Here they are

I see the X DNF'd in the 1800 Class...More details?

We are driving home right now... yup, we DNFed this race with a broken rear axle. More details to follow.

Good times... thanks to Dan and Les for helpng out with Team Xterra Racing!

Yup...got to about MM 23-28 or so...looks like official results place the X at 181 out of 197 entrants...Truck still runs and is "driveable" at this point but it only has "one wheel drive" with the power going only to the drivers side rear wheel...Nothing will be 100% confirmed until the axle is taken apart but the assumption is at this point that the axle snapped inside the rear as the passenger side rear wheel has moved backwards about 3-4 inches and was seen to be baddly wobbling just before Dave shut it down...On the positive side the heating issues that have plagued the vehicle in the past seem to be behind the team with the addition of some new fans as the truck never heated up during some really hard driving in those first miles...Oh, well...guess this is the learning and feeling out process any new team with a vehicle that has never been race tested would go through...will post my pics tonight...

Damn straight. Glad to know that more bugs are being worked out now vs. later

WOW. I've never hear of anyone breaking a Nissan rearend before.. course since it's a gen 2 it's a Dana axle and not an H233B, right?

Yes, it is the Dana 44. To add to the mishap the X hit a large rock that damaged the tire causing a large bulge. Having ridden the truck previously I know that those tires can take a heck of a beating and not show any marking / damage. The rock(s) he hit may have snapped the axle - not a good thing.

Dave will be tearing into it soon and will let us know what gave.

I too have some pix that I will post tonight.

The area that they broke in was called"THE ROCK GARDEN"for a reason.It is a 8-10 mile section uphill in a wash with no rocks smaller than a microwave.They are volcano rocks.Yes its a tough section.When Dave came up to us at mile 26 (we where down with electronic ignition failure, I was repairing at the time)I knew something was wrong the right rear wheel was going everywhere.I told him that he was done and to he needed to park it.The "X" was running strong at the time.So he helped us with our repair and off we went.Dave slowly drove it off track back to pit 2 where he drove it on the trailer.Lesson learned you can drive one at slow speeds with a broken axle back a few miles (if you have a locker)they have very strong bearings.lesson 2 maybe carry a rear axle.But who knows cant carry everything.We will get it tore down in the next few and determine what steps need to be taken to prevent a dnf in the future.The "X" is fast no doubt but we got to work these new car blues out.See ya in parker '07

You know I don't recall any bad hit, although Daryl whom rode with me said we hit a rock pretty hard.

There was so many rocks out there on that section! I counted 7 discarded trash tire/wheels in my little walk down the coarse.

Like Robert said those tires can take a beating. We ran through that section at a very fast pace. When coming up on DesertDoug we were running close to 70MPH, I knew something was wrong as the X had become a handful to keep straight. So I decided to stop and ask him if we had a flat. Thats when we found we had a broken axle. Knowing the design here we knew it would not be able to continue.

This area was so rough I had a hard time walking on it after I got out of the X. The rocks were loose and enbedded in hard pack, ranging from baseball size to basketball. And most everyone was runnming up this road at 60-70MPH!!!!

The X most definely was working better than ever before as we had no problem catching up to the JeepSpeed class this race. Last race the front end seemed to be our weak link, but this time it was the rear end.

Every time you strengthen a design or part it forces some other place to become the weak link. We will work this out well before the start of the season. TEST, TEST, TEST, and more TESTING!

Hmmmm...seems like we weren't the only ones with axle problems...."Lifeinthesouth" found this quote over on the Titantalk board where a guy working for a Jeepspeed team posted this...

Quote:
I went up to pit for 1788 Hostyl Motorsports Jeepspeed. They broke the .250 wall and .250 wall sleeved front axle on lap 1 and limped it back to main 25 miles with only the steering tierods and a ratchet strap holding it together. We managed to weld it up and still finish 9th in Jeepspeed. Long, tiring but great weekend.

Time to call in the big guns and fit a trussed 60 in there.... http://www.dynatrac.com/

Can't do that and stay in the class Dave intends to run next year...

We race in a class termed as "STONE STOCK" as delievered from the showroom floor,plus saftey gear. They do allow 2 shocks per wheel and stiffer springs. Limited to 9" of travel in the front. Must weight stock delievered wieght.

well you live you learn.. can you run different axle shafts?? Maybe get something made out of something stronger?

I dunno if that's legal, but Chromo would be an option if you can they'd be some strong bitches, almost as strong, if not a bit stronger, than stock D60 shafts...of course that makes something else the weak link