KrawlTex

Krawltex takes first in class and fourth overall with the 5 unlimited car in the Texoma 200 Night Race. Congrats to the Cardosa's. Dwayne and Ted "iron manned" the entire race, crossing the finish line right around 6 hours with a flawless run. Great job to the whole team and congrats to the second first place podium of the VW's last three races.

As far as the truck goes... sadly we got our first DNF in the Tacoma. We had gone over the truck for weeks. Bolts were tightened. Shocks rebuilt. Fluid changes and plugs were swapped. The power steering pump was replaced and the entire system flushed. I should have known we were in for something bad when we found two suspension cracks days before the race. While TIG welding the cracks, the welder arced through the chassis and somehow smoked the brake lines. We replaced the stainless line and two hard lines that were pinched from previous use. While it was in the air, we also noticed the pinion nut had backed off and there was a tremendous ammount of back lash in the gears. Without enough time to get rebuild parts for the 6.30 geared 40 spline 9", we tightened the nut and kept going.

After a few hours of driving, we get to the ranch on Friday. Matt and Chris take it out prerunning just before sun down, only to find out the GPS is not working again. Jeremy and I hop in the truck and take it out for a run in pitch black. Figured we needed to test everything else out and get a lay of the land. Think I only scared him once. With both runs, the Tacoma performed well. However, I did blow a turn at mile 27 because of unclear trail markings.

The next day we had 5 hours to prerun before the race. After a bunch of trial and error, we were able to get the GPS to record a lap, despite the SD card reader being completely useless. Chris and I replaced a leaking outer wheel hub on the rear axle. Soon after, Matt Little and I take off and map the course. Matt S and Chris do another lap before the race to get familiar with the course in the day light. We load up and head to the start line.

I drew 6th out of 7 starting position for class 8. By mile 10, we were in third place chasing dust. As soon as I'm on the heels of the truck ahead of us, the truck starts running like complete crap. I figured it was ignition related because it would smooth out at 3000 rpm in a higher gear. We called in to the pits to have that stuff ready. In the midst of the power loss, I noticed the brakes were going. The truck would only slow after 3-4 pumps of the brake pedal. We call that in too. Somebody was smart enough to suggest switching to the second fuel pump and immediately we had power. We rolled in to the pits thinking, "check the brakes, bleed out some air, and keep going." In less than 10 seconds, Chris signaled to kill it.

What put us out of the race was a $100 front hub bearing. It had exploded, with only one roller left on a crispy spindle hub. The only component keeping the wheel on the truck was a brake caliper, which explains the intermittent brakes. One 3/8's bolt was all that kept us from going out of control. We were extremely lucky. I guess that's just racing. In the last 10 races, we have podiumed 8 times with 7 first place finishes. A DNF is just part of it.

So what I have learned about our truck from this race... our GPS kind of works but won't read an SD card. This means we have to prerun because we can't buy the course from someone else. Buy twice as much beer as you think the weekend will require, because you may be pitting for the other car REAL quickly. And stock Toyota parts are complete shit. The hub bearing that failed was replaced with a Timken unit before the last race. It had less than 400 miles on it. front hubs with some real bearings are in the works for the 7S.