Life has been busy, that is good for business and adventures but bad for making progress on the 200 and thus the old 100 has still been seeing the bulk of the trail duty this past spring and early summer. Then the revolt came. Prep of Monica (the
Canguro Racing 200 Series) was already deep under way for the 2017 Baja 1000 and we were starting to work out the details of our chase plan. That plan is a highly orchestrated (and often chaotic) effort of where, who and how 30 people get to Mexico and down the race course adding fuel, performing checks, repairs and swapping drivers/codrivers in and out of the race car along the way.
@dmc champions the chase planning and pours countless hours into the logistics effort.
My posse (affectionately know as Chase 3 for the past 5 years) was exhibiting some major push back with another year in the "Ol' 100" they wanted some Fauxverlander action. On top of that the 100 is ready for another set of tires, needed a new battery and some other minor tweaks. I could spend some time on the 100 or hurry and tie up some out the loose 200 ends. Plus I'd rather spend 75+ hours driving in the 200 Series as well.
Really, the hitlist was minor and many items in this round of mods could have waited until after Baja. I needed to finalize my Ham radio install, a must for Baja as we rely heavily on car to car comms between chase teams but more importantly the race car and race ops. I needed a way to haul some gear on the rack including a pair of dump cans for fueling the car. What I needed to do was make some progress with my parts stash and this was my excuse.
Table in use during last summers Eclipse in Wyoming
While I was in rack mode, I finally mounted my Eezi-Awn table which slides under the rack in what is otherwise useless space. I've used these tables a bunch with Expeditions7 and XOverland... while I love a tailgate for table space it's been nice to have twice as much accessible table space in under a minute. I tweaked the mounts on the rack to tighten up the table, I loathe rattles and don't like mind it's almost too tight.
Alubox Rack boxes. These ended up functioning quite splendid. We were literally able to put 4 tents in the one and 4 sleeping bags in the other. We could pull into camp, drop the bins and everyone was ready to set camp with just a single bag needing to come out of the back per person. With 4 adults and camping gear things were bound to be crowded but the ability to securely store soft-goods on the roof was key. Eezi-Awn announced their new rack mounts for the Alubox weeks shortly before the trip and I convinced Pablo @ Equipt to put my name on a set. I mounted them up and was instantly in love. Super quick action to secure the Alubox and remove plus they are low enough profile that I can remove one box, stack it on the other and sleep on the roof rack, my air mattress cushions against mount.