NORRA Mexican 1000 Truck #776 race report (76' 620)

[MasTacos]

Just got back from the NORRA Mexican 1000, it's 1300 miles of off-road/on-road over 4 days from Ensenada to San Jose Del Cabo.  There are two classes, Vintage and "EVO" (modern).

 

Race map here

 

This year's race was rough as hell but the Datsun stood up to just about everything we threw at it and broke on it and we eventually prevailed and crossed the finish-line in Cabo.  There's something quite fulfilling about racing in Baja in a vintage truck knowing that guys a lot tougher than you were doing the same thing almost 40 years ago.

 

Here's a write-up of our experience.

 

Prep:

We'd done a shake-down at the NORRA Mexican 500 and learned a lot about the truck and what I needed to plan to make a successful run at the Mexican 1000.  This included adding a LSD, which, after some research, I got from Phantom Grip.  I didn't want to monkey with it so I had a local shop up here in San Jose install it (Ironically named Rear End Specialties).  Running an open diff in these types of races is a recipe for failure and, since they have on-road transit stages in the race, I didn't want to go with a spool or welding up the rear end and weakening the metal.

 

They installed the LSD with no problem but, since it was a completed untested piece of gear, I was very skeptical that it would hold up to the abuse I was about to put it through.  It's one thing to put an LSD in to do a few burn outs but quite another thing to hammer it in silt beds for an hour or two in 1st and 2nd gear or up some really rocky inclines.  I included a complete 3rd member in my spares kit just in case.

 

 

Aside from that, we beefed up the steering knuckles and repaired a few knocks we'd picked up at the Mexican 500.  One game changing event (although I didn't know it at the time) was picking up support from a friend in the form of 6, brand new 31" BFG KM2 Mudders to replace my Mickey Thompsons.  They're a bit narrower than my old Mickey's but I wasn't turning down the assistance.

 

 

We hauled the truck down to the hotel in Ensenada did a bit of parking-lot prep and parked the truck next to this monster.  In 1976 the Datsun was considered a pretty reasonable truck for this kind of race and it's funny to see just how much vehicles have changed.

 

 

The next day we did a bit more parking lot prep, wired in the radio and intercom then rolled through tech, which was quite a spectacle.  All the heroes of the sport were there and totally approachable, it was a great day and, knowing that the next day held 475mi of pretty solid racing, my crew was relaxing as much as they could (lots of Tecate helped)

 

 

 

Day 1:

 

I let my co-driver take the green flag at the start from Grand Marshal Rod Hall, we drove the first 30miles on-road to the start of the first off-road stage in Santo Tomas.  Our strategy was simple, we knew we had a huge day ahead of us and I wanted to drive in as much daylight as we could so we decided to take the penalties for early starts through the checkpoints knowing we'd be slower than some of the other cars behind us, but not much slower...  The car ran well on the road and we felt good about the day ahead.

 

We hit the start point and off we went.  Dave (co-driver) had never raced in Baja and was geeked about being able to take the first section and soon proved himself to be a great driver.  The first few miles were pretty flat and wide and the roadbook was pretty accurate in pointing out caution points.  We were averaging a pretty good 65mph and passing a few cars who must have been a bit surprised to see "El Rojo" come flying past.

 

 

 

Then Baja bit us.

 

Three things happened in rapid succession.  The GPS went out and I couldn't get it restarted; then comms went out and I couldn't communicate with Dave to slow down for the upcoming section; then the course took a hard right over a crest...... in Baja the rule is ALWAYS slow coming over a crest because it's inevitable the road is going to turn sharp right or sharp left.... the course in this case took a sharp right around a deep arroyo.

 

The good news was that we didn't roll into the arroyo, as we were starting to, Dave yanked the wheel back left and we ended up driving straight down into it, filling the cab with bushes and cacti.

 

We spend the next couple of hours building a road out the back side of the arroyo and back up to the race course.  Where we then discovered that we'd broken a motor mount and popped the oil filter off, leaking oil all over.  We pulled over and, while trying to figure out if we could swap in the fuel filter, a chase truck pulled up and asked if we needed help getting out to the road!  Baja magic on our side!

