Baja Racing of Texas Series

Baja Racing of Texas announces New Off-Road Racing Series

Ft. Worth, TX. (February 1, 2011) Exciting news from the Lone Star state as a new off-road race series is announced today. Baja Racing of Texas, LLC (BRT) will be launching a new off road racing series for the upcoming 2011 season. The BRT was formed by Chris Leitner (BRT President) and is the next step in the continuing growth of off-road racing in Texas. The goal of the BRT is to provide safe, fun and challenging racing venues for the entire off-road community. In light of the current issues plaguing the southern borders of the US and the on-going changes plaguing the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) over land use on the west coast, Texas is primed to be the future of off road racing in the United States. Leitner stated “When you look at the states that have the land to hold these type of events the list is very short and the fact that Texas land is privately owned with no BLM interaction, then Texas really is the next step for the off-road community. We plan to offer the ‘Texas Premiere Off-Road Racing Experience’ to the racers, fans and sponsors attending our events”.

Leitner has assembled a large staff to assist him in this project. This group has an impressive 100 plus years of combined experience in organizing, promoting and participating in off-road racing events.

Since all of the land in Texas is privately owned, successful partnerships with Landowners have been established and additional land owners will be on board for the 2012 season. Leitner stated “We are focused on working with new property owners, Texas based businesses, The Texas Motorized Trails Coalition and other race organizations to establish new locations for future events.” The BRT will be running their 2011 off road racing events at Texana Ranch located in Blackwell, TX starting with the Blackwell 250 April 7-10. This 4,682 acre property has been owned by the Beal family since 1979 and offers a variety of terrains not often seen at west coast off-road racing events. Instead of the vast expanses of sand and cactus, the 40+ mile course at Texana Ranch winds through tree-filled areas, dry creek beds and up and down hills.

BRT will be offering familiar race classes, safety guidelines and has established a relationship with the rock crawling community to incorporate 4-wheel drive (Ultra 4) vehicles into the series as well as an endurance Motorcycle race at the October 27-30 event. Chris Leitner stated “We are looking forward to our relationship with Cameron Chin with Krawltex Motorsports and Jeremy Dickinson who will be spearheading our new 4400 race class. We know these guys will bring some great competition and great viewing for the spectators.”

To ensure everyone is aware of the latest BRT updates, they developed a new website (www.bajaracingtexas.com) with the assistance of Christy at Myhreco.com. Christy’s fresh new approach to Website design will help to create an exciting way to keep everybody in touch with what is happening at BRT. In addition, be sure to check the BRT Facebook page (www.facebook.com/bajaracingtexas).

About Baja Racing of Texas
The BRT was formed by Chris Leitner to continue the growth of off-road racing in Texas and to provide additional safe and fun racing venues for the entire off-road community. The BRT is paced to grow over 40 – 50 cars by the end of the 2011 season. The BRT will organize 2 races for our inaugural 2011 season both 250 miles long over a 40+ mile course at the Texana Ranch. Drivers come from TX, LA, OK, CA, AZ, KS, NM, AR, MO and GA to race the BRT series.

Krawltex Christmas Party Saturday, December 18th

Tony's house off Nutty Brown Road. plenty of refreshments, BBQ, live music. Check the forum for more info!

A solid month since a post... I'm getting worse and worse. Guess that means we are busy, and boy have we been. Rico Garcia has been a great addition to the team. We would be even deeper in our two week wait to get new customer work in if it wasn't for this Wyo-tech graduate joining the team when he did!

We reorganized the shop after Tony's buggy was completed in October. Mack's CJ7 finally got the 5.3L, 4L60E, and NP241 dropped in his Jeep, with a 3 link coilover suspension and King shocks underneath it. We will be finishing it up in the next few weeks. Ed's FJcruiser got some flush mount skids out of 3/16" 6061 aluminum. We cut the factory transmission crossmember out and built one flush with the bottom of the frame. After cutting skid plates that flow from the bottom of his fab fours bumper to the gas tank, Chris TIG welded the pieces together as well as counter sunk all of the mounting bolts with allen head flat hardware.

John's 1966 FJ45 is getting a custom safari rack inspired by the rigs in Africa, used for hunting. After a 4 year frame off restoration at Wimberly Fourwheel Drive, this vintage Yota came straight to our shop for tube work. Look for pics very soon. Another vintage truck at the shop is Mark LaRue's (of LaRue Tactical), M715 Kaiser truck. We are leveling the rear suspension and sourcing some longer brake lines for him.

Steve's CJ7 has gotten linked front and rear with full hydro. It's getting some finishing touches before it leaves the shop this week. Speaking of ongoing sagas, Jake's 12V suburban is getting the final tweaks before it goes to Colorado indefinitely... new injectors, upgraded injector pump and turbo, national front leaves, reworked shock mounts, and a few little odds and ends.

