Current News | 2004

2003 News

December 4, 2003

The Holiday Dinner was a huge success! It's always great to see everyone in a non-race environment. Rosie Orozco won a ride in Scott Steinbergers # 7 Trophy Truck and Julie Millian got the ride in Alan Pfluegers # 28 TT. Thank you to Scott and Alan for donating these incredible prizes. Racing fuel, tires, gloves, race entries from SCORE, MORE and MDR, calendars, t-shirts, DVD's, lights, bumpers, subscriptions and tool bags, a few members got their holiday shopping done early this year.

The OHV Toy Drive had a great last minute surge, Michelle and Amber from gotdunes.com needed help loading all the toys collected!

Pepe Rodriguez and Brent Parkhouse shared a few stories that will be told for years to come. It also seems Tom Sobray left his driving bag at the Orozco compound in Ensenada, where F.A.I.R. members stayed for the Baja 1000. Mr. Parkhouse, being the good citizen that he is, returned it safely to it's rightful owner, showing off all it's contents while the blushing president looked on.

Special awards where presented to:

Hostess of the Year, Jana Blakeman, for hosting 2 after race dinners.

Timing and Scorer of the Year, Kara Holder, incredible radio communication with 8 racers, all on different channels.

Grease Monkey of the Year, Tom Reynolds, when is Tom not covered in CV grease?

Fueler of the Year, George Jimenze, short filling Brian Logan to a win.

Fabricator of the Year, Kent Lothringer,  turning Ryan Leshers busted spindle into a work of art, with a grinder and 110 volt welder.

Welder of the Year, AJ Rodriguez, rebuilding a split in two, class 9 car, that finished the race.

Election results for the 2004 Board of Directors:

President Tom Sobray

Vice President Chris Bowman

Race Director Harry Dunne

Treasurer Mike Sobray

Secretary Alan Madden

Sergeant at Arms Christopher Dunne

November 26, 2003

Wednesday night December 3^rd is the 9^th annual Holiday Dinner, at the hotel formerly known as the Fullerton Radisson. Cocktails @ 6:00pm and dinner following @ 7:00pm.

This is also the last night for the OHV Holiday Toy Drive supporting 2 area hospitals, Please remember to bring an unwrapped toy.

Elections for the 2004 board of directors are also on the agenda.

A year end review, with some special awards, good food, great people, and of course the world famous raffle!

Contributors to the raffle so far: CL Bryant,  Mechanix Wear,  Hot VW's Magazine,  Dirt Bagz,  Mickey Thompson Tires,  Kartek,  PCI,  Dezert Calendars,  Trackside Photo,  Baja Shop,  Signtech,  F & L Fuels,  Dusty Times,  SCORE,  MDR,  Race Dezert,  Mc Kenzies,  MORE,  MSD

Check out the new links page and support these generous vendors.

November 3, 2003

Due to an overbooking problem, Wednesday November 5th's meeting will be held in the restaurant at the Radisson.

Mandatory meeting for all Baja 1000 racers and crew members, strategy, planning, and who’s going to be where.

Art “the tech dude” Savedra will have with him, helmet tech stickers for the Baja 1000, bring your helmet and save some time at tech.

Bring your helmet anyway, the winner for best helmet gets free admission to the

9th Annual Holiday Dinner!

Tom Moxley from Mickey Thompson tires will be our special guest speaker. Hear the latest news; kick the newest tires, and find out what’s new with the F.A.I.R. share tire program.

Nominations will begin for the 2004 board of directors.

We are still collecting unwrapped toys for the OHV Toy Drive.

October 21, 2003

The Baja 1000 starting position drawing was a huge success. Special thank you's to: Wes Wisdom, Alan Madden and his wife for the live posting of the drawing results, our website had 1,500 hits the night of the drawing! More thanks to Lenny Holder, Harry and Chris Dunne, Mike Sobray, all the vendors and car owners for all the help last Wednesday night. When was the last time you saw so many blue FAIR t-shirts!!!??

