KriderRacing38’s 1969 Volkswagen Beetle

2009 BEETLEBALL ENDURANCE RALLY LONG BEACH TO LAS VEGAS: Beetleball.  That one word says it all.  A Cannonball Run/Gumball Rally style race run in air cooled Volkswagons.  A banzai run from Long Beach, California, through Joshua Tree National Park, along Historic Route 66 into Arizona, across the Hoover Dam into Nevada, to the finish line on the famous Las Vegas strip.  The concept of the rally had Krider Racing's stink written all over it.  Once we heard about it, there was absolutely no question, we had to do it.Check out the Schedule, Rules and Regs at Beetleball.com

We had to overcome only one complication in order to run: out of all the racecars we had in our stable (see the Krider Racing website: RacingWFO.com), none were VW.  Queue up the man who saved the day, Woody Banta.  He had a cool little '69 Baja Bug sitting on the side of his house and told us he didn't care if we used it (he obviously didn't know us well enough - our last racecar was rolled over and totaled in a 24 Hours of LeMons race, see the photo below).

Woody's Bug was in reasonably good shape but needed a few items to pass tech inspection, namely seatbelts.  I/O Port Racing Supplies gave us the safety equipment we needed, and Napa Valley Muffler welded in a harness bar.  B & B Foreign Auto Repair scored us all the VW parts needed to dial in the car, and Ben Scott helped us figure out how these fandangled German cars were put together.  He also helped us install our race strategy secret weapon, a fuel cell.

The car went to Peformance In-Frame Tuning where the motor was dyno tuned.  It set a new Krider Racing record for the slowest car we've ever competed in with a whopping 51 rear wheel horsepower.  I asked A.J. if it was also the slowest thing to ever run on his dyno. He said, "No, we put a riding lawn mower on it once and got 8 horsepower."  That sounds like something that happened after many, many beers one night in his shop.

Tech inspection was to start at 4:00 p.m. in Long Beach.  Before we headed southbound to Los Angeles, we looked over the rules one last time.  That's when we noticed they wanted the cars to have emergency brakes.  Woody's car didn't have an e-brake handle, or cables or any of the other parts needed.  Realizing (too late) we had a car without an e-brake, we knew we had about two hours to find all the necessary parts, install them and then get our asses on the road to Long Beach.

The cool part was we scored all the parts we needed at a local VW shop (Thanks, Dan at Speed Unlimited!).  The bad news was the 36 millimeter axle bolts refused to come off the car.  Without removing the axle nut, we couldn't get the drum brakes off to access the e-brake.  We were screwed.  Luckily, we had the help of Goodguys Tires & Auto Repair in Fresno, CA.  They let us crash their shop and use their air gun to remove the axle nuts.

The plan was to run the event, while at the same time, covering the race live online.  Blogging in real time for Jalopnik.com was made possible by use of an air card for internet service provided by Robert Clay, an ACN Independant Representative (e-mail: robertsacn@sbcglobal.net).  The question was, could I navigate and blog at the same time?  Typing on a lap top from the front seat of a Volkswagen Beetle bouncing down the highway isn't an easy task.  We rolled into tech inspection at the last minute at the Queen Mary in the Long Beach harbor.

The first mile of Beetleball was insane.  We were lined up seventh, by the end of the LeMans start we were third, and by the time we hit the onramp we were in the lead!  Cal Trans had closed the freeway for some construction.  This caused all sorts of confusion for the teams, as well as a crash with a non-competition car into the back of a Cal Trans sweeper truck.  Our 51 horsepower wasn't holding up against the other VWs, and we were quickly losing our lead.  We came into the first checkpoint in Amboy, CA, in second.  There we picked up a cool trophy but unfortunately missed our pit crew (Steve and Jack Kuhtz who had driven all night into the desert and had our fuel).  With no cell service and some confusing maps locating the checkpoint location (It's the rock next to the stop sign not the stop sign behind the rock!) we just didn't cross paths.

Click Here to read the Racer Boy column about Beetleball on Speed Sport Life. Click Here to see the results of us winning the Baja Bug class on Beetleball.com THE KRIDER RACING BAJA BUG WINS THE SHELL V-POWER "Fuel my Passion" CONTEST!

All Krider Racing safety gear is purchased through I/O Port Racing Supplies.  B & B Foreign Auto Repair (Bug & Buggy)This race could not have been won without the help of B & B Foreign Auto Repair (707) 255-7588.

All Krider Racing cars are lubricated with HP 234. Napa Valley MufflerAll Krider Racing exhaust systems are completed at Napa Valley Muffler (707) 255-7092.