with the open wheel cars.

[drdestructo]

Ill post some results ASAP if no one beats me to it.

I'm at 35000 flying to Dallas to pick up a new differential from Taylor having busted my Williams differential in the morning session.

JR was last seen with lubrricant covering his tail at the end of qualifying after setting fast time. The rest of the FB drivers were lined up behind!

Hopefully me and him will ne back in action tomorrow.

Russ

[glenn cooper]

Ill post some results ASAP if no one beats me to it.

I'm at 35000 flying to Dallas to pick up a new differential from Taylor having busted my Williams differential in the morning session.

JR was last seen with lubrricant covering his tail at the end of qualifying after setting fast time. The rest of the FB drivers were lined up behind!

Hopefully me and him will ne back in action tomorrow.

Russ

And that cats and kitties is the epitome of dedication to the cause!

Go Russ!!

[Mike B]

For those not following F1000 on Twitter:

1. David Palmer (Stohr)
2. Waterman (Speads)
3. Hickman (Edge)

Mitchell spun out of P2, don't know about LaBrie and Cottrill. Werner and Osborne were DNS.

[drdestructo]

A huge congrats go to Dave Palmer for the Saturday victory. Me, Mitchell and JR are gonna see if we can shake up the order a bit for Sunday.

JR should remember that it's not nice to beat the owner of your motor (Palmer)!

Russ

[Mike B]

Me, Mitchell and JR are gonna see if we can shake up the order a bit for Sunday.

...and shake it up, he did.

After getting on an airplane, flying to Dallas, picking up a new Taylor diff, flying back, and installing it in his Phoenix, Russ went on to win the race on Sunday! How cool is that?

Sunday's results:
1. Russ Werner (Phoenix)
2. Randy Mitchell (Novak/Van Diemen)
3. Gary Hickman (Edge)
4. Chris Waterman (Speads)
5. John LaBrie (Phoenix)
6. Dave Palmer (Stohr)
7. J.R. Osborne (Stohr)
8. Richard Cottrill (Speads)

[Richard Dziak]

This is an awesome story, of a racer who just wouldn't quit. While I have never met or have spoken to Russ Werner, his dedication and desire to race was proven this weekend. Not only that, he brought home the win.

This is an incredible story in which I, and most likely others would like to hear more of the story.

Hopefully "we can hear the rest of the story" as Paul Harvey would say.

Awesome !

[glenn cooper]

How cool is this story?
I'm totally stoked for you and Dustin, way to go Mi Hermano!!

[Nicholas Belling]

Love to hear the stories from the field.

Russ has an incredible team.. And good atmosphere in camp. thanks to a certain women who keeps camp morale high..

CONGRATS AGAIN RUSS>. maybe you should head to the runoffs.. just take the 3 weeks out of the year off.. or 2 weeks is it.

[JohnPaul]

Ill post some results ASAP if no one beats me to it.

I'm at 35000 flying to Dallas to pick up a new differential from Taylor having busted my Williams differential in the morning session.

JR was last seen with lubrricant covering his tail at the end of qualifying after setting fast time. The rest of the FB drivers were lined up behind!

Hopefully me and him will ne back in action tomorrow.

Russ

That's one expensive differential! congrats, I guess it was worth the trip!

[drdestructo]

The rest of the story……..

Tested the Phoenix on Friday and the car was fine but for a fuel pickup issue. We worked through that and ran 3 sessions without incident. Saturday morning warmup, I’m about 4 laps into it when coming out of “Mabey Y’ll Makit” (turn 5) when I lost drive (Mabey I won’t). I buried the clutch and was rolling to a stop when the left rear locked up hard leaving a nice 80’ stripe to the scene.

After dragging the car back to the garages, we found that the business end of the diff (Williams) had broken and when that happened the large nut from the diff had bounced over and got inside the left rear wheel and jammed between the wheel and the caliper causing the lockup. As the piece of the damaged diff was not repairable at the track we figured we were done for the weekend.

Calls were made, telegraphs and smoke signals were sent, and then Dustin Wright of Phoenix called and said that there was a diff, nearly complete, at Taylor somewhere in Texas and maybe I should just call Scott at Taylor and see if we could figure out a way to get our hands on it. I did and Scott said he could finish the diff buildup in short order.

