racing

Racing

When I started building the buggy I had no intention of racing. The idea never crossed my mind. Or at least not until a friend suggested it to me. It started simple enough. Andy told me it would cost about 25 bucks to go race. I thought what the hell. It sounds like fun. The race was sanctioned by NOORA (Northern Ohio Off road Racing Association) The race was held at spring valley motocross track. There were three classes stock, mod and woods. The stock class was limited to stock suspension and engines. The mod class was as far as I could tell unlimited. The woods class was, in a sense unlimited but the buggies had to be for recreational use only. The race was 2 heats the first heat was 4 laps and the second 5 laps. the person with the lowest combined number was the winner. In case of a tie the second heat would decide the winner due to it being 5 laps.

This was just after we got there. notice how clean the buggies are. They didn't stay like that for long.

This is andy. He's the one who convinced me to go race. He won the first heat and came in third after a roll over in the second heat to take third overall with a 1-3. Sadly andy sold his buggy and bought a mazda rx7. Oh well i guess crack will do that to you.

This was some of the competition. I cant remember who they were.

The red buggy #253 was charlie's. He was the winner of the 2nd heat and he took the overall win with a 3-1. He also is the new owner of andy's buggy.

This was after practice. no one told me there was a huge mud hole in the middle of the track just after a blind right hand turn. I couldn't see a thing after I hit it.

The race started off well. I had no expectations. When the flag dropped we were all even but people quickly started disappearing behind me. One after another until andy and I were side by side. He had the inside line around the first bend so I had to back off. I couldn't believe I was in second place. I soon found out that my brake's sucked. So to slow down I had to slam it into first gear. This proved to be my downfall. At about the third lap the transaxle started clanking. I ended up finishing the heat in second place.
I knew the spider gears were about to go out, but I lined up at start any way. This time it was ugly. it jumped out of gear off the line. after about a quarter lap I had little chunks of spider gears left. That was when I decided to improve the buggy.