Story by Byron Hurd. Photos by the author, Dave Everest, and an uncredited S:S:L team member.

Ayrton Senna once said he had no idols. He admired only the three things mentioned in the title of this piece. As human beings, we prove time and again that adversity can more quickly extract them from us than any other condition. If you ask me though, adversity, at least as an abstract, is incredibly played-out. Go watch a college football game this weekend and you’ll see what I mean. A freshman quarterback has to prove his merit in the face of adversity. Every third athlete has come from a background of adversity. The 24-year-old, super-super-senior wide receiver is more mature than his teammates because he’s encountered ‘adversity.’ Here’s a hint: He’s more mature because he’s 24, and not passing his Chem 200 final because he was out banging cheerleaders until 4:00 a.m. is not evidence of overcoming adversity. Now that I think about it, aspiring sports journos: Please stop using that damned word. Either buy a thesaurus or bite the bullet on that sports management degree. We all know it’s your backup, anyway.

The point? **** happens. And when it happens, you either step up or piss off. That’s the standard by which the real world measures character, and the real world came a-knocking many times this year for Green Baron Motor Sports. This season wasn’t glamorous — Hell, at times, it was barely dignified — but it was a test of personality and commitment.

Continue reading Lord B(y)ron — The Born-Again Baron: Work, Dedication and Competence.

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Story by Jack Baruth – Photography by Dave Everest and Jack Baruth

Welcome to the first installment of Towin’ Speed:Sport:Life. In this series, we will be trying out different trucks with just one purpose in mind: towing to races and other auto events. We aren’t going to talk about residual value, slalom speed, or global warming – we’ll save that for the mainstream press, who typically “review” these rigs by driving little Austin and MacKenzie to their local Goddard School. Instead, we’re loading them up and running them hard. Each review will focus on Ten Important Questions For Your Race Rig, which isn’t a trademarked phrase as far as we know. Without further ado, then, let’s meet our truck: the 2008 Ford F-250 Super Duty 4×4 Crew Cab Lariat Styleside Triton V-10 156″ Wheelbase. Doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, does it?

The Super Duty pickups were kind-of-new for 2008, featuring a revised frame, upgraded interiors, and a new front end designed to produce involuntary urination in five out of six Prius drivers. The list of options and configurations possible in a Super Duty makes for literally millions of possible combinations, and we’ll be trying more of them in the next year, but for now we decided to start with a variant that is relatively common among club racers – the 4×4 crew cab. Although having four-wheel-drive in a tow rig seems like a waste of money and fuel economy, it only took one start in wet grass to convince us of the benefits. Since then, we’ve found plenty of uses for 4×4 in towing, including backing the trailer up a steep hill, using the Low Range to tow a disabled race car out of the weeds, and dragging a stuck trailer out of six inches’ worth of mud. We’re not the only people to understand this, so more and more Super Duties are showing up at the races with the “4×4 Off Road” sticker on their beds.

Where this truck does deviate from standard club racer doctrine, however, is in the short bed and 6.8L V-10 gasoline engine. For the committed race driver, bed space is like money in the bank. It’s just not possible to have too much. However, this F-250 has a trick up its sleeve to help bridge the gap, as well see. We were also a little unsure about the Triton V-10, which serves up 362hp at a relatively lofty 4750 rpm and 457 lb-ft of torque at 3250 revs. Compare that to the 6.4L Powerstroke’s 350 horses at 3000rpm and 650 lb-ft of torque at a basement-level 2000 rpm, and it’s easy to see why many racers choose the diesel. Could the V-10 compete? Let’s ask the questions and find out.

Continue reading Towin’ Speed:Sport:Life – 2008 Ford F-250 4×4 Crew Cab Lariat 6.8L V-10 – Who needs a diesel?

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Story by Jack Baruth – Race Photography by Dave Everest

Rain. Today’s race day was defined by the rain – starting miserably and getting steadily worse. The previous day’s race had shown the occasional bit of dry pavement to my co-driver, Brian M., but for my race it’s forty-two degrees outside and almost Katrina-esque in the fury of the storm above. In the 8am practice, I spin the Green Baron Motorsports #187 PTE Neon and run off track at the bottom of the Esses, but have no problem getting back on. Not everybody else is as lucky; the wrecked cars are coming in two and three at a time. Trailers are fleeing Mid-O like the proverbial rats from the proverbial sinking ship. Race Group A, over seventy cars strong yesterday, fields thirty-three entries today…

Continue reading Speed:Sport:Life Race Report, April 13, 2008, Mid-Ohio: HALP!