The 2 race-same-day-syndrome is once again going to split the clubs resources in November. The Tecate SCORE Baja 1000 and MDR Stoddard 250 are on the same weekend. Tom Sobray is taking the responsibilities as Race Manager for the Baja 1000. We still need Race Manager for the MDR race. The plan is to have the new trailer ready to take to Mexico, leaving the truck and 3 trailers available for the MDR race.

The November 5^th meeting is mandatory if you are racing the Baja 1000, the meeting on the 19^th is just to close to the race.

Work has begun to add pictures to this site, we need your photos! Email your digital files or send the originals to Tom Sobray, membership@fairpits.com he will scan and return them at the next meeting. Don’t wait, first come, first posted.

December 3^rd is the 9^th annual Holiday dinner, events planned for the evening: the world famous raffle, elections for next years board of directors and some very special, year end awards. Meeting start time TBA.

December 6^th is the deciding race in ½-1600 for the MORE series. Greg Blakeman and Jerry Longo are separated by just 3 points heading into the final race! Greg and Jerry have been friends since childhood, so this is for bragging rights!

Lastly, December 13^th is the SCORE awards banquet in Las Vegas, a tribute to 30 years of off-road racing. Members planning to attend, please let us know, so we can reserve tables.

A few weeks off for the holidays and it all starts again in January!

All F.A.I.R. members want to extend a very big Thank You to Mike Ahrens of the BLM. As the Off-Highway Vehicle Program Coordinator out of the Barstow Field Office, he came to our meeting on his own time to talk about what is in the future for racers in the Barstow and Lucerne Valley areas. He explained what is required of the Promoters to put on a race in those areas and how the courses have been laid out. Then he gave an overview of what the BLM is going to do (the rumored "Pay to Play" fees) and why they think it is necessary.

This column is not the place to discuss or try to explain this matter because it probably wouldn't be explained accurately. If you want the real story on what is happening, contact Mike at the BLM Barstow office. He will be more than happy to fill you in on all the details.

F.A.I.R. was at two races in July, the SCORE Henderson Terrible's 250 and the M.O.R.E./Snore night race at Barstow. The weather couldn't have been more different. Extremely HOT (comments of 127 degrees were heard several times) at Henderson then lightning, thunder and rain at Barstow. Summertime weather in the desert sometimes is just weird!

Seven cars took the green flag at Henderson flying the F.A.I.R. banner and all but one finished. Dale Ebberts had his usual awesome day even though he only finished 2^nd in Class 1. But that's not the whole story. Dale was only 10 seconds out of first in Class and only 52 seconds out of 1^st Overall!! 52 seconds between the first and fourth! What a race!

In SCORE Lites, Vic Bruckmann ran strong to win the class. This puts Vic real close to the Class points leader with two races still to go. Keep it up, Vic! Tom Ridings had some problems but he did get another finish. SCORE Lites is a very competitive class and Tom typifies the "never give up" attitude. Because of that, Tom is having a good year and is only a few points behind the Class leaders.

James Golden and Brent Parkhouse finished 5^th and 7^th respectively in Class 1/2-1600. In almost any other year, Golden would probably be leading the Class points but the Allen/Pfankuch steamroller is putting it to everybody. But he is still close enough and the season isn't over yet and we all know what can happen in racing....

By the way, Dale Ebberts, Vic Bruckmann, James Golden and Brent Parkhouse have completed every mile of every race this year! What an accomplishment. We're hoping they all can end up with True Grit awards at the end of the season. F.A.I.R. will do everything we can to help them.

The other race F.A.I.R. was at was the M.O.R.E. Freedom 250/Snore Midnight Special night race at Barstow that was also one of the PRO1600 events. We were pitting for 17 members and had a lot of fun. Night races have their own personalities but F.A.I.R. tamed the darkness by providing portable light plants for all the pits. The lights were so good it made the pits look like football stadiums. Each pit could be seen from several miles away so the racers knew exactly where the were on the course at all times. This helped the racer's comfort level, for sure.

Of the seventeen members in the race, Richard Lesher had the was the fastest. He won Class 10 and was 3^rd Overall in spite of losing many minutes replacing their amber light,...twice. Except for flats, that was the only thing that slowed them down.