I got on the Internet and called Delta Airlines (my employer) to see about a counter-to-counter shipment. Oh yeah, ever since Bin Lauden that ain’t an option because you need to be a known shipper which sounds easy but isn’t. Talked to several freight forwarders and they were all about as enthusiastic as my crew chief after a hard night out. So…the only option left……I checked the flight schedules and Delta had a flight to Dallas in a couple hours and one coming right back on the same plane 90 minutes later. I ran to Costco to replace my grease stained jeans with some spiffy new ones suitable for travel and headed to the airport.

Two hours and one minute later I was in Dallas and Scott was already there with a beauty of a piece ready to go. He and Dustin had worked out all the details so I had new CV bolts, bearings, snap rings and all the latest bling. This was some kind of customer service! Even a cell number, with instructions to call, no matter how late, if we had any hang-ups in changing to the Taylor unit. (Not needed)

Back on the plane, this time there was even room in first class for a monkey and a differential so I sat up there, ready to jump off in Salt Lake and get to work drinking beer and fixing the Phoenix (actually the beer started in first class). Two hours and 15 minutes later there I was, curbside with a diff at 830 pm.

Straight to the track, with only a beer stop on the way, as me and crew chief Kyle were going to need some lubrication for the install. Diff in and car ready to go on the setup table at a bit after midnight. Off to the hotel by 1, sleep by 2 and the alarm suddenly went off at 6……….wait, I thought there was a 3, 4, and 5…….wow, I guess we were tired. All coffee’d up and on the setup table by 7am and good to go before 8.

Sunday was another beautiful day, and it was around 75-80 degrees for qualifying. The track was clean and I just wanted to get a decent time, having missed Saturday, especially since JR was busy with an engine change during the race Saturday. I figure that had made the outcome of Saturday’s race wide open which it turned out to be. Palmer and Mitchell had the epic battle Saturday til Mitchell, battling a brake problem, forgot to pump up the binders entering the attitudes and spun himself out of contention. Chalk up one for the visitors, with Palmer taking a deserved win.

Anyway, I was consistently faster on Sunday qualifying than I had been all weekend, lowering my personal East Track best time by over a second. That was no match for the guy with the big sound, JR Osborne, as he bested me by 1.5 seconds, but I was solidly in second for the start. JR has all those run-off wins and stuff on his resume so I didn’t even cry.

At the start, I was able to get through 1 on the heels of JR, with Mitchell close behind.Not sure what happened to Palmer at the start, but he spun himself out on Lap 8. JR was slowly gapping me and Mitchell was reeling me in, as my car had gone to a push early on so I was having trouble getting off the off-camber corners. I’ve seen Mitchell in my mirrors plenty and that ain’t always good. His Novak handles very well and he knows how to use it in close quarters so my mission was mostly focused on keeping him in my mirrors and not ahead of me. Me and Mitchell were bringin’ JR back to us, but that turned out to be wishful thinking as he was actually slowing thinking he had a tire going down. JR entered the pits after lap 2 or 3 and left it up to me and Randy to figure out which local boy was going to take home the big check. Time out……..Safety car out at mid-race for a car blocking the track in one.

On the restart, because of where the lead DSR was relative to the field, we were way back in the line so I figured we would go green before we could see the flag stand. My radio battery wasn’t charged up, but had enough left for Kyle to get the “Green, Green, Green” call to me. That was enough to put a car between me and Mitchell and so I could breathe going down the start finish straight……….but what’s that ahead….FE spins in one ending up 90 degrees to the track nearly blocking it. I see some daylight on the outside and go for it only to have the FE roll just enough toward the outside to force me off into the gravel. Enter the Phoenix super-mod dirt machine. Dirt tracking through the gravel outside the corner I re-enter with my tires covered with…….stuff, but realize that Mitchell was nowhere to be seen. He and Hickman got in the schomozzle in one (3 cars ended up spinning in one) and got held up, having taken the inside line. For the second half of the race the main event was Hickman and Mitchell, battling for second, never getting more than a few feet apart. Final order was Me, Mitchell, Hickman, Waterman, Labrie, with Palmer, Osborne, Cotrill out.

