Parker 400
December 6, 1997
Whiplash Motorsports
Parker, AZ USA

"But it's not Parker," averred Gary Porter "It's not the same."

Well, no, it is not the same. But nothing is ever "the same." "Parker" is, and was, and nor will be, never "the same." Those days of 513 paid entries and alimits on contestants - were long gone ten years ago -- when you expected to reach the maximum of 400 cars with a waiting list. Whiplash had about 100 entries. What was the SCORE "400" entry list last Feb.? I don't know. either, but it warn't no five hunderd, neither.

Porter was miffed that the Challengers finished before the "1600" buggies. Of course the "9s" only went two laps while most everyone else did three. "And," Gary continued, "if this was 'SCORE' there'd be '1600s' in the Top Ten." Perhaps. Perhaps. Maybe. What Porter needed to do was enter a real fast "1600". He's got one good car and a real quick driver to go with it, too.

DARLAND DOMINATES

Talk about luck of the draw. Big Jeff got the Numero Uno start slot and parlayed that into a four-minute Overall at the 22nd Parker. The Foddrill A-armed Toyota had clear dust-free sailing until well into the second lap and kept ahead of the inaugural first-time-out debut of the newest "Chasemobile" of Stuart Chase. Chase had stripped the 3.6L twin-plug Porsche powerplant from his old huge and brittle Raceco and dropped it into a new-A-armed Lothringer. "Ah," he smiled, "love that Porsche power." The Lothringers came out in force to assist in the birthing: but there were no complications: "OK, the rear could be stiffer," Stuart reckoned.

Quick Rick Geiser was not so charitable: "If that Chase wouldn'ta held me up .... " Rick was driving the Rueben Wood A-arm some eight minutes in arrears at the checkered.

Track Facts: Darland had the fast lap on his first time around BUT the fourth place Ronnie Wilson "1" was only 15 seconds back. Chase's fast lap was on his third ... as he got used to the new car.

The race started right down town on the highway -- the tarmac, the bitumen, the asphaltum ... then pitched a left over the railroad tracks, behind the grave yard and cut out into a cut hay field. Where a stadium section was cut from the rich, loamy soil: jumps and dumps. From there a wide open route led down the terrace to Osborn Wash where the course was like always except that the trip out to Swansea was omitted. The result was l o n g graded unreasonably fast road run to Midway. Then more blazingly fast scenery eaters to the silts of Graham Well. There was NO run through up the bank and the pits at Shea and the Wash. You had to go on to the stadium section and come in from the end of Osborn and the head of the Goat Trail

I had the right seat in the Jimco of Tom Struttmann. Dad Don had called me up in Chula Vista to take a ride in the 3.3L Chevy V6 buggy. "We changed the front suspension from 'sinking rate' to a 'rising rate' like you'd want."

Tom pushed the snarling FI'd powerplant through the early morning dust and into the spectator "Gauntlet" where we attacked the MX jumps with aplomb ... until we hit the SX stutterbumps: a long line of deep ridges.

The access to the regular "Parker" course was across a plowed field and down a trail I had never seen. A Max A/B throttle excursion into the unknown is spooky. I was relieved to get into familiar territory: Osborn Wash. Not that the Wash is smooth and easy and nice. It is not. But it IS familiar. We only fear the unknown ... or was that fear itself?

The re-done front end swallowed up the cross grain. But it could not swallow up the car that started right behind us: Stuart Chase in his new car. Chase, an old "Parker' hand, did not have to pre-run to know where he is going. He knew the Goat Trail and where he could get by. Hell, it had been two years since I was in the USA and I "knew" the Goat Trail, too: "Tom! Stay to the left", I ordered as we cut across the sandstone bluffs, missing the 15-foot drop-off lurking in the "good" line.

Brian Brown also went past in his new single seater Porsche ... new to me, anyway.

Tom had never been over the course. But he drove hard. "Hard" hard. Until we lost the Audi automatic. Tranny fluid was everywhere. The extra five quarts carried on board was good enough to get us past Check Two while we terminally oiled the track.

(Steve Melton in the Herder "1" was being attended by the Buckeye Brigade. A "plug" in one of the Webers had dropped out. Scott Shannon Benbow and Gentleman Jim Fowler pitched in to hammer a flow path-sealing peso into the carb body. Steve finally went on to get deeply stuck way
down south when he was diverted into the silts by a struggling racer.)

Darryl Drake was empowered to tote out a gear bag full of lubricants. DDD was riding right seat in the Lee Finke "5" car. Sixteen quarts weigh about 20 pounds. Drake carried these on his lap. What a fine fellow, right? Plus two Dr. Prune pops. Which broke while on MY lap. Tom poured in four quarts at a time ... so we had about an 8 to 10 mile range. And an 11 mile trip.

Fact: when we had to REALLY make track to use the oil while we had it, Tom REALLY smoked the course. Too bad that I had not done the shoulder straps ... or the window net. The oil bag helped hold me in.

When we had finally flung our last and red-line-revved to a halt we were within 1/4-mile of the Shea Road/CAP Canal intersection. We had lost 25 liters all totaled, from "Go!" to "whoa ...". There was no dust behind us!

Prince Of The River, Dino Gory. Coulda been worse ... coulda been Bill Herrick! No, Dino went the extra mile and towed us out to our chase trailer ... through the driving rain that dampened visors but not the track. At 40 mph the heavy rain drops and the windshield-less wind took their toll on our sinuses. It was like the worst ice cream headache ever! Would have been better to have been wearing our helmets, OK?

