The Team Donahoe/Banks Goliath...
The Team Donahoe/Banks Goliath Super Duty will be remembered by everyone who saw it in action. It had the tallest tires, biggest shocks, and a diesel exhaust roar that the locals will be talking about for years!
Now We're Racing
Banks handled the terrain and race situation with control. We got to the road crossing at Ojos Negros (race mile 35) and felt a certain sense of liberation from the jam up of people and booby traps in the first section. Banks started to get completely tuned into the truck. He was driving it very well-fast, controlled, and well within the limits.
We caught up and passed our first diesel competitor, the 6.5L Hummer H1 of Chad Hall, in the Tres Hermanos area (race mile 50). Mike Winkle was at the wheel. He was running a conservative pace in the rough and accelerating on the straight flat sections, which is very smart driving for that stage of the race.
But, Banks wanted to go faster. Our Ford wanted to go faster. Yet, our pace was well ahead of the race plan. We were running a winning pace for the Baja 1000-not a finishing pace. The job at hand was to deliver a fit race truck to the next drivers. We stuck to the job, slowed down, and held our speed.
All too quickly we got to the highway and pulled into our pit for a driver swap at race mile 70. Wow. It was over for Gale Banks and me. Out of the truck and the next guys got in and went. Steve Krieger at the wheel with Diesel Power's trusty Editor David Kennedy in the right seat. From there, my job was to run chase truck number #10 ahead to Borrego at race mile 200 and be ready to rendezvous with the Super Duty sometime after dark.
Just after 8 p.m. on Friday...
Just after 8 p.m. on Friday at race mile 200, pit crews checked all fluids, tightened some loose bolts, and sent the Super Duty off with a second spare steering box-just in case.
Lost Our Steering
Not an hour later, I heard reports over the radio that our F-250 had reached the top of the summit at race mile 90 and exploded the steering box. Between the weight of the 4-ton truck and those huge 39-inch tires, the forces on the steering box must be enormous. Luckily, Team Donahoe/Banks made sure to mount a spare box on the truck, just in case something like this happened. It took the guys a little more than an hour to change the steering gear and drain some ATF from the transmission to refill the steering system. By then, the sun had set and it was time to fire up the HID KC lights and motor on to Borrego through the dreaded silt beds that lay ahead.
We knew communication with the race truck would be spotty over the next few hours as the F-250 roared southeast down the backside of the summit. We didn't hear the reports from the team that our Super Duty was charging toward the El Diablo dry lake at speed close to 90 mph. It was only later that we learned how well the 6.0L Super Duty surged through the sand and ate up off-road obstacles that swallowed other vehicles alive.
Gasoline Sucks!
I heard over the radio relay network that there were problems with Team Donahoe/Banks sister truck (a Class 7 Toyota Tacoma 4x4) that could be in trouble. The report was not great. The Toyota Tacoma was guzzling gasoline. More than twice the amount we planned for it to use. Dylan Evans, Donahoe Racing's in-house engineer, gave me and chase truck #10 a new mission. Instead of meeting the Super Duty at race mile 200, I had to get two gasoline dump cans to race mile 244. Meet the Toyota, fuel it, and then refill the gas cans at the Pemex station in San Felipe, so I could fuel the little Toyota again at Morelia Junction around race mile 350. I was off toward San Felipe within minutes, knowing that we could be stuck for hours at a Mexican military checkpoint we would have to pass through.
Racing in the Baja 1000 gives...
Racing in the Baja 1000 gives you a lifetime of stories to tell. Dylan Evans, Bob Bower, and Bill Donahoe waste no time in recounting their experiences after getting out of the race trucks.
Stuck In Two-Wheel-Drive
Over the radio, we heard that our diesel F-250 had come into the Borrego pit at race mile 200 around 8 p.m. The other chase teams fueled the truck, made its second driver swap, and sent it off into the night. It wasn't long before the radio crackled with more bad news. Shortly after the Borrego pit stop, our F-250 broke the front axle's ring-and-pinion gearset. We'd been running the truck in four-wheel-drive for more than 200 miles. We were now a two-wheel-drive race truck-no, check that, an 8,000-pound two-wheel-drive race truck. Oh yes, and it was on its way to run the San Felipe loop, some of the loosest terrain the truck would face on the entire course.
The Class 7 Team Donahoe Tacoma got to me at race mile 244 at about 2 a.m. on Saturday. We dumped the fuel into the tank, and it scooted off into the dark. It had caught up to our Ford Super Duty, stuck in the dreaded sands of the Matomi Wash, and pulled it out in the wee hours of the morning. The two trucks ran together for the rest of the night, like David and Goliath. Without four-wheel drive in the Super Duty, the wash crossings would have been a blood bath if the little Toyota weren't there to pull it out.
There was nothing for us to do while both trucks were so far south, so we drove north to a nice spot south of San Matias along the highway at race mile 390 and parked. We monitored the radio and napped. You know how it works: sort of sleep, sort of listen. Neither gets done well, but rest happens.
Naptime ended at dawn, but the trucks were still making their way up from the San Felipe loop. We go to race mile 404 and set up the pit. Our Goliath F-250 pulled into the pit first. Our third and final driver swap happened, and Bill Donahoe got out of the driver seat and Steve Krieger got back in to take the truck up around the Mike's Sky Ranch loop and back toward Valle De La Trinidad. Dylan Evans brought the Tacoma race truck in on the heels of our Super Duty. That truck swapped drivers, gassed, and took off again into the dust and sunrise.