2009 SCORE San Felipe 250 Post Race Report

KOENIG RACING FINISHES SAN FELIPE 250

Team Total Chaos and Koenig Racing conquer the Baja desert and take 2nd in Class 6 at the 2009 SCORE International San Felipe 250. Truck owner Mike Koenig and Locos Mocos Head Honcho Stu Klein started the race in the Toyota Tacoma. After a grueling 7 hours and 4 minutes in the dirt Koenig Racing’s own Troy Robinson and Tim Schrader brought the truck back to the arches of San Felipe.

The weekend festivities for the team started on Wednesday as they started arriving at one of Locos Mocos own beach house. After a 14 hour overnight drive rest and beach time were the order of the day. Thursday would start early in the morning with Mike prerunning the northern section and Troy the southern section. The Total Chaos equipped prerunners handled the prerunning with just minor problems and met back at the house for a birthday bash for our gracious host. Contingency would take up most of our Friday as San Felipe closed the 6 blocks of the Melecon. Handing sponsor decals to the race fans was a lot of fun and next to the race itself was the highlight of the weekend.

Race morning started with last minute prep and rolling to the start line. Mike Koenig and Stu Klein we’re set to drive the first 122 miles then hand the truck off to Troy Robinson and Tim Schraeder for the last 110 miles. Right from the start Mike knew it was going to be a long day for him. While the truck handles the rough very well it’s the spectators lining the course that make it slow and go. They stand on the course and wait until the last second to get out of the way. At one point Mike couldn’t see the road as the fans were waiting that long to move. Once further out of town Mike set into a comfortable pace and kept the truck moving and up to race mile 109 there were no problems until the silt. Deep silt. Trying to find the best line Mike got stuck and buried the rear axle of the truck. He tried himself to get the truck out but to no avail. There were some locals there however that eventually got him out.

Meanwhile waiting for Mike at RM 122 an out of control class 1 car missed the turn and struck a cameraman. Tim Schrader an ex-EMT quickly brought back his training and assisted the other EMT/racers in helping the injured spectator. The Score helicopter was on the ground within 25 minutes of the accident where he was flown to San Felipe then immediately to La Jolla medical in San Diego. Fortunately there were no broken bones or other injuries to the cameraman and besides some bruising he will have a full recovery.

Once Mike and Stu pulled into the pit and exchanged drivers, Troy and Tim quickly went to work driving and navigating the truck down the famed Matomi Wash. At this point they were in a solid 2nd place and decided to just have a solid run and make it to the finish line. Just near the end of the wash however the line they chose had wash machine size boulders on both sides of the track with another boulder just a little taller than the driveline in the middle of the track. This broke the yoke on the driveline. In just under 10 minutes the driveline was changed and they were back under way. The only other problem they would have would be getting stuck on a sandy steep uphill. A quick call to the chase crew that was nearby and BCG1 was on his way with a tow strap.

Just before dark the team crossed the finish line with the checkers waving by Troy’s dad as he was the official Score flagger for this race. Everyone on the team was happy to have finished their first race in Baja.

Koenig Racing wants to thank all of our race crew who helped out, these guys and gals did a great job making sure we would make the finish.

And specially thank the sponsors for without them their first Baja race would not have happened. Baja Bound Insurance, Flamelab Sports Marketing, Total Chaos suspensions, ORW, Red Line Oil, Dezert People, and BFGoodrich Tires.