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Go Big or Go Home! Steve & Matt Scaroni go on one hell of an "Excursion"! Story and Photos By Norm Lenhart & Pat Chicas |
If you were going to build a desert racer, where would you begin? If you were Steve and Matt Scaroni, you just might start with the ultimate SUV - The Ford Excursion. Why? Based on the massive F-350 Super Duty platform, there's enough factory beef to eliminate many of the breakage woes encountered when racing a smaller, lighter vehicle.
You might take advantage of the 400HP and 750 ft. lbs. of monster torque provided by the 7.4L Navistar diesel engine built and maintained by Navistar Engine reliability group, headed by Navistar VP of Reliability Bob Rath and Mark Wildman.
You might even call on John Marking of Fox Shocks, Ron Norton of National Springs and Bill Varnes of Mirage Racing to stretch the factory twin I-Beam suspension out to produce 12 inches of travel, and respring the rear to net yourself over 16 inches.
Heck, you might even toss in a 60 gallon fuel cell, a pair of Mastercraft Seats, and enjoy yourself a nice long ride in the desert.
You might, and that's just what the guys at SMD Motorsports did.
 Can you say "Imposing" boys and girls? I knew ya' could. The massive Excursion weighs in a mighty 7000lbs and has a couple added features not available as a dealer option. | In the cockpit, a full compliment of gauges and safety equipment help the driver keep tabs on the 7.4L Navistar diesel and keep safe in the process. | Yup, nine of'em. Liquid filling helps dampen the shocks when the suspension runs out of travel. Then again, with a 12/16in. split front to rear, it doesn't happen often. |
The Man Behind The Machine - O&A With Steve Scaroni
Why on earth would anyone want to race an Excursion?
SMD Motorsports and Logistics not only maintains the Off Road Excursion and ProTruck for the Scaroni Family they also maintain a fleet of over 100 Ford products for our sister companies, Valley Harvesting & Packing Inc. and Advanced Wireless, Inc. We use (in extreme duty) and believe in the Ford Tough Truck platform. When Ford Motorsports Committee chairman Phil Schilke asked us if we wanted to campaign the Excursion we where excited for the opportunity and excepted the challenge. A large percentage of our Ford Fleet is made up of Super Duty Platform powered by Powerstroke by Navistar Diesel Engines vehicles. We believe in and use this Ford Tough suspension platform and Powerstroke power train in a severe duty application in our other companies. we felt the Excursion was the perfect vehicle to develop for the Stock Full SUV Class. An Excursion is also team Mom, Brenda's everyday car and hospitality command vehicle for races.
Does the additional wheelbase / weight prove to be more a help or a hindrance in a stock class vehicle?
"With the Help of John Marking of Fox Shocks, Ron Norton of National Springs and Bill Varnes of Mirage Racing we have the Excursion handling better than we ever imagined we would at this early stage of its life. Despite some 1st race gremlins that took us out of the Terrible Town 250 race our friends and competitors in Stock Full SUV, (Expeditions and Hummers) have taken notice and they all agree with us that the Excursion will be a very competitive vehicle in this already competitive class."
What are some of the considerations when prepping a stock class truck vs. a Protruck?
"The ProTruck is based on a spec concept. There is only so much you can do out of the norm. With the Excursion in Stock Full SUV and the 1st one out there we had to carefully study the rules and apply them and make the appropriate changes allowed by the rules to maximize strength and durability and still stay class legal.
Our between race preparation will be identical to the Protruck which basically calls for an inspection after every race of all components and replacement as needed."
We are fortunate that we have Ford behind us on the Stock parts and Navistar / Powerstroke on Engines and Ford Transmission / Livonia taking care of these major power train items and providing us with technical partnership and spares."
 Development work from Ford Powertrain allows for totally electronic shifting of the automatic overdrive tranny. The desert is still the best place for hard-core R&D work. | A thick-wall chro-moly steel roll cage is a must in a competition vehicle. This one serves double duty as a mounting point for many of the Excursion's accessories and suspension components. | Utterly Shocking! A brace of Fox Bypass Shox provide much needed dampening for the monster Excursion's suspension, and keep the 37in. BF Goodrich Baja T/As under control. No easy task to be sure! |
Steve owns and operates several Agricultural business entities through out California and Arizona.
Scaroni Ranches, Inc. Is a diversified farming operation in Imperial Valley that grows 2000 acres of Lettuce, Cauliflower, Alfalfa, Wheat, and Sudan. If you have eaten Dole lettuce or Cauliflower or Majesty Cauliflower in the winter it may have been grown by Scaroni Ranches
Valley Harvesting & Packing, Inc. www.vegpacker.com Employs over 1000 people & Harvests and packages Fresh Fruit and vegetables. If you have ever eaten a Fresh Express Farms Salad, or a Majesty cauliflower, Valley Harvesting & Packing probably harvested the product. It is not uncommon to spot a ?Tan? VEGPACKER Bus or Truck hauling crews or produce up & down California & Arizona?s highways.
Advanced Wireless, Inc. (TDS) www.awionline.net : Telecommunications solution provider.. One of the highest volume Nextel and Globastar dealers in Southern Calif. AWI will be providing many of the rental Satellite phones used in off road.
Alpha Site Logistics www.alphsitelogistics.com: This Company provides Construction Site Portable Sanitation units, Storage Containers, & Job Site trailers. They also specialize in the upper end ?Event? type sanitation units.
Steve is very active in his local community outside the race world, and serves on many local community, business, and Agricultural Boards. He is in past President of the Imperial Valley Vegetable Growers Association. Steve & Brenda are founding board members of Youth for Christ Imperial Valley (see www.thegrid.net/yfciv/yfciv/indexyfc2.htm)
Steve is also involved on the leadership team at Christ Community Church, El Centro (see www.ccciv.org). Steve enjoys being the technology guy and taking the pastor?s outlines and sermons to Power Point for projection to a big screen. Steve counts his relationship with Christ and his work furthering Christian causes as the most important thing he does.
 Blue Oval Beef! Based on the F-350 platform, the Excursion is well up to serious abuse in stock form, but there are possibilities.... Scaroni poured over the rulebook to see what he could and couldn't modify on the all-new race truck. | Over 700 foot pounds of torque! Racing a diesel powered vehicle requires a whole new way of thinking, and the Excursion is the first oil burner Ford has entered into competition. | Supertrapp exhausts keep the monster mill surprisingly quiet. Believe it or not, it's not much louder than a stocker - but it sure is a whole lot faster! |
Sponsors:
Ford Trucks
Navistar / International Powerstroke Engine Group
Visteon
FOX SHOXS
BF Goodrich
Mastercraft Seats
American Racing Wheels
Off Road Warehouse
AFE (Advanced Filter Engineering)
Hypermax
Nextel / Aadvanced Wireless, Inc. (Serving all of Southern calif)
Globalstar / Qualcomm
Fabrication by SMD Motorsports Fab Team:
Rod Goodsell
Brent Mann
Pete Albano
Chris Bostic
Custom Aluminum Dash by Metal specialties (Tim Taber)
Custom Wiring by Mobile Works of Lakeside
Powerstroke accessories and Intercooler by Hypermax
Advisors and Consultants:
Steve & Jeremy Spirkof (Spirit Racing, El Cajon)
John Cole (Elite Automotive, Lakeside Ca.)
Craig Stewart (Stewarts Race works, Santee Calif.)
Greg Foutz (Phoenix, Az.)
Bulletin Board System and Mailing Lists
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