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232Nate
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Nate Shaw
The plan for THOR Motorsports was just to finish the race.
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Nate Shaw
A well-worn path around Line Mountain shows itself after the first lap.
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Nate Shaw
Like any racer, the “just finish” theory quickly changes to “beat everyone you can catch.”
Words by Jamie McKeen
After years of rock crawling and approaching obstacles with a slow and methodical approach, we decided it was time to join the go fast crowd. So, with the help of some great sponsors, we built an Ultra4 truck and started looking for events we could run. Being from Ontario, Canada, makes this a little tough, as there are currently no endurance type rock sports in our province. Luckily, the Ontario Off-Road Racing Association was nice enough to let us run with them at their short course events. This proved very valuable as it allowed us to work through a lot of bugs and tune the truck close to home, after a few events with the O.O.R.A we decided we would run the Line Mountain 3.5 Miler event in Dornsife, Pennsylvania.
Waking the morning after the big drive down, we realized just how many people were at this event; the side of the mountain was full of race vehicles and campers. So, we got the truck unloaded and over to tech early, figuring with this many people the line up would get pretty long. We went through tech right behind Erik Miller; he was very approachable and helped us getting signed up for the right class. The starting order for anyone who is not in the points race is determined by draw, we pulled number 107 off the line, which I was happy with as it meant we had some time before we started to see how everything was working with staging and so on. Also never having done this type of race and never seeing the trails, a lot of the points guys would be done before we even started so we would not have to worry about costing a points guy time if we were slow or if something went wrong with the truck.
The Race
Mike and I had decided our goal was to finish the race and the ultimate goal would be to finish with out getting out of the truck so we were not going to push real hard unless the truck was performing really well.
The first lap went pretty well and we passed a lot of racers both on the course and already broken down, we definitely did not have a mistake free lap as we were learning the trails on the fly. In a few spots there are options for which way you want to go, on the first one the truck right in front of us got stuck on the line we wanted so we had to back up and go the longer slow route around. Then on another one we went right to avoid a water hole only to realize the water hole was a much shorter route and provided and nice cold bath for the motor and transmission in the later laps.
We turned in a time of 19:25 for our first lap and headed out for our second. Even with this little bit of experience allowed us to start picking up the pace quite a bit. We would get slowed up passing and trying to get around broken trucks with out driving over them, but in the clear air we were definitely moving at a lot better pace and the truck seemed to be quite happy to do what we were asking of it. Still not a mistake free lap, we lost our radios and I blew a corner again having to take the longer slower route around. But after that, we ran a good lap. When coming to the start finish, I let off the throttle and heard the distinct sound that comes from a drive shaft gone bad. Luckily, we were right at the start finish and turned in an 18:31 lap. The pits are right at the start line so we pulled in and jumped out of the truck to find the bolts in the carrier bearing had backed out, one completely.
We had a bolt with us and started digging for stuff when out of nowhere Matt and Karl who had just finished their races show up. Due to poor designing on my part, the bolts were next to impossible to get at and I had to take the passenger floor panel off to be able to tighten them (this will be fixed). Karl jumped right in there and took over for me getting the bolts started right by the burning hot exhaust, while Matt sprinted back to his truck to get some tools to help put everything back together faster. From there, Karl and Matt took over telling us to just get our gear on and get in the truck. They finished the repair, put everything back together and we were off. I can’t remember exactly what they said but with two laps to go and having a good amount of down time in the pits, it was along the lines of just get to the finish.
Well after two guys jump in and help you like that, just finish in my head translated to drive the hell out of this truck. We were having what felt like was our best lap, passing a lot of trucks and using a lot more of the motor. We had a lot of clean air on what was now a very rough course and were moving well until the temp spiked. We got out to the sound of an early morning kettle whistling and found out both fuses had blown for the fans. After getting the fuses changed and letting the motor cool a bit we finished the lap strong. Our time was 48:56.
Our fourth lap went pretty smooth, Mark Jensen from ORI Struts had walked us through some shock changes before the event and it was paying off. The course was chewed up bad now and the suspension was still soaking it up. I finally made the turn I had blown three laps in a row at the 3-mile checkpoint, at this point I had decided I wanted to make sure we got the finish. We backed the throttle down and drove pretty conservative to the finish with a final lap of 19:52, finishing 11th in our class, which we were pretty happy with for our first time on the course and never having run this type of race before.
Our team had a blast and learned a lot at the event, the people at Line Mountain were all very welcoming and more than willing to help you in any way possible. I would recommend Line Mountain to anyone, but don’t think it is a race down a backcountry dirt road. This was what I had in my head, but no matter how much YouTube video you watch, it will never translate to just how demanding this course is. Yes, there are no big nasty climbs or drop offs, but if you want to run fast, there is plenty of rock and boulders and it is going to be rough. I consider bead locks a must, seeing a lot of flat tires on the course, our HD Trail Ready’s took a few hard hits and made sure the Maxxis Trepadors stayed at the right air pressure. Good suspension and a stout drivetrain needed if you are going to try and run at a decent pace, but if you are just looking to have a lot of fun and run the course this is an event that welcomes all level of vehicles as long as you meet the tech requirements.