John Criswell, running his Class 5 Unlimited Baja Bug in Class 1, won the class having lapped all the other class cars. He was running very high in the Overall standings until a very long last lap but still held on to 4^th OA.

Also in Class 1 were Craig Reynolds and Bill Markel. Craig broke a CV on the second lap, fixed it after a long pit stop at Main and got back into the race. After limping around the third lap and having secured 2^nd place in Class, he put it on the trailer.

After two very good laps, Bill Markel had a trailing arm pivot bolt come undone. That put him out of the race but he still had a good time.

In Class 1/2-1600, the largest at the race with 36 entrants, Greg Blakeman ran a very consistent race and finished with a 10^th place against all the PRO1600 cars. This finish put him into the points lead for the M.O.R.E. Class Championship!

New member Corey Goin was going well until he slowed on the last few laps and he finished just ahead of Brian Logan. Brian lost a CV and spent a very long time diagnosing and fixing the problem. Then, at the end of lap 5, he radioed in asking for Brady Wisdom to drive the last two laps.

Brady wasn't quite ready to jump in until he was told the car was only 1 mile from the pit. He got dressed in record time. Driving suit, shoes, helmet, gloves in under a minute. Driver change also in under a minute. Not bad. They probably could have finished a couple of positions better if they hadn't run out of fuel just past Pit C on the last lap.

Kevin Walsh, up from San Diego, was running well until both of the transmission mounts broke on the fifth lap.

Jerry Longo's distributor flooded out then the distributor cap broke. Finally, the #1 spark plug blew out of the head taking the threads with it. That put him out of the race. But Jerry made out back at Pit C 'cuz Tom Mason was cooking really good food for everybody. Tom's an animal. He did all this cooking in spite of breaking a couple of ribs just prior to the start of the race. Good man. Typical F.A.I.R. attitude.

Curt Geer wasn't able to finish due to broken shocks and Brady Wisdom was put out with a broken push rod. Brady had just completely rebuilt their Mirage, all state-of-the-art equipment, and was giving his son, Jacob, his first ride in a race. Jacob was initiated properly when the car rolled on the first lap in a very slippery area. In spite of the problems, the car was working well and Brady was running high in the class when the engine put him out.

In Class 9, Dan Folts, with Dad Dave in the right-hand seat, was blowing the competition away. He had a seven minute lead by the end of lap 2, but then the center of the clutch disk broke out ending their race.

Harry Dunne motored to another finish, keeping his Class points lead, in spite of losing his steering shaft on the first lap. Seems he was coming into a turn with a couple of other cars, they turned, he went straight. The coupler on the steering rack came off. The only other problems they encountered were due to all the water on the course. The radio plug on his helmet got damp and when he plugged it in, almost blowing out his ears, their intercom stopped working. Harry said that son, Christopher did a great job with hand signals after that. We all wondered what kind of hand signals he gave to those cars that passed them. That and stopping at almost every pit to clean off the headlights and mirrors were all that slowed them down.

El Presidente, Tom Sobray, did an audit of all the races that F.A.I.R. was at so far this year and it's impressive. Twelve races, 104 cars, 15 wins and 77 top 10's.

That is what F.A.I.R. can do for you. If you are interested in getting the best support available for your race, go to our website at www.fairpits.com or, better yet, come to one of our meetings. They are held on the 1^st and 3^rd Wednesdays of every month at the Radisson Hotel in Fullerton and start at 8:00 PM.

by: Wes Wisdom

Congratulations to Brian Logan for his big win at the SNORE Buffalo Bill's 400! With the large number of PRO1600 entries it was an extremely competitive race. Brian is one of the nicest and fastest racers around. It's good to see him win a big race.

It sounds like everybody had a good time at the race.

There were reports of volleyball games and picnics in the middle of I-15 Friday night before the race. A lot of people were delayed on the way to Primm Valley nee Stateline, NV. Apparently traffic problems stopped any kind of northbound movement but racers will have fun whatever the circumstances.

It was also reported that someone was handcuffed to a wheelchair because he was getting a little rowdy. See what I mean about racers having fun? Just wish I had been there.