10-FOUR

Jim Pierce brought out the Pierce Aviation Special to a Fourth Overall and the Class win. JP had an excellent race with t he Harbor Diesel Toyota/Moulton of Jim Zupanovich. "Goldarn it," JP complained, "I went up and hit him and later found out that it was that kid that drives with him in Baja '12s'" referring to Tom Riddings who took the start from Jim. Both JP and JZ had identical fast laps times -- both on the third and final lap -- to 4th and 5th. JP's best lap was about 11 minutes faster than his first. Zupanovich had one of his best finishes here at Parker. Son Mike was not there. Fact.

Unknown Jerry Cummings, in an out-of-date two seater -- beat people who were unpleasantly surprised: New Mexican Stan Steele, Bill Alverson (who was 3rd in the "1000", Dave Sundquist and the ever-popular Randy Miller/Bruce Mills gang from Gila Bend. (Or is that Randy Mills and Bruce Miller?)

Irresponsible informants suggest that Bruce got hit in his pits when (and I quote) "the brakes went out." (end quote). He didn't look hurt at the awards ceremony.

And writing / reading of the "Awards", a thanks to John Churchill, local attorney and pilot, who opened his still-being-refurbished "Parker Theatre" for the huddled masses under the onslaught of "El Nino."

Ed and Levi Beard brought out the Seatmobile for their first race, well, since JP T-boned then in the '96 Parker! They were out on an easy section. You know, if it wasn't for Buckeye, there'd be nothin' to write about!

3:1

There were more "3s" than ever seen in this decade. And "Stretch" was not there to see it. After all of his diatribes about Kia's killed the klass, Rich Severson could not be troubled to attend and pontificate and proselytize.

Mark Beeler defied common knowledge and won in his ultra-bright-yellow, ultra-short-wheel base

Tom Swanson parked his A-10 for the day and got nowhere fast in his fine red CJ.

PENHALL: BETTER LATE THAN GREAT

Let's talk experience: how many "Parkers" has Jerry Penhall raced? How many times has Jerry been to Parker? When did he forget that Parker is one hour ahead of Earp? Penhall was slated to start the event in the denuded Trophy Truck of the Danny Letner organization. "We got to the start and saw the '10s' leaving so we knew something was wrong." A quick study, I would say.

Danny threw in the co-passenger who proceeded to take down a cone or two on his way to "The Gauntlet". Note: the rules were that you were assessed a 20-minute penalty for each cone you "knocked down."Jerry just laughed about it all. A good guy ... even if he and George Erl whipped the A-armed water-pumper "1650s" at the "1000."

SASQUATSCH

THUMB BUTTE HIGH

GREEK FIRE

The George Papageorge gang attacked "Parker" in the Sportsmen "Sport Mini" ranks. The "Papageorge" name is famous for a cousin racing the "Baja" then driving what was left back to Wisconsin. George only had to go back to Scottsdale -- so what's the fuss, right?

SWING AXLE ACTION

It was not so long ago that Kurt Brewer was a rank novice in off-road racing. Now he can race with ten cars and win. Beat strong cars. Jeff Geiser drove his DirTrix single-seater to within 75 seconds of Brewer. Jeff was almost 4 minutes quicker on the first lap but lost 5 on the second: "I had my throttle cable zip-tied to the frame rail and the ties broke. The cable just flipped around and never opened the carb." His zip fix was quick but not enough. A potential Parker dynasty took a header as the "Woody's II" Poston Special went arboreal and lost mucho time up a mesquite. And this was in spite of having Kirk Kontilus running a pit at Midway and Steve Poole hangin' out by the Union 76 drums. Don Faulkner closed up the Blythe "Big A" to give Mike a hand having to race with Rick Poole -- to no avail. Rick had to complain: "That (Brewer) is cheating! His car is too light. Quack, quack." Nobody ran off to get the scales for him, however.

KEEP ON TRUCKIN'

Danny Beaver finally won his first Parker in the old Ford. And looked good doing it. Ninth overall. Dan ran his first lap at the same time that "10" winner Jim Pierce did. Ha! Then Dan ran Lap 2 -- 2.5 minutes faster. Bet The Beav knows the area ... while beating the state-of-the-art Pro Truck of Glen Greer and Larry Foddrill. Dan was a popular winner, no doubt. He beat David Vanyo's '97 F150 and the Dodge Ram of Allen Cluck. Allen used to race a marginal D50. His new late-model truck looks good --- except for the wandering rear end due to a busted track rod.

Gary Mecham had a lousy day ... a tranny and a rear end lost. When will Bruce Blanco wave his magic wand? Or won't Gary let the experts do their duty?

THIS N THAT

Tom Swanson was listed as teaming with the reclusive John Dyck. John took over DirTrix from Glenn Evans and parlayed the Grand Avenue shop into a production flame-cutting facility.

Dan Beaver was co-driving with Greg Kishiyama, one of the brothers that won "Parker" at least once.

Bill "Alte" Krug teamed with MexTex Billy Tsakaris for a single-seat stint in "1600".

Jeff Darland and Craig Deck, Class One drivers, have both have had lengthy and successful off-road motorcycle careers. Herder was a hot-shot Tucson ATV and ATC racer. Kirk Kontilus was not. His forte was hot laps around a Blythe road house.

Whiplash could not boast of racers driving in from Maine but they had a couple of Idaho "1600s" doing "Parker". Texas Tornado James Martin showed up with a Race Car Dynamics A-armed "Unlimited": 7th Place.

Ron Brandt could not get his beast fired for the start! Shoulda hung onto "Blackie" - "She's a stud," so had once said Tommy Koch.

The slowest lap was Manny Esquerra's 5:38:47. Darland's best was 1:58:22.

Tony Pierce sold his flame-jobbed "Raceco" at the track and then broke the steering on Class 1 car of Champion John Raitter. "You can take a boy out of Mesa but ... "