PARKER 425

February 2-4, 2012

The Parker 425 in off road racing is the equivalent to the Daytona 500 in Nascar.

The race brings in racers from all over the country and world. This year was no different than any other. There were approx 90 cars that showed up for the time trials. It was a windy, blustery day but that didn’t blow away the hopes of Sam Berri and team margarita, even though he was 58th in the drawing to take his time trial lap, the course would be pretty well used by the time he got there. He started his time trial lap looking as if he was going to post another record time. About a mile into the course, Sam hit a whoop jump that hadn’t been there before which almost endowed the car. Sam got to thinking he better back off a little and not destroy the car and save it for the real race. This set Sam back to 17th in the line up to start the Parker 425. All the cars headed down to the Downtown Parker experience where all the racers could tell their stories to the fans.

Friday morning Team Margarita crew got up early, Lou saved a place in line so we were at the front of Tech and Registration and were able to move through smoothly and were done by 11:00 a.m.  Sam was to take the car to have an interview with Lucas Production at the Colorado riverside where he did an awesome job! After the interview the team decided to go to lunch, and it was at this point that the team got some heart-breaking news about a good friend and a great competitor, Steve Appleton had been killed in an experimental airplane that he was flying before coming down to the race. This put a dark cloud over the race community and all our thoughts and prayers go out to the Appleton family. He will surely be missed but never forgotten. We knew he would want us to go out and give it our all as he would have done.

Early Saturday morning we were ready to rumble. The wind had died down, and the sun was shining which made the track dusty and hard to see, but Sam took off in his 17th position and by the first lap he had moved up into the 9th car but on corrected time was starting to push the leaders. Sam made another smooth and conservative 2nd lap which still had him in 8th spot, but seconds out of the lead on corrected time. Sam started the third lap and knew what he needed to do, pick up the pace a little and bring it home but approximately 75 miles out Sam’s car came to a halt due to the alternator bracket breaking and losing his belt, the car began to overheat. Sam had to pull off, get out and MacGyver  the alternator back onto the car, so he could put another belt on to continue on to midway where he received more clamps, bolts, zip ties and help from Brian, Rusty, Billy, and Troy.  Now it was a matter of survival and just getting the car to the finish line. Sam was able to make his way to the finish line giving him a 29th car over all and 18th in class. We will have that weak point rectified by the next race and hope to have better news for all our race fans.

Thank you Good Year! Sam only had one flat tire. Thank you to the pit crews, Don and Ellen and lil Don, Lou and Alex, Rusty and Billy, Brian and Troy, Paul and Dave Homen (photographer whose pictures we are using) and Bob, Kelly and Larissa.