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The members of Team Millen. ยป More Photos
July 2007
So much to do.
How does that expression go again? Something like, there’s a time in every boy’s life when he becomes a man? Well, I guess you could say that time is now upon me. A couple of months from now I’ll be taking a modified Toyota FJ Cruiser down to my father Rod’s homeland of New Zealand to race in its toughest off-road race, the Taupo 1000.
The kicker is I’m going to be the guy handling all of the prep work, including overseeing the building of the truck, obtaining sponsorship, filling out the entry form, making the shipping and travel arrangements, deciding what spare parts and other gear to pack, and loads more. Of course I’ll also be driving in the race, all 1000 kilometers (that’s something like 620 miles) of it.
Based on what my friends down there are telling me, the Taupo 1000 is a lot different from the Baja 1000 or any of the other off-road races we have on this side of the Pacific. It’s not desert racing in the traditional sense because a lot of it runs through forest, and many sections of the course tend to be quite smooth, so it sounds more like a rally in those respects. But they also say there are some pretty rough sections, too, so it’s hard to say what sorts of modifications to the vehicle we’ll need to make relative to how we run it over here.
We’ll kind of have to guess on setup, and hopefully we’ll have some time to test the truck here in California before we put it and all our other supplies on the boat.
Definitely the goal is going down there for the win, but with so many unknowns I think it would be stupid to go in there and run flat out; I think maybe 80 percent or 85 percent will be the right race pace for my experience level and the FJ’s state of tune.
Speaking of pace, I’ve raced here in America and Mexico enough to know what the pace of off-road racing is like, as well as what other people’s vehicles are like and how they drive or ride. None of that experience is going to really help me in Taupo; from what I can tell it’s going to be a completely different way of measuring my abilities and my equipment against the competition.
August 2007
Great news - we have a race truck!
Hello again. Things are going surprisingly smoothly as we get ready to compete in the Taupo 1000 in New Zealand. Here’s what my team and I have been up to since we got the green light
Even though this was the first situation where I personally had to find sponsors for my racing activities, we managed to get some excellent names on our FJ Cruiser for our trip halfway around the world, including Gibson Guitar and Alpine Stars. Pretty cool, huh? And the graphics package for the FJ looks great, too, but we’ll be putting it on in New Zealand, because the race truck and all our other supplies are already in the container and on the boat.
Getting to that point in terms of preparing all the stuff has probably been the biggest challenge so far. We have to ship the truck and all the other stuff a month before the event, so getting the FJ prepared on time was a big deal. Fortunately, we got the modifications and upgrades done with enough time to go testing up in Barstow, a few hours drive from our shop.
More fortunately, I guess you could say, is the fact there was only one mechanical issue (an improperly tightened main pivot in the rear end) that emerged in that initial shakedown, and we were able to address it before we got everything sent out. It just goes to show you that off road racing is all about preparation, and considering that this is a brand new truck, I was pretty pleased that was the only thing that needed fixing.
If everything happens as scheduled, I’ll arrive in New Zealand, pick up the FJ and the supplies a week before the race, and stay on my dad’s farm and work on final preparations in the days leading up to the race. Then we’ll make the drive down to Taupo (which should take four or five hours) and stay in a hotel during the race weekend.
I have prior experience with making travel arrangements and handling most other logistics for races on this continent, but, this is the first time I’ve had to worry about shipping equipment across oceans; fortunately, my dad ships a lot of stuff back to friends and relatives in New Zealand anyway, so I’m pretty familiar with the shipping company and their procedures. But it’s still been a challenge in the sense that it’s pretty hard for me to look that far forward into the future in terms of planning.
I think the only real pressure on me right now is personal pressure, especially with regard to picking the right strategy for the race. Hopefully I’ll pick the right one, but even if things go wrong, I’m already really proud of what the team and I have accomplished in order to get this far. Now we just need the result to back it up.
Click here for more on the Two Roads to the Taupo 1000 on SPEED!
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