Ridder Fab Off Road Racing takes the podium on opening weekend!
Crandon, WI June 20-21,2009- TRAXXAS TORC Series driver Jim Ridderbush, owner and driver of the #413 Formula 4x4 based out of Appleton, WI took a solid second place on Sunday in the TORC series (www.torcseries.com) off road races at the “Big House” of off road racing (www.crandonoffroad.com ). This is the first race weekend of 2009 and Jim’s first podium running the TORC series in 2009.
Pre-season testing has been a compilation of rough luck for the team. Some changes made over the winter were tweaked and tuned for better performance. ATS has built some solid transmissions for Jim. Jim never had anything but great performance last year from our ATS Turbo 400. This year we haven’t been so fortunate. We have been battling transmission problems often so far this summer. We appreciate our sponsors and will continue to work to get those issues resolved.
Saturday the weather was absolutely perfect for some hard core door to door racing in front of 24,000 of the Off Road Nation’s best fans in Crandon, WI. Ridder Fab started with a three lap practice at 9am. The team made a few adjustments to the truck and was race ready. Team Ridder Fab and Jim were confident we were ready for a good showing in front of packed Crandon International Raceway.
Saturday the Ridder Fab Formula 4x4 came off the start through turn one in the middle of the pack. Jim Ridderbush moved the truck up through the pack during the first couple laps. Jim radioed to the spotter’s tower that the transmission was not shifting properly and the fluid temperature was getting high. Within a couple turns the truck burst into flames. Jim drove the truck to a track safety crew and got out safely.
A burned up transmission is not going to stop the hardest working team in off road racing. The crew cleaned up the truck back at our pit and proceeded to remove the bad transmission and assess the truck for any other damage. A new transmission was prepped and in the truck within an hour and a half. With a few other minor adjustments the truck was race prepped for Sunday before dinner was served Saturday night.
At Sunday’s 8 a.m. driver meeting Ridder Fab found out that we would not be able to run the standard three laps for practice at 9am. We wanted to break in the new transmission and test our other adjustments. We ran a couple straight line blasts down Crandon’s famous “Land Rush Start” area to test out. The truck was race ready. The transmission felt good.
Jim brought the truck into the first turn at nearly 80 mph sounding great and in good running position. With in two laps Jim had a sizeable lead on the third place competitor and was chasing down 2008 Class Champion Dave Demaegd. Getting through traffic had cost precious time and Jim wasn’t able to run down Dave for the win but he put the truck on the podium with a clean solid second place effort. After the race Jim said “We really have the truck dialed in. Our handling is great; our BFG Tires were working perfectly. We didn’t run down the leader but our lap times were great. We are looking forward to racing in Bark River. Major thanks go out to all our sponsors and fans and families.”
Ridder Fab Racing hits the track next on July 11-12 in Bark River Michigan. www.upoffroad100.com
Look for future updates, pictures and video on www.ridderfaboffroad.com.
Ridder Fab Racing would like to thank all of our sponsors;
Ridder Fab
Jon’s Body Shop
Automatic Transmission Specialists
Prusik Livestock
Kerstners
IH8MUD.COM
Schaeffer’s Oil
Baumgart Tire and Wheel
We would also like to thank our newest sponsors the Offroad Superfans www.offroadsuperfans.com
Contingency sponsors this year are:
BF Goodrich
Parker Pumper
Leatt Brace
Amsoil
KC HiLites
Auto Meter
K&N Filters
MSD Ignition
Ridder Fab Racing still has sponsorship opportunities available for the 2009 racing season. Please contact Dan Bergin 920-948-8004 dsbllbkeb@yahoo.com for more information.
Congrates guys!
Sam