As many of you know, not all things go as planned.  Late Thursday night, right about the time I was writing our last blog post, a decision was made between Tracy, his support team, & Eddie that did indeed change the fate of the Rock Bug and its place at the 2009 King of the Hammers.  The entire team planned on changing the torque converter as the stall speed was not properly set from the transmission builder.  With some last minute rock crawling testing to absolutely confirm the torque converter issue, it was also realized that the low end torque of the motor, as it was built, was far from ideal for rock crawling.  At this point they discussed the option of outfitting last years Twisted Customs rig to run on race day instead of the Rock Bug.  This was mainly out of fear of severely damaging the Rock Bug’s Scat V4 motor before its ultimate purpose of competing in W.E.Rock’s Pro Class just a few weeks away.  Well, to make this bad story even worse, on race day Tracy and Eddie suffered a serious 60 mph roll over crash in the Twisted rig which took them out of the race early on.  The Twisted rig is in severe condition but thankfully both Tracy and Eddie are safe.

So as not to completely kill your day with this entry, there is indeed some good news in the end.  Spidertrax Spider 9 Axles & components dominated this year’s King of the Hammers!  A special congratulations goes out to two Spider 9 equipped teams: 1st place finisher, and the all new King if you will, Jason Scherer as well as Randy Slawson who took 2nd to Jason by a difference of only 5 minutes.  Six of the top ten finishers this year were outfitted with Spider 9 Axles & components with even more Spider 9 equipped teams in the list of those who completed the race, an extremely high honor within itself.  So, a very sincere THANKS goes out to all of the teams who have supported Spidertrax and our efforts with the Spider 9 product line.  Congratulations!

List of Top 10 Teams Running Spider 9 Axles & Components
1st: Jason Scherer (4:42)
2nd: Randy Slawson (4:47)
5th: JR VanOrtwick (6:02)
6th: Brad Lovell (6:05)
8th: Adam Woodlee (6:19)
9th: Joachim Schwiesow (6:23)

It is just the beginning of the season and the Rock Bug still lives on.  We have a few things to resolve so everything is as it should be in time for W.E.Rock.  Until then, life does indeed go on and we will see you once again real soon.

It is a very windy day here in Johnson Valley, CA with Tracy & the Rock Bug working hard once again at getting some vital seat time in before tomorrows big race.  In addition to pre-running tomorrows coarse, Tracy got together once again with the dedicated team at King Shocks for some final shock tuning.  The quick video below was taken during this testing, which lasted for close to an hour. 

With a great day under his belt, Tracy is still disappointed in getting the incorrect “high stall speed” torque converter discussed in our last post.  So, the decision yesterday to hold off from swapping this torque converter out was overwritten and tonight will be spent installing the correct “low stall speed” version.  Hopefully this goes without trouble so Tracy and Eddie can get some sleep before the race.  Keep your fingers crossed and we will see you once again tomorrow for our Rock Bug KOH race day coverage.

As planned, the Rock Bug spent the entire Tuesday with ace photographer Boyd Jaynes to become the latest addition to Dirt Sports Master Piece in Metal.  With virtually no time behind the wheel, immediate after the 12 hour shoot Tracy headed straight for Johnson Valley, CA to get some practice in for Fridays 2009 King of the Hammers competition.

Today, Wednesday the 25th of February, marked Tracy’s first solid day behind the wheel and our first chance to study the Rock Bug in action.  First thing in the morning, Tracy spent time tuning shocks with King which went fast but proved effective.  Right after shock tuning, Tracy and his co-pilot Eddie Casanueva, Co-founder & Owner of Spidertrax, took the Rock Bug out for some real world high speed testing.  So far everything is looking fantastic, with the exception of two smaller issues related to the transmission.

The torque converter stall speed is set higher then we wanted and the transmission is running about 15 degrees hotter then Tracy would like.  Changing the torque converter would kill the entire Thursday for testing so Tracy decided to leave the torque converter in place but installed an auxiliary cooler to lower the operating transmission temperature.  This way, we can spend all day Thursday testing the Rock Bug at both racing and crawling speeds, hoping the stall speed on the torque converter will be suitable enough for rock crawling.

