February 8, 2009 2009 BITD Blue Water Resort Parker 425 The 2009 Parker 425 was Voss Motorsports first race in their new #35 Trophy Truck. The team decided to step up to the Trophy Truck ranks from their previous Protruck class only 2 weeks before the race, when they purchased the Clyde Stout/Cameron Steel Prophy Truck. This left the team with only two weeks to do a complete race prep, including putting a whole new engine in the truck. After a long two weeks of working on the truck, the team finally fired the truck up for the first time the morning they were leaving for Parker. The Voss Motorsports team then headed out to Plaster City where they planned to stop and test for three days while on their way to Parker, Arizona. To say the least it was a long three days of battling with different issues on the truck. With the help of Craig Stewart and being able to bring the truck back to his shop (Stewart’s RaceWorks) each night to work on it, the team was able to work out most of truck's major issues. Finally it was Thursday morning, the day of qualifying, when the team and the truck made it to Parker. Rich was going to start the race so he would be the one to qualify the truck. To say the least qualifying went a little rough. However the team still managed to qualify 35th out of the 82 or so unlimited vehicles that showed up to qualify. The team was still battling an overheating issue and continued to work on the truck all the way up until 10:30 the night before the race. It was time for race day and they had done all they could do with the time permitting. So as the truck left the starting line Saturday morning everyone on the team kept their fingers crossed that they would make it to the finish line. Rich completed the first lap fairly smooth, however he was battling with power steering issues and the steering wheel being jerked out of his hand. Rich pulled into the pits and gave the truck over to Jason at the end of the first lap as they had planned. The team looked over the truck in the pits, filled it with fuel, two new tires, and Jason and his co-pilot were on their way. The rain started to come down hard and the steering wheel became even harder for Jason to hold onto. He battled through it and was coming around to the main pit already at the end of the second lap. This is when the truck began to lose oil pressure and the water temperature skyrocketed. The race truck was just entering the Python but it was not going to make it to the team's pit, which was at the far end of the pits. Jason pulled off the track and drove around the pits and came into his pit stall from the pit road. Eight quarts of oil and a couple gallons of coolant later and Jason was off making it back around to where he had pulled off the track. The race then made its way down course and they pulled the truck into the team's main pit to make sure everything was still okay. After about 10 min the truck was off on its third lap. The team packed up their pit and headed to the finish to wait for the race. The rain was coming down hard and the track was now a mud bog. Jason had two flat tires on his third lap before finally making it to the finish line. The team was pumped to see their new TT make it to the finish line on their first race out. To make things even better they had finished 4th in Trick Truck and 11th overall. Not too bad for only having the truck for two weeks. Now back to the shop to get ready for the Terrible’s Town 250. |
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