EXPLODING A FC DURING THE WESTERN SWING CAN CREATE A LOGISTICAL NIGHTMARE

Caleb Cox's Facebook post told the story.

"I can’t do this anymore ...," Cox wrote just moments after Cruz Pedregon exploded an engine, destroying the new Toyota Camry body during the Q-1  session at the Dodge Mile High Nationals outside of Denver.

Two hours later, the team manager for Cruz Pedregon Racing posted to Facebook again.

"All the hours we put into that new body, the long nights getting it wrapped ... I’m just about over it."

An hour later, Cox was doing what he does in the face of adversity. He was making stuff happen.

The real work for Cox would begin the moment the race was over. This logistic nightmare was apparently not his first rodeo in the arena of Missions Impossible.

"You’ve got to go back and get another body especially since we’ve had body trouble all year," Cox explained. "We’ve wrecked three or four cars. We’re down to our two show cars."

The body turned to confetti in Denver was yet another new body rendered useless.

"You start planning on how to get another car out there," Cox said. "Used that show car all through the rest of the weekend."

As much as Cox can carry himself as a one-man gang in some situations, this was not one of them.

"I called the guy who works on Cruz’s California Charger, Nick Holm. He’s worked for Jeff Diehl; he’s worked for Tony Pedregon. He helps us out on the west coast stuff. I said, 'Hey man, could you fly to Indy and load this car and bring it?”

 

 

 

 

The body, the team, planned to put into action this weekend in Sonoma was not done.

El Guapo, which had spent time at Aerodyne after hitting the wall in Las Vegas, was far from being in race-ready status.

"It was sitting at the shop with half a wrap on it, no interior because we used that for the El Chicano body," Cox said. "Aaron and Glen got home Sunday night, started working. I got home Monday and Nick flew in on Monday. So all four of us, Monday and Tuesday, fire painted that thing. Tried to get a ten in as best we could and get it out there.

"We got Nick, and then Sioux City who’s one of our sponsors got a truck driver who was in Omaha, so Nick started in Cruz’s Duallie with a little trailer out there. Picked up [crew guy] Taco and then boogied over here for 35 straight hours. They left at 8 pm on Tuesday and arrived at the racetrack at 6:30 am on Thursday."

"So that allowed the team to keep putting it together and then I also had to get a wrap team to put that brand new Own It paint scheme back onto that car, so two days of nonstop wrapping and decaling and getting the doghouse and everything set and we got done at 1 o’clock Friday.

Understanding the overwhelming journey, and the will to succeed, Cox believes should shed some light into his immediate social media reaction.

"When something like that happens it’s a logistical nightmare, but you figure out a way to make it happen because we’ve got to race," Cox said. There’s no other question, even if we’ve got to get the California Charger body and throw it on there, we’ll make it race somehow. Where there’s a will, there’s a way."

 

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