Your humble writer wasn't able to be at Buffalo Bill's because I was at the Long Beach Grand Prix. Too many races on the same weekend again. The reason I bring this up is, that as I toured the Auto Expo at the Grand Prix, I came upon Brent Parkhouse's 1/2-1600 on display. It was fresh from the M.O.R.E. race a couple of weeks earlier and still had some "race scars" on it. A grass roots racer get some attention even if the Tecate Girls weren't there.

This brings up a "Brent" story. Seems that, due to erroneous information, Brent's car was the last display left after the convention center cleaned up on Monday. They called him to get it removed within the hour or it would be impounded. Brent hurried down to Long Beach and drove it out of the hall. After taking a couple of laps on the Grand Prix course he put it in Valet parking at the hotel. Sure is fun having Brent around!

It's time for a mid-season progress report on how F.A.I.R. racers are doing:

In SCORE, Dale Ebberts is cleaning up in Class 1. He has won both races this year and so is leading Class 1 and is in 3rd Overall!

James Golden, with his 2nd place finish at San Felipe, has moved into 3rd place in Class 1/2-1600 and is only 1 point out of 2nd.

M.O.R.E. has Jerry Longo leading in Class 1/2-1600. In fact, F.A.I.R. racers have five of the top ten positions in that class. Greg Blakeman is in 4th place, Frank Wagoner in 5th, Curt Geer is 8th and Mike Malloy at 10th.

Harry Dunne leads Class 9, John Criswell is leading Class 5 and the Fays are 1st in Class 7. Bill Markel is 3rd in Class 1 with Richard Lesher right behind in 4th place.

In the MDR series, Chris Bowman has a big lead in Class 5 after winning the Mojave 250. Chris is a new F.A.I.R. member and is really an asset to the club. He has taken on a lot of the pitting chores and pitched in at all the races. Thanks, Chris.

James Golden is also racing MDR and leads the Class 1600 points. It's a very successful season for their team so far!

F.A.I.R. will be at all the upcoming races, including the MDR Ridgecrest 300, May 16-17, and the SCORE Baja 500 in Ensenada and the M.O.R.E. Kartek 300 in Lucerne Valley, both on the weekend of May 30-31. Very busy three weeks. Hopefully, the results that we'll report next month will show all of these racers are moving up the standings.

Now for some updates on various F.A.I.R. members.

Harry Dunne is finally finishing up his new Class 9 car. Reports are it really looks good and Harry is anxious to get it to the next race. By the way, Harry's son, Christopher, is now old enough to get his CA Learner's Permit. Keep that in mind when you are driving around Victorville.

Greg Blakeman sold half of his racing stable, the 2-seat Mirage, to Demolition Derby ace and F&L Race Fuel honcho, Matt Cullen. Haven't heard what Matt's plans are as yet but Greg is still using him as his Co-driver. No, it's not to prevent getting beat by his old car, it's just a good partnership.

Scott Wisdom also sold half of his racing stable, the single seat Chenowth. The single seater was fast but he thinks his 2-seat Mirage is the way to go. The Mirage is currently in the "Bare Frame" stage so it will be a while before he'll be racing it.

F.A.I.R. President, Tom Sobray, has offered to host a visitor from Sweden, Fredrik Ulfsberg, at the SCORE Henderson Terrible's 250 in July. Even though he isn't bringing the Swedish Bikini Team, Tom is looking forward to meeting him and taking him around to some of our local fabricators. It will be Frederik's first desert racing experience. From Scandinavia to the desert in July? Wow! What a neat cultural exchange this will be. We hope he'll be able to make it to one of our meetings.

Speaking of F.A.I.R. meetings, we have some exciting guests coming up. John Bitting of race-deZert.com fame will be at the May 21st meeting. We'll let you know about it next month.

Jim Ober of Trackside Photo is coming June 4th. We're looking forward to learning how he makes those great photos. Maybe he'll explain to me why I can't get the same results from my Kodak Brownie.

