The 4 Wheel Parts Glen Helen Grand Prix – organized by Ultra4 Racing – took place at Glen Helen Raceway in San Bernardino, California Friday, July 11 and Saturday, July 12, 2014.

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Photo by ShutterRev

Mike Klensin and John Brock were looking forward to it. They know the course; they’ve done well there in the past.

Before the race Mike explained “The goal for us is to finish top 10 of non-qualified KOH drivers; that gives us a guaranteed driver’s seat at King of the Hammers.” He added “Our chances are good. As long as we don’t break the car in the morning session, we should be in the afternoon session.”

Like he said …

“As long as we don’t break the car”

“We went out to qualify and started having fuel issues. Turns out the pickup tube inside the tank was deteriorating; it was closing up when we tried to accelerate. We couldn’t get enough practice laps in because we kept having to mess with the car. We spent most of that time putting in a makeshift pickup tube. The disadvantage to that was we could only use three quarters of the tank.

For only getting a couple practice laps in, we qualified pretty good; 18 out of about 70 drivers.”

They also broke their horn during qualifying. “Not having a horn was a big issue; trying to pass people in the heat race and main race was going to be hard because they wouldn’t know I was there.”

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The Heat Race

“They split the heat races into two groups and we started 9th off the line. The heat race went pretty good except we lost third gear and reverse due to the heat; it was about 102 degrees. Then we broke the front sway bar.

We started ninth and ended up fourth out of about 34 cars in the heat race.”

The Main Race

“We started 8th out of 40 in the main race, but we had a few more issues. We couldn’t use all our gas tank and something inside the tank was clogging up filters for the pumps. We switched between the two fuel pumps to make it run.

And we didn’t have the front sway bar. When you have body roll, you can’t turn quite as sharp – which slows your track times.  We were a minute slower in the main race than the heat race because of the sway bar.

We didn’t have third gear or reverse. We were in pretty bad shape, but we talked to the LetzRoll Offroad Racing Team and they were nice enough to pit for us. The plan was to stop halfway through the race and get some gas. We stopped once – but we had to stop again because it was cutting out on us.

And then we were just cruising along and driving the race. We were passing two lapped cars at a time – in one sweeping turn – when the rear ring and pinion let go and broke. We ended up with only front wheel drive after that.

Then the front air locker broke and we ended up with one wheel drive.”

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John was ready to quit; Mike wasn’t.

“I told him we were going to go anyway. I didn’t want to quit because I knew – before our rear ring and pinion problem – we were doing really well, easily in the top 10. I knew we were going to get pushed way out of the top 10, but I didn’t want to get knocked out and not get points to qualify for KOH.

I told him ‘I think I can make it around the course in one wheel drive. Whatever’s broke is already broke.’

So we drove around the course in one wheel drive.

The rest of the course was fine until this real steep hill.

It was just out of the turn; you can’t get speed built up and there’s no room to get a run at it. I started driving up trying to get momentum but we didn’t make it to the top. So we backed the car down again – using gravity for reverse. Tried a couple more times, didn’t make it up the hill.

And then Dave Cole came over and he tried to encourage us. He said ‘why don’t you try in reverse?’ I said ‘I would, but I don’t have it.’ He said ‘give it a few more shots if you want’ – so we did. He said ‘make a big loop, jump the berm and drive up it.’ And so we did that; in two more tries we made it up the hill so we could complete the next laps.

I already knew what to expect. I was able to just barely make it up the second time. And then that was the end of the race.

We started 8th out of 40 and ended up finishing 16th.

We had our KOH qualifying spot.

I’m happy we got the KOH spot, but disappointed we had so many problems. We could have finished in single digits.”

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Photo by ShutterRev

The Aftermath

“It was definitely interesting. The final break list goes like this – the horn, the pickup tube inside the fuel tank, third gear and reverse, the front sway bar, front ARB, and rear ring and pinion.”

Sounds like a lot of work, but Mike says “We should have the car fixed within a week. The only thing we’re waiting on is parts for the differential. I think we can fix the transmission in the car; if that doesn’t work we have a spare transmission.”

Coming Soon

John Brock – owner of the car – will be racing at Dirt Riot Southwest #3, August 16 in Cortez, CO.
See the Dirt Riot schedule at: http://www.werocklive.com/2013/2014-event-dates-revealed/

Support Mike and John on Facebook:

Mike Klensin – Team Crossed Up Off Road
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Team-Crossed-Up-Off-Road/255556821123771

John Brock – Rocking J. Offroad
https://www.facebook.com/RockingJOffroadRaceTeam?ref=br_tf