I'm about to leave Ensenada, heading back to DFW. It was a long, long day/night of fighting a good fight -- but once again, Baja got the best of us. We busted a CV right out of town to start the day off..must have slammed down on a huge rock or something. Got that changed, but it burned alot of time. Racer was running good, making up time (Nick..not sure why you thought we weren't because we were clipping pretty good. The tracking mph is only a point in time, not an average). Made it through some rough, rough stuff and lost all electrical at about RM 100. Looks like our isolator failed, so had to bypass that -- burned another couple of hours. Racer again running GREAT -- hit about 90 mph in the dry lake beds, and handing better than ever. The the thing we couldn't overcome happened at about RM 172. Looks like we sucked a valve or busted a rocker arm. Not for certain, but it wasn't repairable in the desert and we were done. It's ashame, because we just had the motor completely rebuilt to carve off a couple hundred HP, but add lot's of torque at low RPM and it was working like a champ! We put about 300 miles on the new motor prior to Baja, so we felt good about it -- but here's the deal about Baja -- if it can go wrong, it will. As to the question about taking a stocker and doing the tortoise and the hare thing, my suggestion is "go for it". Everyone seems to have the answers, but the fact is that only about half that start the race ever finish. That's why it's considered one of the toughest off-road races in the world. I'm not going to be ashamed for not finishing, because most won't ever get off the couch and even try it. I'm VERY proud of my team -- Jerry Hoover, Matt Chapman, Chuck Shuerer, Tim Mason, Tim Morris, Doug Graddick and Bill Veiring, John McKinney (owner/driver like myself). I would go anywhere with these guys and race, because I know that they would all give 100%. We prepped well, we built a good vehicle and we worked our asses off trying to get to the finish line. It just didn't happen for us. I'm as dissapointed as a human can be, because my DNA is all about winning...but I will not apologize for not finishing. So everyone that has a better idea, I say "go for it"...put your money, time, energy where your mouth is...I'll post pics when I get home..thanks to all who had positive things to say and supported this great group of EB enthusiast.
Scott