As you grow in age, the long time pastime of dirtbike and, or atv riding becomes less enjoyable. "What" you say! Yep, like most mid-lifers, I found that going fast on a bike and, or ATV made me a bit nervous. Sure, I still enjoyed the exhilaration but, my mature mind, chock full of data on family responsibility, work obligations, mortgages, food on the table etc.... made me slow down and think of the consequences. Going fast on an open vehicle just wasn't as much fun.

Regardless, I still needed that easy fix of speed, challenge and adrenaline. With enough time in the right seat of a few Desert RaceCars it was evident to me, that the only answer was a "state of the art" desert car. With a "rollcage"!

Certainly, one of the chrome and candy paint, sand dune, ego machines complete with beverage holders, billet this and that and fuzzy upholstery would not do. Ask anyone that knows me, that image does not fit PJC. Thank you God for relieving me of such pain! Nope, I wanted a tough, agile car that I could pre-run any Nevada or Baja desert race at speed, or simply explore Baja or the Silver State in comfort with reliability and safety. Lastly, the car was to be made street legal. A task that is not so daunting in states such as Nevada and Arizona.

The fundamentals of the design, had to include lightweight, simplicity, ease of maintenance on and most of all it had to have the best suspension and overall engineering available. For this task, I turned to Kent Lothringer of Lothringer Engineering. Kent has a long history of building, practical serviceable, reliable and winning desert racecars.

Kent and I sat down and chatted about the purpose of the car and quickly synched on a solid combination. We'll cover the build-up and the debut of this car over the next few months in multiple articles. For now, I offer a brief synopsis to wet your appetite.

Frame:

We decided upon a modified, chromoly version of a 125-inch wheelbase, 4-seat frame that Kent was designing for the sand dune crowd. Structural mods made the frame stronger. Design mods made the frame roomier so that we could carry 4 adults for hundreds of miles in the best affordable comfort.

Suspension:

I opted for the same suspension and nearly all the drivetrain components commonly found in an all-out, Class #1 racecar. To include heavy duty spindles, a-arms and hubs on the front, heavy duty trailing arm suspension on the rear and Kent's top secret, modified Sway-A-Way race shock absorbers (as if the stock Sway-A-Way shocks were not good enough). Kent's modified suspension and overall chassis engineering make this car an extremely forgiving vehicle to drive. Our first big shakeout was to pre-run the SCORE, San Felipe 250 race course. We did, and did it fast and effortlessly. It was a cinch to reel in a lot of the other prerunners on the course, and even a few of the real-life Class 10 cars to boot!. Stay tuned as we'll be covering the car's handling in detail in a future article and show you what it's like to drive via in-car video clips.

Transmission:

The toughest and most common off-road transaxle is the Mendeola MD4S. Ours is a modified version from Dave Folts. Dave hand assembles every transmission from his shop adding many modifications that make the transmission shift better and last longer. Massive 930 CV's were used to transmit the power to carriers and McKenzies microstubs. Watch for the full scoop on the drivetrain in a future article. There are a lot of little items that differentiate this part of the car from a dune runner.

Engine:

This motor makes this car in so many ways. Staying with the formula of simplicity, fuel injection and high revving motors were out. I wanted torque, driveability and extreme ease of maintenance coupled with easy to find parts. Some quick investigations and a tip from John Cooley at Alumicraft pointed me to the Chevrolet Vortec 4.3 V6. Amazingly this simple, cast iron block, pushrod motor puts out more torque that most Chevy V-8's , yet is only about 50lbs heavier than a complex Toyota or Acura V-6. We had to cover a lot of ground to find the parts that would fit so that the motor could accept carbueration, and we'll be covering all the sorrid details in an upcoming article.

Comfort and Safety:

Remember the safety aspect? I owe it to my family and to my passengers to spend the extra money on a few options that could easily save lives. I added a race car type fire suppression system, 5-point harnesses for every seat and an intercom system for all occupants. I require that all people aboard wear helmets for all but the slowest rides. A complete window net system is also under development. Added to the comfort aspect, I opted for a fresh air "Parker Pumper" system for the front seat stations.

Quality:

The craftsmanship of the car is superb. The car was dialed in out of the box, and required zero suspension setup. There have been no handling problems whatsoever, and we've only seen minor, easy to address cooling problems. Peel back the removable covers and you see the most intricate wiring, fluid plumbing, custom and custom fabrication imaginable. Don't worry, we'll be giving you an up-close and personal look at these little gems soon enough and cover the minor changes we make in the upcoming "living with the car" article.

Flexibility:

This car has to serve the function of many different vehicles. It must transport myself and passengers around the roughest roads in Baja and the Southwest US as we pre-run for the various desert races. It must serve as an exploration vehicle for the "baja.net" website and e-zine and it must be a comfortable car on family outings for my wife and kids. To fit all these roles, Kent designed interchangeable rear seat sections to accommodate 2 buckets for adults, a bench for three kids and a sturdy cargo-rack for extra long pre-runs and Baja exploration. We'll cover this in future articles with detail on how we prerun at speed while packing a considerable load of supplies.

Miscellaneous:

I intend to make this car street legal. In the states of Arizona and Nevada this is not such a daunting task. If you live in Kalifornia, the "lights out state" FORGET IT!. Nevada (my home state) has intended loopholes for "special construction", "limited use" and "kit cars". We will work with a specialist who makes a living working cars like mine through the registration process. We'll take you along on that process, and show you what's involved in making a car like this "Street Legal." And what about insurance? Don't fret, the folks at Insure My Toys have a lock on covering vehicles such as this, either licensed for street use or for simple fire and theft coverage as striclty an off-road vehcile. Even while in Mexico! Stay tuned for the details!

What's next:

As you can see this car is new, and much like a racecar with it's unpainted frame. The frame is left bare of paint so that the car can be fully tested and modified for items from extra mounting tabs to sometimes major modifications. I expect to put a good 2000 miles on the car before it goes back to Kent for a complete teardown, modifications as requested and a fresh powdercoat. With the Baja miles and various sojourns around my home, I have about 250 estimated miles on the car. In future articles, we'll talk about our trips with emphasis on the car. Of course, you'll get to see some neat, Nevada and Baja scenery at the same time.

So that's a start. Please, stay tuned and remember, "with age you get a cage". I did and I'm having as much fun as I did as a kid on a Husqvarna 400.