As you can see from the Mid-season Report, F.A.I.R. is made up of some very good racers. If you ask them about their success, they'll tell you that they couldn't do it without excellent pit support and F.A.I.R. gives the best. That's because we're made up of the best people.

Anybody that wants to get involved in racing should come to a F.A.I.R. meeting. They are open to everybody, racer, pitter or anyone that just likes racing. We always meet on the first and third Wednesday of each month and it starts at 8:00 PM sharp (or close to it). Be at the Radisson Hotel in Fullerton. It's on the north side of the 91 Fwy, just east of Harbor Blvd.

by: Wes Wisdom

A big congratulations goes out to our new Board of Directors: President, Tom Sobray, Vice-President, Harry Dunne, Secretary, Tim Mason, Treasurer, Mike Sobray, Race Director, Jerry Longo, and Sgt.-at-Arms, Don Bowler. They have already come up with some new ideas and their energy and enthusiasm is catchy. We're all excited and looking forward to the coming race year!

We also want to give a big thanks to the out-going Board members; Brent Parkhouse, Greg Blakeman, Wes Wisdom and Scott Wisdom. They gave up a lot of their own time over the past year and all of F.A.I.R.'s members want them to know how much it was appreciated.

The 2003 race year started off with a bang. Three races in two weeks. With F.A.I.R. racers going to all three races, it was very busy.

Brent Parkhouse took his new 2-1600 Mirage to Laughlin for the SCORE race and, except for a run-in with some of Laughlin's finest, had a good time.

It seems that after one of his races he was told by an official to return to his pit via a dirt road that was closed off. While putting along back to his pit, the local Gendarmes pulled him over and proceeded to write him up for driving on a closed county road. Their minds were made up and they wouldn't listen to the fact that he was directed to go that way by some official. The were "going to make an example" of him so wrote him a ticket and then went to talk to the official that sent him that way. Brent wasn't the only racer to get this treatment. There was at least one other. He went to get some help from SCORE but as of the deadline for this column none has been offered.

But rumor has it that Brent hit it big in the casino so he still loves Laughlin in spite of the shabby treatment by their Gestapo.

M.O.R.E. had their first race of the year, the California 300, that same weekend. It was an unbelievably beautiful weekend, 75 degrees with just enough breeze, and Jim Clements has to be the most "Racer Friendly" and best paying promoter around.

Jerry Longo had to overcome some very big obstacles in the week prior to the race. A bad crash while testing his 2-1600 Lothringer on the Saturday before the race almost kept him from running. But, with the help of a lot of friends, his race car was torn down and taken to Lothringer's shop where Kent replaced the back half of the car in record time.

Longo and his crew got the car back together and out to Barstow late Thursday night. A little setup time on Friday and they were ready! Jerry wanted to thank everybody who helped get his car together and especially to Mike Long who prep'ed his own car for Jerry to race, just in case.

After all this, Jerry, with driving help from Scott Wisdom, finished the race strongly.

Brian Logan, Class 1600, was complaining the whole race that he "didn't have an engine". He couldn't seem to keep up with anybody. Turns out they weren't getting full throttle. The throttle cable had slipped. Then a front suspension adjuster broke. So much for running hard in the rough stuff! But he and Brady Wisdom motored on for a finish.

Curt Geer, also Class 1600, was having a great day. He was running 2nd all day until about lap 6. He was having a very bad "brain fade" problem and hit something hard. When he came into the pit on lap 6 he thought he had finished the race.

Well, Papa Brian took over the driving chores but by this time they had dropped to 5th place. It was still a very strong showing for Curt.

John Kennedy and Frank Wagner, another Class 1600, teamed up in the JFK car and did well. Kennedy had to drive most of the race because Frank had hit something hard and blacked out for a while. He came to while the car was still moving but his brain was rattled enough he didn't know where he was. John then finished the race and only had a flat to contend with.

Lenny Holder's day didn't go very well in yet another Class 1600. A broken rear torsion finished their day fairly early.

Greg Blakeman, with Matt Cullen sharing the driving duties in Greg's Suspensions Unlimited 2-1600, had a good consistent race. They had some traffic problems with an overly aggressive driver right in their pit area but just kept on the gas and got to the finish line.

