Line Mountain Coal Bucket 7/17/2010

[Happy Bear]

The 3.5 Miller was a BLAST! I know all the other rock donkeys that showed up had fun and Erik Miller was able to take away an overall win for the event. There were hundreds of rednecks camping out, watching the race, and we partied till almost 4AM after the race. The next race is the Coal Bucket on July 17th which should be a little longer race, I'm thinking closer to 25 miles but have no idea.

Anyways, who's planning to race? Who wants to come watch and see what it's all about?

Tech is extremely easy to pass, the rigs are not high dollar or high tech, entry fee is cheap, payout is good, the course is easy and the event is well run and doesn't start until almost 11AM. Any rig in our club has a strong chance of finishing just race within your vehicles limits!

[gr8whytyj]

Tech is extremely easy to pass, the rigs are not high dollar or high tech, entry fee is cheap, payout is good, the course is easy and the event is well run and doesn't start until almost 11AM. Any rig in our club has a strong chance of finishing just race within your vehicles limits!

Tech is easy to pass. I agree the payout is good considering I got 7th and made my membership and entry fee back! The course is easy if your suspension is tuned for running over basket ball sized rocks at 20-30 mph for 2 hrs. If you enjoy people watching and drinking all day this is better than a David Allen Coe concert:popcorn: The coal bucket is going to be hot in July. The bridge is going to be closed so we need to figure out the back way in.

[ne14jpn]

I am excited to go back with a little better idea of what Line Mtn is all about. This is a fun event and seriously worth considering for anyone wanting to try their hand at racing. We are looking forward to it....might even make tech this time!:flipoff2:

[RatLabGuy]

I'm planning to go and race. Assuming I get clearance from The Boss (wife). This could be my last real 4Wheeling trip until the baby comes so I want to make it worth it.
Running in astocker 4Runner should be interesting... out of the whole crowd I only saw 2 IFS rigs there, Nissans. my problem will be complete lack of front suspension travel.

[dan58]

No dice for me. The pile will be at York that weekend.

[Happy Bear]

The pile will be at York that weekend.
Well that's about the lamest excuse I've heard! Have fun :flipoff2:

[dan58]

Well that's about the lamest excuse I've heard! Have fun :flipoff2:

Supporting those who support me (aka, I will be helping Adventurous4x4 at their booth).

[domba]

we'll be there, bro king racings days of ruling the 6 cyl. rock donkeys are numbered:flipoff2:

[zucruisers]

Running in astocker 4Runner should be interesting... out of the whole crowd I only saw 2 IFS rigs there, Nissans. my problem will be complete lack of front suspension travel.

I saw a handful of ifs toyota's at the 3.5, goodluck :cool:

[67temp]

Tech is extremely easy to pass, the rigs are not high dollar or high tech


So what do they check for at tech?

[Happy Bear]

So what do they check for at tech?
I'd call and ask them, I think the biggest thing for you would be no glass and window nets.....

Maybe Dave RatLabGuy can chime in with more details since he was looking at running more of a stocker vehicle, also I think a roll bar is required for an XJ.

Here are the rules: http://lm4w.org/LineMountainRules.pdf
There are items like a NSS that they say are a MUST and they certainly didn't check for those during tech....

Post up any of the rules you have a question about and we can tell you what we know.

They didn't check anything specific when they teched my truck just looked it over and they asked me to cover the footwells for the next race and put a piece of rubber between the battery terminals and the seats to isolate/insulate it.

[otter]

Im in

[doug38s]

in with a bumper this time, and a blower that works so I can see.

[orange]

The 3.5 Miller was a BLAST! I know all the other rock donkeys that showed up had fun and Erik Miller was able to take away an overall win for the event. There were hundreds of rednecks camping out, watching the race, and we partied till almost 4AM after the race. The next race is the Coal Bucket on July 17th which should be a little longer race, I'm thinking closer to 25 miles but have no idea.

