It was Wednesday and my boy David Smith dropped by the Gorilla Axle shop to get the NOS bottles on a race unit filled. David mentioned that we should really "wreck shop" and hit two race events in one day. Wreck shop is a term David often uses when he wants to race and completely dominate the other teams. I laughed but then the wheels began turning on how we could make it happen. These events were in different states, 409 miles apart, one race in Texas, the other in Mississippi. David and I hashed out a plan and so it began; Operation Wreck Shop 2007 was in motion.
On Friday Team Gorilla Racing loaded up and headed out for Beaver's Paradise Park in Tenaha, Texas, 169 miles from our shop. We had smooth sailing until we came upon a Texas disco light special, aka the cops. We tried to warn David and Hoyt McCormick who were following closely behind us, but unfortunately we didn't have cell phone reception and were unable to contact them.
We finally arrived at Beaver's Paradise and set up camp next to Team High Lifter Polaris. After we set up our rig and fired up the grill, we sat around and discussed the upcoming events and the history we would make. We then decided we had better get our rest for the upcoming day and went in for some much-needed sleep. We knew September 1, 2007, would be a historic day, or at least very active.
The alarm wasn't a welcome sound at 6:30 the next morning, so we slept in a little more. The bogs were scheduled to start at 9:00 a.m. and finally kicked off around 10:20 a.m., but this only made our window of opportunity to make the second race even smaller. I reminded the guys that we needed to focus and race for the now and do the best we could since there was a chance we wouldn't make the second race. I was the first one up on a Can-Am 500 Max. I easily won my first heat, but the pit proved to be tough as I let the 500 dip a little too much to one side and gave the intake snorkel more than it wanted of the stinky Texas muck. Back at the trailer, I realized that this quad wouldn't make the next race for sure. The rest of our team raced and it was a pretty good day in the Lone Star State.
It sure would've been nice to kick back and enjoy a fine day of riding, but then again that wouldn't have made a good story. Wreck Shop 2007 was no time for laziness. We packed up and headed for the Mississippi race. At this point, we were two hours behind schedule. Yet there was no turning back, all we could do was just drive and hope for the best. We stopped for fuel and to pick up DeWayne Crowder. As we left the truck stop in our hometown, we spotted something on one of our trailer tires that wasn't normal. We checked it out and found that the left rear tire had a bubble and its days/miles were numbered. Our shop was only two miles off the interstate, so we wheeled in and changed it out in 12 minutes flat. Before this trip was over, that bubble finally popped in the back of the truck.
The races at Red Creek Off-Road in Wiggins, Mississippi, began at 6:00 p.m., so the team was passing mile markers like we were riding a roller coaster. As we continued, we almost had an uh-oh moment when Brandon Broussard couldn't slow down the rig and had to jump a lane and drive into an on-ramp and back into the highway without ever stopping. After that scare, we decided to slow down a little. After all, 48 trailers aren't supposed to travel at near triple-digit speeds. It was 7:15 p.m. and the races had already started and we still had 45-50 miles to go. It was make or break, live or die. We had to make the race or Wreck Shop 2007 would've been a total loss. Pouring rain, tired eyes and only minutes separating us from racing or not, we were giving it all we had.