Las Vegas Primm 300
September 12-14, 2003

This is a race that we won last year, so we were excited to go back.

Friday's plan was to have Todd and Jason go prerun the course in the morning. While they were doing that, the rest of the crew that came on Thursday would go find our main pit location and set up the trailer. Being that we have close ties with Mike Julson of Jimco Racecars, he offered to have us pit next to them as we have done in the past. Jimco was also racing a class 10 car with us in the morning session. They were not running for points, so they said that their main goal for the day was to win, but if our car had any problems on the course, they would stop at a pit and carry out replacement parts for us so we could finish the race. In the state races our chase crews are not aloud on the course, only in designated pit locations. This shows how important the championship is, not only to our team, but also to other teams that we are friends with.

At 2pm we took the car to contingency and tech. With the great weather came large crowds. We talked to a lot of people and answered a lot of questions. Some people were asking about the new seat belts that we are using. Safety is always a big concern with our team, and we are now using Impact Racing belts. The owner of this new company is the famous Bill Simpson, original owner of Simpson Race Products. There are several improvements with the new Impact belts over the original Simpson belt. As far as Impact Racing knows we are the first true off road racing team using their belts. After tech we took the rest of the day to relax and prepare for an early race day.

Saturday, Todd and Garry were second off the start line in our class. Knowing how bad the dust has been here in the past, Todd charged hard off the start hoping to catch the first car early and not have to drive in his dust.

Each lap of the course was 63 miles. Our first lap was done in 1 hour 27 minutes! That was the fastest lap of the day for the entire 5/1600 class. This was surprising considering the rear suspension was not working as well as Todd wanted.

What really helped was Garry watching for traffic and navigating on the GPS unit. Todd and Garry's second lap was only one minute slower than the first, making it the fastest 2nd lap in our class.

After Todd and Garry's 2nd lap they brought the car into the pits in 1st place. In 1 minute and 28 seconds we changed out both driver and navigator, dumped 14 gallons of fuel, and checked all the tires and suspension. Nikal Motorsports could not hire a better crew!

Jason and John were running great. Jason was also not real happy with the rear suspension, but added a minute to our lead over the 2nd place car.

At about the 40 mile mark disaster hit! Jason thought he had a flat, when they stopped John saw that it was not a flat tire but a stub axle had broke. (A stub axle holds the wheel, brakes and drive axle). The stub axle had sheared into two pieces. Jason had not hit anything to cause this failure. (We are looking into the part failure). Fortunately, we carry a spare stub axle in the car knowing that if this was to happen we could possibly not finish the race. Jason and John were able to change out the stub in less then 22 minutes.

That's truly impressive! Remember, they were broken down in the middle of the racecourse, in sand. Once Jason and John got going again, the team was now in 3rd place. When Jason got back to the main pit, he stopped. The crew checked the rear stub axle and retightened the axle nut. Todd told Jason that it would be hard to catch the leaders, so run your own pace and finish. Jason and John put in a good solid 4th lap to finish in 3rd place.

We are still leading in the points with one race left, the Grand Daddy, the Baja 1000. We are still in the running for the Toyota True Grit Milestone Award for finishing every mile of every race this year. There have been 305 different teams race in the Score series this year (not including motorcycles). There were 21 teams before this race to run every mile, after this race only 16 teams have made every mile of every race. Nikal Motorsports is one of those teams.

Everybody at Nikal Motorsports would like to thank our sponsors: Malcolm Drilling, Pacific Coast Steel, Dickman-Hines Lumber, Lowbeds LTD, Earth Support Systems, Ronnie's Dew Drop Inn, Louise Interiors, Bolts 4U, Huskey Lubricants and Jimco Racecars.
Our crew: Sam V. Todd V. Steve L. Bobby O. Hawk. Chad L. Guy B. Vince W. Richard C. Jenn L. Joe and the Baja Runners. Thanks again for everybody's support.

Nikal Motorsports would also like to thank:
Ken Major at Major Performance Engines
Bob Hines at RLH Communications
Mike Thorton at I.T.S Transmissions
Chad Susag at (CTI) Yokohama Tires
Tim Lawrence at TLR (Thanks for fixing the prerunner)
Chris at Sway-A-Way
Louis & Chris at DesertRacing.com

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E-mail: Todd@NikalMotorsports.com