KOH 2015: Klensin’s first race in the new Ultra4 car

What’s it like taking an all-new, untested Ultra4 IFS vehicle to ‘the ultimate desert race?’ Mike Klensin needed a minute to think about it. “Challenging, demanding, stressful and fulfilling at the same time.”

Mike and Mat Carpentier endured many sleepless nights getting ‘Timmy’ ready in time. “Mat and I finished the car Saturday night about 1 a.m., got a one hour power nap and headed off to Johnson Valley so we could make tech inspection on Sunday.

The trip up went good – it’s an 8 hour drive.  We got there about an hour before tech inspection and we hadn’t driven the car at all. Went through tech, there were no issues, it was pretty simple. The car looked good and everybody was happy with it.

Monday we went out to do some tuning. That afternoon we had a little problem with one of our front CV joints. Tuesday we were able to get RCV Performance to come over and help us get the CVs figured out; unfortunately, we missed our qualifying run on Tuesday because of that.

So we had to do qualifying on Wednesday. It went OK except that there were more new car issues; floored it and it was choking, starving for gas. We didn’t have enough fuel pressure. So that cost us a slower time, we could have been considerably faster. But overall we were somewhat satisfied with how the car was working. It went pretty good for having zero miles in the dirt.

On Thursday Mat and Mikey took the car through a contingency. Meanwhile Justin Reece and I raced the Every Man Challenge. Justin Reece was the driver, I was co-driver of 4619 of Rusty Nail Racing. I built the truck last year, just before KOH 2014. We did pretty good except we got stuck in traffic and ended up timing out. In fact, there was only one car in our class that finished that race.

Thursday night I worked on the car some more, got the fuel pressure fixed and sent my parents to find a fuel pressure gauge. They had to drive all the way to Kartech, which is about 4 hours into California – but they were able to get one. I was able to get the fuel fixed for Friday morning.

We were fairly happy with the starting position. We were in the 15^th or 16^th row, so that was pretty good considering there were 70 rows.

The start went real good.

We passed several cars in the desert, but into lap 1 we had a flat and came into the main pit to change a rear tire. Then we headed off to our second lap and that’s where I made the crucial mistake. I decided to go up Back Door; that was an optional line, you have to do at least one time during the race. I made the mistake of going then.

By the time we went back to the main race course, we were mid pack instead of up front. What that did was cause us to get stuck in that traffic jam in Jackhammer.

Trapped at Jackhammer

If I had stayed in the lead group, I would have been ahead of that congestion and been able to finish the race.”

For those of us who watched online, Jackhammer looked like a parking lot.  Mike says “You winch from the car ahead of you, the car behind you uses you to winch … it’s very time consuming. I think it took us two hours to get through there and the car was overheated.

By the time we were done, it was late in the afternoon.

We were trying to make up time on other rock trails and it ended up that I could never get the car to cool back down. So finally it overheated to where I had to stop and let it completely cool down. Had to send Justin to get water from our pit, so he did a 2 ½ mile jog to get water for the car.

By the time he got back and got the water in the car, it was way too late in the afternoon to finish before 10 at night. So we ended up calling it. I didn’t want to risk overheating the car again to finish at midnight with an unofficial timing.

The car is going to be great.

As soon as we get some shock tuning and the overheating figured out, we’ll be good to go for the season. Congress is next, at the beginning of next month.”

Mike thanks everyone on the support list, including Media Team Patty Pinnell and Acacia Pinnell, Pit help Jerome Curtis, Sam Verbridge, Mike Kellogg, Tristnie Evans, Shelbie Kellogg, Kourtnie Kellogg, Ryan and Michele Stewart, Taylor Brown, Matt Carpiter, Mikey Florian, Fran Klensin, Alyssa Klensin, Diana Klensin, John Brock, Georg and Garret Esterer, Dominic Desent, Nick Toste, Cameron Reece, Kelly Reece, The SORD race team, Robert Hutcheson, phone tech line help, Jimbo Murphy, The Roberator, Tim and Dallas Lund.

Photos courtesy of Intrepid Off Road, Ultra4 Racing, Acacia Pinnell and Patty Pinnell

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