As my friend John Hill says, some people use airplanes like cars. Uh huh. As Delta says, some people just know how to fly.

Dr. Destructo
Aka Russ Werner

[drdestructo]

Dr. Destructo and the 2009 Phoenix

Attachment 20927

[ghickman]

Utah Boys-
Just rolled into the shop here in SoCal after our 14 hour drive home....dead tired.

Russ....nice job on the win, a Herculean effort to say the least.

Newbie...sorta...Randy Mitchell, had fun battling with you looking forward to a repeat next year. Chalk one up for the Novak Coversion. This dude can drive!

GH
Edge FB #76

[SCOTTY81]

Russ,

Thanks for the good words buddy.

I have never had anything like this happen before....

I just finished up the yard work in this lovely Dallas heat when I got a call from Dan Taylor sayin Dustin had called on the tech line and said you where in a pickle..

You pretty much covered the rest in your post....a good post at that.
After I got your text yesterday ...All it said was" P1". I thought cool , Russ just got pole ,

Then you corrected me and said " that was the results " .....Well that just made my day...
After all you went through Russ you deserve that win.....

Next time you come to Dallas....stay long enough so I can buy you a cold one...

[Wright D]

Everyone back at the factory was jumping up and down Sunday after Russ' win...exciting!

We were also really happy to see John LaBrie do so well in his first race with a brand new Phoenix.

Thanks for the effort guys!

[jaltaman]

Thanks Dustin. You and your team build an awesome car!

Congratulations to David Palmer and Russ Werner for their wins. I was in the garage next to Russ and it was pretty cool to see how everything unfolded between Saturday and Sunday morning. Huge kudos go out to Scott at Taylor and Dustin at Phoenix - now that's customer service! Kyle also deserves an attaboy for working long hours despite his sleep-deprived hungover condition. Kyle, you make me marvel at the resilience of youth.

Speaking of kudos, thank you Gary Hickman for the synthetic grease for our CV joints; too bad it wasn't enough to keep you from passing me and taking a well deserved 3rd on Sunday. I also owe many thanks to Ian Lacy and Stefan Dwornik for their support in my garage; without the two of them, I'd be lost.

As Russ mentioned, the restart on Sunday was very exciting. When I got to the braking zone for turn one there were cars everywhere - except on the inside which I used to sneak through unscathed. Talk about dumb luck! My wife was filming from the 2nd floor above the pits and caught the tail end of the incident on tape - I will try to get it posted later, but Russ was already through by the time I came onto the scene. Randy Mitchell was just getting out of the mess and although I got past him it was only a lap and a quarter before he passed me back (and ultimately Gary as well). Nice driving, Randy!

Anyway, I had a blast running with everyone, the racing was clean and a lot of fun. I can't wait to do it again!

[JakeL]

Had an outstanding front-row-seat to watch a lot of the F1000 action this weekend, it was quite a show to watch. Two Stohrs, two Phoenixes (Phoenices?), two Speads, the Novak, Edge...great fun.

As others have mentioned, JR's car has a sound of its own...LOUD! The Stohrs are absolutely gorgeous. Russ in his Red Phoenix was particularly attention-grabbing as well...yowza.

Lot of fun racing with you guys in the field and seeing the battles all around. Can't wait to see F1000 continue to blossom!

Edit = Ah, in regards to the whole T1 shemozzle on Sunday - I've got the whole thing on video. an FE punted the LR of Sam Souval's DSR, which I think spun him into one other car. I barely snuck through on the inside, and I think Russ was probably not too far behind me when I did...*boggle*

-Jake
#5 DSR

[VehDyn]

Was JR running the Suzuki or something else? Was everyone there running a 08 or 09 Suzuki?

[JakeL]

It was a Suzuki of some sort, I didn't talk with anybody about their motors, but I saw a lot of 'zook's.

I think JR's car just has a particular muffler/pipe combo that makes a unique sound - it was very noticable at June Sprints too.

-Jake

[JakeL]

Highlights from my DSR of the race and restart. Some F1000 action in there early on. Great to see the cars out there!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71YQGDwmnxw

Cheers!

-Jake