 

We hauled out onto the road, put the truck on the trailer and headed down to Camalu to see if we could find a place to weld it back up.... on a Sunday...when everything is supposed to be closed.....  My Chase 2 guys were in San Quintin and came hauling back up to us, stopping at an Auto Zone to get a new oil filter.  We found a guy with a welder who just happened to have rolled into his shop to work on his car and just happened to be an old racer!  They gave us free use of their welder and eventually ended up giving us a hand on putting the engine back in place and welding up the mount.  We gave them some beer money, some team shirts and a few sandwiches and left thankful that our race hadn't ended.  

 

 

Knowing that we'd blown the checkpoint for the end of the stage I made the call to roll to the beginning of the next stage (over 150 miles away on the road) and see how we were doing on time.  By the time we got down to where the 2nd off-road stage started, the checkpoint crew was long gone and, deciding that taking off into known silt beds, well after sweep and the rest of the race were long gone was idiotic, we hauled directly into Bay of LA.  

 

It was a good call, there were a TON of cars stuck out there for the night in the deep silt with no retrieval available until well into the next day.  

 

Day 2:

The Bay of LA run to El Arco was along some of the most magnificent country I've ever been through.  It was truly amazing and I couldn't wait to see what the next corner revealed.  The Sea of Cortez along the wild coast down there is something everyone needs to see.  As we climbed into the mountains I started to feel the front end getting looser and looser, the steering started pushing the car around w/o input and I had to fight to keep the car going straight.  We ran into a bottleneck up in the mountains and had chance to stop to check out what was going on

 

 

The left front spindle had cracked in such a way where the left front tire's camber pushed it in at the top...directly into the upper A-arm.  I smelled burning rubber and realized the A-arm was busy digging a groove into the tire, spattering the Heim Joint with molten rubber.  There was nothing we could do about it at that point so we decided not to swap the tire since it was still holding up and putting the spare on would just groove it out too.  In the picture above, you can just make out the black stripe of the groove in the tire.

 

We rolled into the Mag7 pit at El Arco where Dave took command and fabricated a shim that he welded between the spindle and the kingpin in an attempt to give us a bit more room between the A-arm and tire.

 

 

We got moved as best as we could but the truck had an alarming tilt to the front tire and a tendency to swim all over the place at random, which sucks in silt and sand.  This was a shot taken of the car from a chase truck, the guys later told me "it didn't look very happy but you were still fast" 

 

 

 

We hauled up to the road to the transit to the next stage, the long 175 mile section that would take us into Loreto, through some pretty spectacular terrain that would really test the truck.  The truck ran well but I managed to stick it in a silt bed that we spend a couple of hours getting out of with the help of the Hi-Lift (we crab-walked it out jacking up the front/back in succession and dumping it off the jack).

 

We got into Loreto at 4am well after checkpoint close and tired to the bone but exhilarated that we'd made it through a few really rough sections that were killing other cars (we passed quite a few).  

 

Day 3:

We got a few "wow you're here" looks when we rolled up to the start line but I'm used to that.  

 

I also got to indulge in my tradition of doing something stupid within a couple of miles of the starting line.  In this case it was cartwheeling the truck after hitting a berm thrown up by a road grader.  If you've never wrecked in a spectacular fashion like this, I strongly recommend against it.  I don't remember much except hitting the berm, feeling the rear end come up, waiting for it to come back down and it not.  Then it was like being in a washing machine while people threw shovelfuls of hot gravel into the truck.

 

I knew I'd done something bad to the truck but Dave's indomitable personality asserted itself and I knew there was no way we weren't going to end our race there!

 

In a touch of more Baja Magic, of all the places for us to wreck, we just happened to wreck in front of Loreto class 8 racing legend, Stan Burns and his race crew of local mechanics, drivers and fabricators.  They were all over the truck helping us out in an instant and they hauled us off the course and back to Stan's race shop where they helped essentially rebuild the truck (that's not a picture of the truck at Stan's shop, it's just one of his projects).  The only thing we couldn't fix was a slightly bent axle and the brakes were a bit rough.

 

 

We discovered that, in the process of running out of talent on my part, I'd managed to pirouette the car in such a way where we came down on the tire and cracked the spindle back into dead-true alignment.  We just welded it up and called it good for the next day.  We also managed to install the 40' light bar (dubbed the photon cannon) since we'd mashed the lights up pretty well.  When that thing turns on, it's like the sun coming up.  We also left our fenders and hood behind since they were hosed (if anyone knows where I can find a new fender/hood combo, please let me know!).