Anyways, who's planning to race? Who wants to come watch and see what it's all about?

Tech is extremely easy to pass, the rigs are not high dollar or high tech, entry fee is cheap, payout is good, the course is easy and the event is well run and doesn't start until almost 11AM. Any rig in our club has a strong chance of finishing just race within your vehicles limits!




It is really worthing watch!:thumbsup:

[RatLabGuy]

I'll second that. The place where the big hill climb is seems to be the most popular watching/hangour spot, if you get down into teh woods you can see people both going down into/around the mudhole AND puckering up their backside to get up the hill.

I bailed on driving my "stocker" last time, but was prepping to, and plan this time. It's not too bad for getting a reasonably stock vehicle to meet the requirements. The biggest things are, as Happy mentioned, that you have to have a cage, and no glass besides the windshield, and must have window nets. Akak removet he galss and install some netting. And after seeing teh vehicles there, they are clearly NOT picky about coverage on the netting.
Yo udo have to have a fire extinguisher (no brainer) and harness. The rules in the PDF are pretty clear and straightforward.

Oh teh one thing I do wonder about though is the "kill switch", it's not clear to me if the standard keyed ignition switch passes this requirement...?

And after watching the last one, it seems 2 spare tires is common and probably not a bad idea (ask Happy, lol).

[domba]

We have a kill switch with the plastic key right in clear view in the middle of the dash...rules say they're not allowed but at tech they didn't mention it. As long as you make an effort and get the main rules(nets/cage/harness) covered they'll let you race, if there's anything you need to fix you just need to fix it for the next race.

[Broncolou]

I am friends with one of the tech inspectors. PM me if you need an answers on something. They really want everyone to be able to race. It needs to be safe.caged,window netted... the little stuff will be overlooked. If something is wrong they tend to be pretty forgiving and let you fix it for the next time. If you show up with a high dollar race truck they will be harder on you than the guys racing trail rigs and beaters.....Fire extinguishers are another main item.

[gr8whytyj]

Lou is the man up there. If you wear cut off jeans shorts, you can pretty much get away with murder.

[RatLabGuy]

Looks like I'm going to need to bum a trailer and/or hauler... a co-worker is probably coming and can pull it but we don't have a trailer

[67temp]

If you wear cut off jeans shorts, you can pretty much get away with murder.


Sounds like I need to grow a mullet before tech if I plan to do line mountain.

[Happy Bear]

I'm on the fence if I'm going to make it now. I don't want to show up unless everything is 150%

[CrawfishStu]

This is turning out to be a rough racing season for us already.......

[RatLabGuy]

So who all is going?
I've got all my major stuff done, now down to the small things.

Some of my buddies from work are coming, but they don't know jack about wrenching so I'm pretty much on my own for on-the-fly repairs.

[Broncolou]

In thanks!:D

[CrawfishStu]

AJ is out. I'm going to see if the tranny just needs more fluid and I might run it.

[breakinshit]

Looking forward to this event!

[doug38s]

All the prep is done and loading it in the trailer tonight. Just have to put gas in it at the event and we're good to go.

This will be the first event with a blower that I can actually keep the visor down and not have mud in my eyes. Should be able to go a little bit faster this race.

[ne14jpn]

Prep hasn't started. Still have to next day a few parts, buggy is in bad shape...see you there.

[gr8whytyj]

Got my newer used 35's mounted last night. I need to do a bolt check and swap the tires out. I got radios for inside the helmets so my co driver and I can hear each other this race. 3-3.5 mile course 10 laps. Get it!

[RatLabGuy]

So I see the following:

RatLab (Dave)
BroncoLou
Doug
Otter
Happy (??)
Stu (??)
Breakinshit
ne14jp
gr8whytyj

[Happy Bear]

I am in, Breakinshit will be co-piloting :thumbsup:

[RatLabGuy]

So that is:
RatLab (Dave)
BroncoLou
Doug
Otter
Happy/Breakinshit
Stu (??)
ne14jp
gr8whytyj

Looks like scattered t-storms in Dornsife Sat.
Should be interesting...!