Frank Omboli won the Class 10 race. This reporter hasn't talked with Frank but watched him just go round and round all day. Word is he gave a lot of people rides. I'm envious. He's got one of the fastest 10 cars around. It must have been fun for the riders.

Harry Dunne stepped up from Sportsman to Class 9 for this race and did nothing but win the class! Of course he had Tom Mangione to help and with his son Christopher as his co-rider they had a lock on the class.

Bill Markel was in an awesome Jimco Unlimited, V-6 powered with an automatic trans. It was the first time the car had seen any dirt let alone any races and it had some of the usual teething problems. Finally, a broken front suspension finished their day.

There were also three other 1600 racers with F.A.I.R.; Don Johnson finished 3rd in class, Jeremy Harmon got 4th and Kevin Walsh DNF'd. Out of the 13 cars that F.A.I.R. was taking care of, 10 finished. Even more impressive was that F.A.I.R. cars took 5 of the top 10 positions in the very, very competitive 1600 class even with all the PRO1600 cars! A good day for the club.

Two weeks later came the MDR Wild Wash 250, also ran at Barstow, and ten F.A.I.R. took the Green flag. Seemed like there was a F.A.I.R. car in every class from the Baja Shops new Truggy to Dan Torrey and Tom Pittman in their Class 11 Stock Volkswagen.

Starting with the Unlimiteds, the Baja Shops Truggy had some "New Car Blues". It's first race was somewhat of a learning experience on how to handle spare tires, etc. A.J.Rodriguez was only able to complete two laps.

F.A.I.R.'s other A.J., Gaston that is, also had a short day. They lost oil pressure very early on the first lap with a hole in one of the engine's valve covers. A replacement was found but it only got them to RM32 where a stub axle broke and took out the brake caliper. But, as all good F.A.I.R. members will do, A.J. went back to Pit C and used his race car for parts to keep the other F.A.I.R. racers in the race. Good sportsmanship!!

In Class 5 there was John Criswell, Guy Peterson and Jim Varshay. John Criswell drove the whole race because brother Tim was recovering from an industrial accident. He was on top of a scissor lift when it decided to topple over. Major injuries to Tim. We all hope he will recover quickly and fully.

John did well except for losing 2 hours on lap 2. Broken CV flanges took a long time to get replacements installed but they did finish and came in 2nd in class.

Guy Peterson was leading the class until a broken front trailing took him out on the third lap. He did set the fastest lap for Class 5, though.

The engine in Jim Varshay's car let him down and he was only able to get in 2+ laps.

Guy Savedra came in from Vegas to race his 5-1600 and his race started out with a flat tire even before he took the green flag. A super quick tire change kept them on time for the start. The suspension kept sagging on the car so they couldn't go as fast as they would have liked which was probably OK 'cuz they were also having steering problems with a bad bushing. Anyway they did get a good finish, 4th in class.

The Leshers, Richard and Ryan, had a real strong hold on Class 10, setting Fast Lap on lap 5. But two driver changes were too much to overcome and they came in 2nd by 10 seconds!!

Lenny Holder's car was still in good shape after the M.O.R.E. race so he decided to go to Barstow. That was Friday. He had to get new torsion bars and get them installed. It was close but they did get to the starting line albeit barely on time.

The new bars never seemed to take a set so Brian Logan, driving the first two laps, wasn't able to drive the car as fast as it should have been able to go. When Lenny got in, with his wife as the co-driver, he rolled the car, right in the pits. It didn't seem to bother her so they kept on going but were only able to finish 5 of the 6 laps.

Dan Torrey and Tom Pittman had a lot of fun in their Class 11, but, after an almost 5 hour first lap, put in on the trailer.

Craig Reynolds, on the other hand, had one of their best days. They scored Fast Lap but only finished 3rd in class 20 minutes behind the winner. But, keep in mind they lost an hour and a half when one of the CVs sheared all of its bolts. Coulda, shoulda, woulda!

It was a pretty busy schedule but a great start for the new race season!!

Current News | 2004