 

We got the truck back together around 11am that night and trucked it into La Paz, getting in around 3am.

Day 4:

 

This was the "easy" day and the course was still rough as hell.  The first section featured some very rocky and loose uphill sections where, with the open diff, we would never have made it through.  The Phantom Grip LSD was amazing, after hammering it for the previous sections, it was working like a champ and it pushed us up some gnarly, rocky sections that were chewing up other cars!  The truck ran better than it had since the start (minus an alarming thump from the axle, which we learned to ignore), the weather was clear, the countryside was gorgeous, our comms were solid and we were really enjoying ourselves.  What a privilege to be able to race down there.  We hauled into Cabo with the truck running stronger than the drivers, we were definitely fizzing by the time we got across the line but we made it.  

 

 

 

 

The truck and drivers were a bit worse for wear but we're already working the punch list and are looking forward to next year!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Farmer]

Awesome

[jvb5577]

Thats awesome!  Was that the diff that you had bought off me?  I'm the guy (Jeff) that was in tracy.  I forgot your name  :blush:

 

Glad to see you had a fun time and that you posted it on here.

[MasTacos]

Thats awesome!  Was that the diff that you had bought off me?  I'm the guy (Jeff) that was in tracy.  I forgot your name  :blush:

 

Glad to see you had a fun time and that you posted it on here.

Hi Jeff,

 

No, your diff came with in a crate as a stock spare in case the other one failed (remember, it was totally un-tested).  Next step is to use the diff I got from you to install another LSD and upgrade the ring & pinion to a taller gear for the low-end.

 

(my name is Paul btw).

[Master-O-Turbonics]

Sweet truck! Love seeing vintage Datsuns getting raced in competition.sounds like the spindles could use some gusseting and reinforcement.

[MasTacos]

Sweet truck! Love seeing vintage Datsuns getting raced in competition.sounds like the spindles could use some gusseting and reinforcement.

 

We'd reinforced them and I thought they were pretty solid but it turned out not to be so.  We'd broken a lower control arm in the previous race and replaced it with an "overkill" set-up from Fantelli Racing Products.  The result was that the lower control arm wasn't going to break but it made the spindle the weak link.

 

 

You can see the shim we put in place and, just below the tie-rod, the crack we welded in place when I broke it back to true alignment (along with the groove that had been worn in the tire).  

 

I think the next step is to either have the thing machined out of billet steel or re-engineer the entire front end (including putting in power assist in the steering).  It's all a question of time and $$

[EastBay521]

that's bad ass. nice to hear the phantomgrips hold up well ill start saving my pennies now B)

[MasTacos]

We have a bit of work to do on other parts of the truck but the PG was amazing for what we put it through.

[EastBay521]

what motor tranny are you using?

[MasTacos]

L18 Motor, Tranny I'm not sure but I think it's out of a 720.

[banzai510(hainz)]

Phantom grip(lunch box locker) is not under as much stress as its offroad and the wheels slip EZer on a dirt roads.

 

But cool that they work. I could use one taking off after is rains here with all the oil residue my 1 wheel always spins going up hill.

[john510]

Pretty cool to see an old Datsun truck being run i Baja,i live about 5 minutes away from 10 or so off road race truck builders and you just dont see any Datsuns.

[MasTacos]

Phantom grip(lunch box locker) is not under as much stress as its offroad and the wheels slip EZer on a dirt roads.

 

But cool that they work. I could use one taking off after is rains here with all the oil residue my 1 wheel always spins going up hill.

 

Yeah, the biggest concern I had was the unknown part, the distance involved (1300 miles on and off road) and the predominance of 1st/2nd gear for substantial amounts of time.  Keeping traction going in a silt bed is critical and you can be in 1st/2nd gear for quite some time keeping the wheel spinning

 

The PG worked a champ not just in silt but on some steep uphill bits that we would never have made otherwise.

[MasTacos]

Pretty cool to see an old Datsun truck being run i Baja,i live about 5 minutes away from 10 or so off road race truck builders and you just dont see any Datsuns.

 

Aside from the no-power steering thing, it turns out that they're very good for racing since they're nimble, very simple and tough as nails.  

[hvyd]

Love it!!! Been a dream of my brother and mine to do this for a long time.been working on our 76 king cab. Nowhere near as close to being done though. How much suspension work can be done? Motor work? Don't suppose you could post some pics of suspension and cage work?