So what's teh best route up there while pulling? Just follow 147 the whole way?
That giant climb up, 2 hairpins, and back down on 225 is, er, scary.

[otter]

So that is:
RatLab (Dave)
BroncoLou
Doug
Otter
Happy/Breakinshit
Stu (??)
ne14jp
gr8whytyj

Looks like scattered t-storms in Dornsife Sat.
Should be interesting...!

So what's teh best route up there while pulling? Just follow 147 the whole way?
That giant climb up, 2 hairpins, and back down on 225 is, er, scary.

i used to run over the mtn on 225 in the snap on truck brakes on fire... dont be scared

147 is an easier route

[Happy Bear]

i used to run over the mtn on 225 in the snap on truck brakes on fire... dont be scared

147 is an easier route
Yea coming down that mountain was just a LITTLE scary in the 40' RV with no trailer brakes! I was surprised there wasn't a fire in the wheel wells when I finally got to the bottom.

This is the route I came home on that was MUCH less stressful!
81N to Exit 116
901W for 6 miles into Locustdale
bang a left onto High Rd. St Rt 4024
Then hang a left on 225 in about 15 miles and you will be a few miles above the course on 225.

If I was in a regular pickup with good trailer brakes I don't think it would be all that scary doing 225 but if you have someone that is new to towing its probably worth the extra mileage to go the easier route.

[bawz]

We are coming. Anybody got address to put in gps.
Alan

[RatLabGuy]

We are coming. Anybody got address to put in gps.
Alan

Not specific addy/coordinates but the info here is good enough
http://www.lm4w.org/Location.html

Basically just use PA 3004, it's close enough.

Anybody know if the bridge on 225 is still out? I'm assuming so.

[54ford]

Bridge is still out on 225

[BBoarder]

word is miller took first overall. even with a big yard sale wreck.

[Happy Bear]

Yep, Erik Miller wins first place overall by 5 seconds. He got tangled up with Bigelow in the high speed section and did back to back opposite direction endos and then a barrel roll or two. He was back on course within seconds, good thing he didn't spend too long thinking about what happened or it would of cost him the win!

Me and Pearson had a lot of fun. The trip started off with dead driving batteries in the RV. I don't really understand they had enough power to crank the motor, but simply turning on the blinker while it was running would kill it. We thought we were going to have to swap them for the coach batteries up front that were charged but using minimum electrics we let the alternator build up a charge on the batteries. It was VERY foggy as we got up there and the trek from 81 took forever.

We drew 120 for a starting position and with 1 minute 30 second staggered starts we had 3 hours to finish preparing and watch the race. There were over 150 trucks racing on the 3.5 mile track so the action was constant and there wasn't much time where you weren't on someones tail or being run down by someone behind you. We were running about 10 1/2 minute laps and as we got into lap 3 we were pretty confident all the systems were working well steering, fuel, engine, transmission, cooling, suspension and drivelines.
Just as we finished lap 8 I was sure we had a good finish locked down. The first turn in lap 9 I hear the rear driveshaft seperate and locked up the brakes. The rear crossmember that the lower link mounts are on the tube sheared and the rear links were laying on the ground. Luckily we stopped quick enough it didn't damage the shocks or driveshaft.
We ended up finishing 12th out of 32 in the V8 class and 66th out of 150 overall.

150 trucks racing a 3.5 mile course is crazy! There are lots of spectators at the race 150 trucks X 10 laps is 1500 laps. The race was over in about 5-6 hours so that is a truck passing by every 14 seconds. Backups of 5 -6 trucks coming into the main hill climb that is great for passing was not uncommon and the action was awesome!

