Four weeks back I told the story of how I met the VP racing team, this week I will fill in more of that experience by telling you about the 4600 race day.
It was an exciting day, I watched the VP racing Jeep take the green flag and disappear into the desert of Johnson valley, California. The next time we would hear from the race Jeep was, when it got to remote pit one. The driver and co-driver (Ben varozza and Jacob Pacheco), they communicated over the Rugged Radios
to tell the main pit that they were having overheating issues and the pit crew at RP1 found a electric fan that had stopped working so they began removing it while the main pit worked out a way to get the spare fan out the pit so they could keep them going.
From my recollection, Everything after that things went well. That is until they had gotten all the way through Remote pit 2 when they were running in first place and one there way to the finish line all they had left was a desert section and going down back door (a 10+ foot) “water fall”. I was out at RP2 with the pit crew (both the drivers wives) and we all wanted to see them at the finish line, so we hopped in my truck and rallied back to hammer town as soon as they had left the pit. We were able to get back to Hammer town in time to see them cross the finish line and drive the race Jeep on stage to take first place at the 2016 Every Man Challenge.
They had to work very hard for this win towards the end of the day the closer they got to the finish line the worse the race Jeep started running. They ended having to shift it into 4 low to get enough power to the tires to keep the Jeep moving. This was such an exciting experience for me to be apart, It was the first time that the VP Racing team had achieved first place at King of the Hammers. The reason this was such an incredible moment in time for the VP Racing team was, because they had been racing King of the Hammers in the Everyman Challenge 4600 Stock class for several years now and the first place slot at KOH had eluded them. They had achieved podium finishes before but this was their first, first place.
It was incredible to be a part of this achievement! They went on and raced the 4400 unlimited class the next day, and finished! This was their first time racing in the 4400 class and they finished the race with plenty of time to spare! Yet another incredible feat for this amazing team!
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