Mike's Excursion is evolving in to an urban assault vehicle. After a complete exterior rhino lining, we have installed a larger Garret turbo, 5" exhaust, and intake. It is receiving a 6" Skyjacker lift, 35" Toyo MT's on black aluminum wheels, and zombie killer bumpers front and rear... swingout and ladder included.

We finally finished Chris' AW4 swap in his TJ. Now we know every possible combo for doing this swap and the advantages/pitfalls of certain donor transmissions and harnesses. Boy, was that confusing! Speaking of TJ's with AW4 swaps, we are regearing Patrick's with 5.13 gears and ARB's. It is also getting a slight wheelbase stretch and a aluminum "stretch" fuel cell. Mark's TJ will be in here later in the week for 4.56 gears and Eli's monster wrangler awaits a warrantied OX locker.

Krawltex is also doing some cage work for Don Rucker automotive from Lakeway. The first is an interior sport cage in an 89 Bronco. The second will be adding to a CJ7 cage. Speaking of cage work, we are scheduled to do some more on a Scout and another CJ5 at the end of the month.

Hopefully we will find enough time to tear down the race truck this winter for next year's adventures... and finish Chris and Ted's buggies to add some ultra four competition in the EDR series.

This is a project we have been working on for two months. Tony didn't want us to post pics until it was all done. He picked it up this weekend. It was originally a YJ with a carbed 4.2L and a 5 speed. It evolved first in to a wheel base stretch and full widths... then 1 tons and 38's. Last year we tubed it out from the A pillar back, linked the rear and went to 42's. This time we went full tilt.

5.3L Chevy V8, Turbo 350, rebuilt the twin stick flipped D300, tubed the front out, King 2.5 16" travel coil overs with remote resi's on all four corners, FOA 4" bump stops, a 3" hand built exhaust out of mandrel bends and block hugger headers, full hydro steering with Solid knuckles and high steer arms, PSC pump, double ended ram, heimed tie rods, chromo shafts, drive flanges, Detroit locker and Longfield u-joints, double triangulated front four link with Branik aluminum links, hand built low pro 4 link cradle (TIG and MIG), WARN 8000 with synthetic line and incab control, double pass cross flow aluminum radiator with custom hand built bead rolled fan shroud, electric fan, and a slick upper clamp system that pre-loads the radiator, flipped LS1 low pro intake, custom adjustable alternator and belt tensioner, Kevco baffled oil pan, all AN fittings and push lock hose, electric oil/trans cooler with rear oil filter mount, flat skid with 19.75" of belly pan clearance, rear disc conversion, stacked rear plate steel TIG welded upper coil over mounts

There may be more, but you will probably catch it in the 75+ pics http://www.krawltex.com/newtex/g1/album389


Here some highlights...

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.

three weeks since a blog post... and what a tiring three weeks it has been! Temperatures have been between 110 and 140 degrees inside the shop this month making 8 hours of work take about 12. Krawltex has six race cars in the stable and all of them are racing in the next few weeks. Jeremy's WEROC buggy is competing in Tennessee this weekend. Our 7S Tacoma and 5 Unlimited VW are heading to Texoma for a night race on Labor Day weekend. Our Lemons racer will beheading to Angeleton, TX for a September 11th race. we are shooting to have Tony's Rock buggy ready for a debut at trees on Labor day and a race at canyons on the 18th of September. We also hope to have Ted's YJ linked in the front so he can defend his crown at the same race at canyons. It's going to be a rough few weeks of late nights... the 7S truck needs front fenders and a rear bypass shock rebuild. Ted's YJ needs an entire front end suspension overhaul. The 5 car needs better lighting. The Lemons car lacks an interior cage and seat mounts. tony's buggy is still in pieces... although we have the whole front suspension mocked up. chris and I finished the motor mounts and tranny mount last night.

Over the past few weeks we have finished a lift kit and power brake conversion on Jarrett's early Bronco. A highlander had a 100K maintenance and timing belt/water pump. Several strand vans have come through and one is getting a new tranny this week. Jeremy's buggy received some tube repair. We have lifted a few JK's for Cecil Atkins Jeep. The Tahoe is now regeared with a new 241 t-case and driveshafts are expected any day now. dan's CJ has been revamped with a corrected drive line mounts, skid plate, motor mounts, electric fan, dash, gauges, and a host of other odds and ends. and Tony's buggy evolves every day.

Get your 2010 EDR Firecracker 250 Race DVD at the shop for $12.99 plus tax! It's a very well produced motor sports action film covering all the trucks and race cars at the event... including our own 7S truck. Also included is a bonus footage of the Extreme Outlaws 200 race.