[RatLabGuy]

A blast for sure.
I went into this knowing I was driving a completely underbuilt vehicle and probably out of my league, just wanted to see what it was like, what I was getting into. Goal was just to hold it together, forget about times etc.
We drew 177 (!), turns out that was 2nd to last... we didn't even leave the line until 3-something. Waiting around in the heat all day SUCKED, we were exhausted before even starting.

First lap we were just learning the course, intentionally kept it slow since we had no idea where we were going and what was around the corner. We learned real quick why everybody runs dual shocks at least and not cheapies, and alot of vehicle have minimal vertical suspension travel.
Somewhere in the 1st lap we'd already broken a rear shock off the axle attachment, they pointed it out at a checkpoint; the others were faded into uselessness pretty quick.
We knew we were the slowpokes and made it a point to pull over anytime somebody came up behind us. This kinda sucked w/ so many racers, b/c you pull over and befoire you can get goin gagain, somebody else comes barreling down the path, leaning on the horn... doing that so much in itself hurt our times.
2nd lap, we were doing pretty well... until we rolled it onto it's side :doh:. Turns out it was over near one of the fields where a bunch of spectators were, bunch od guys came over, made sur ewe were ok ("Yeah, just a little sideways!"), they rocked it back over, and off we went. The new exo did it's job perfectly, crunched the cporner of the windshield, no biggie. In-cab video to come.
Shortly afterwards, we got steam out of the hood, pulled over. it calmed down quick, we limped to the pit. Turns out in the roll we lost all the coolant from the overflow bottle... topped off w/ water, let it chill a sec, off we went.

We started having major steering problems and something knocking bad from underneath, and blew a tire on Lap 4, Changed it, and realized at that point the wheels were like | /. W/ no shocks, minimal brakes and limited steering, it was clear we would time out so we called it quits for the day... by that time nobody seemed left on the course (tons of emty vehciles) and we didn't want to end up stranded.

Probably the biggest problem we ran into was the bounciness from no shocks, esp in the rocky section, it really became hard to control the direction and felt like teh back wanted to go over the front. That and the auto tranny, damn thing kept putting it in high gears at the worst times...

i'm just amazed at the shit people just blaze through, esp the 2wd guys.

[otter]

i am always amazed when i get passed by a conostoga wagon

[poopypants]

i had to google that

[otter]

http://images.businessweek.com/ss/06/02/studebaker/image/8_conestoga-wagon.jpg

[RatLabGuy]

OK Bigelow where's that video of Miller's rollie-dance?

[frosty]

From Pirate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_uIeJtJeao

[RatLabGuy]

awseome.

[poopypants]

thats a pretty badass video...
you cant see it on the video because he goes out of the frame but i was reading he rolled thru the tape into where some bystanders were watching...

luckily everyone was able to move out of the way and no one got hurt but there was a guy there taking pictures of the aftermath...



























http://i214.photobucket.com/albums/cc86/teampoopypants/36devastation.jpg

[Tommy]

For those who aren't getting paid to watch it... it's at 9:10. If the big ass drop of mud didn't find the lense 30 seconds earlier...

[Happy Bear]

The results are all posted over on lm4w.org now.....

Here were my laptimes:
1 10:27
2 12:35
3 10:43
4 10:40
5 12:04
6 10:22
7 10:47
8 10:27

We figured out we were loosing a lot of time pulling over to let people pass. I didn't like having someone pushing me because it really ups the chances for mistakes but I would pull over in a bad spot and end up letting 5 trucks by before I got a chance to back back into the course and continue. I think I need to let everyone behind me just keep honking until I get to a good spot to pull over where I won't have to back up to get back on course.

Miller and Bigelow were throwing down best lap times of about 7:40

[Broncolou]

Thats pretty damn consistent....

[SB406]

Doug,
That video looked like a "rubbin's racin'" deal to me, but was the guy pissed?

[88xjscott]

At first he was pissed, but when he saw the video it was evident that Doug didn't crash him intentionally.