The video below was taken tonight at approximately 7:00 pm PST and the photos just below that were shot earlier today during the preliminary Rock Bug testing described above.  We will make a point to post again tomorrow so be sure to check back in for more King of the Hammers updates!

To say this week went smooth and without trouble would be a flat out lie.  As noted in “The Rock Bug has Left the Building”, Tracy and the Rock Bug headed back to Phoenix last Sunday to, and I quote, “wrap up the final details on the Scat V4”.  Wrap up the final details my ass! What started out as final details turned in to everyone’s worst nightmare.  The Scat V4 was pissed and refused to run.

Think of “Tucker: The Man and His Dream”, except in this movie everyone wanted to commit suicide.  This pretty much sums up the week.  Here is the break down as it happened starting from Monday.  To kick things off, it helps to know just a little background on the motor.  One area that makes this highly custom motor tricky is its “odd” firing sequence which single handedly created our biggest problems.  Every time the motor would try to turn over,  almost immediately the Scat V4 would violently shut down as the firing sequence was not in harmony with the motor.  Repeat this violent behavior for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday and you end up with a Scat V4 and transmission flex plate that are so badly damaged from the abuse they need to be completely torn down and rebuilt.

Its now Wednesday night, and Tracy is back wrenching on the Rock Bug, tearing out and replacing the destroyed flex plate so the Scat V4 can be completely rebuilt.  Have I mentioned Tracy has not sleep in nearly a week?  It was pretty obvious at this point Tracy needed some help and support, so Eddie (and his 6 year old son) booked the first flight out to Phoenix (Thursday morning) to hang once again with Tracy and the Rock Bug.

It is now Thursday and with a new flex plate installed, the Rock Bug and what is left of the Scat V4 are back with Dave of Powerhouse Motorsports.  Although the clock is ticking, Dave is careful to take his time in fully rebuilding the Scat V4 as this could honestly be the last chance we are all going to get before KOH.  The complete rebuild goes into Friday afternoon.

And here we are.  Friday night and the Scat V4 is still pissed and refusing to cooperate.  Luck will change however with the visit of a new face, at least in the eyes of the Scat, namely Gerald King of Finish Line Racing.  For those new to the blog, Gerald wired up the entire Rock Bug as posted in “Rock Bug Weekend Update for January 24, 2009”. Gerald stopped by simply to tie up some final ends on the wiring, completely unrelated to the Scat V4.  Hearing how pissed off the Scat truly was, he couldn’t help but jump head first into helping solve the firing order mystery.  Wouldn’t you know it, about 1 hour later all of our luck had changed.  The Scat V4 was running and man does it sound great!!!

We couldn’t make this stuff up even if we wanted to so there you have it, the complete timeline from Monday through today.  For those, including us, dying to hear what an un-tuned Scat V4 sounds like, go ahead and play the video below taken a few hours ago.  Just below the video is a small collection of photos showing off stills of this weeks adventure. 

Finally, we can all sleep a little better (or for Tracy’s sake sleep at all) knowing the Scat V4 is indeed alive and happy.  Tomorrow, first thing in the morning, Tracy will “drive” the Rock Bug over to the engine tuner for some quality dyno time.  As far as the rest of the schedule before KOH, the Rock Bug will hang out with Dirt Sports all day Tuesday for a “Master Piece in Metal” photo shoot (we are told this lasts for 12 hours!).  This was kindly rescheduled from Friday the 20th due to all the issues of the week (thanks again Boyd for working with us).  That’s it for tonight.  Enjoy the video and pictures below and we will see you next time for some more, but hopefully less painful, Rock Bug adventures.

Well that’s a wrap, at least for now.  The last bit of fabrication is officially finished and the Rock Bug is heading back with Tracy to AZ.  With no time to waste and no sleep to prove it, once Tracy pulls into Phoenix he will team up once again with Gerald King of Finish Line Racing to wrap up some final wiring.  Then, first thing Monday morning Tracy will work with his engine builder & tuner to wrap up the final details on the Scat V4. 

Rock Bug coverage is far from over, actually we like to think it is just getting started.  We will be following Tracy and the Rock Bug all year, covering competitions like King of the Hammers & W.E.Rock as well as updates on how the Rock Bug and all the new concepts are holding up.  All of this will be posted right here on our blog as it happens.  Who knows, we may even come up with some new concepts to test along the way.