The 2010 Mint400 Torchmate/SOR Jeepspeed Race, from the Passenger’s seat.

After having the fire alarm go off in the hotel from 11:30 until just past midnight, the night before the race, We were all a little tired and irritated about the disruption in what was all planned out to be a good night’s sleep before the race. The 4:30am alarm came as a hit, like the what felt to be 2 million cross grain G-Outs we’d experience in the race.

Lance Clifford and I were going to race the first 2 lap’s, handing the car over to Owner, and Driver of Record Mike Shaffer. As we staged we learned then, it was side by side starts. We were lined up next to Chris Nissley, who for some reason stayed about 10ft back from the starting line, and as the starter began the 5, 4, 3, 2 count down, I heard Nissley’s motor almost bouncing off the rev limiter, as Lance began to power brake our 4wd Jeep. Read more »

The Shaffer Offroad, Pirate4×4.com Jeepspeed team of Mike Shaffer and Lance Clifford are gearing up for the Mint 400 this weekend.

This will be the longest sanctioned Jeepspeed Race completing 4 laps at 106 miles each.  There is no pre-running on this course, but it is rumored to be extremely rocky and silty.

The team will split the driving with Lance Clifford and Dave Schneider taking the green flag 12th in the class and running the first two laps.  They will then do a complete pit and driver change where Mike Shaffer and Dave Gibson will finish the race and take the checkered flag. Read more »