"Black Rhino Performance Sponsored Athlete Cody Rahders officially finishes in 5th place at the SCORE International San Felipe 250"
April 18, 2018, El Cajon, CA - Cody Rahders officially finished in 5th place at the SCORE International San Felipe 250 but it wasn't easy! Coming into 2018 we were at a crossroads. The stock based frame on car we raced in 16 & 17 was falling apart so after some discussion it was decided to team up with Torito Motorsports out of Tecate Mexico and build a new chassis.
The bare chassis was built and delivered to Cody Rahders Racing 10 days before the San Felipe 250, which was actually 320 miles this year, and Cody and the crew put in some long nights at the race barn to get the car to contingency the day before the race.
After contingency, since the car had never been run before we took it to Zoo Road for a shake down. We watched their first pass through the whoops and with the suspension looking like bird wings we named it “The Crow”.
After starting 16th Cody was able to maintain 60mph down Zoo Road which is pretty good for a golf kart. They passed several cars unable to maintain speed however, the belt let go at mile 18 and everything they made up was lost.
After the belt was replaced Cody started to pick up the pace and had moved back into the top 10 when at mile 40ish the car started to lose power and misfire. Since this was the middle of nowhere and the car was still moving we told Fernando Ramirez (co-driver) to drive to mile 67 where we would meet them.
From mile 40 to 67 the car went no more than 20 mph with several stops in between. The problem with the car turned out to be a plugged primary fuel filter. The filter was cleaned and the car re-entered the race 21st, or second to last in class.
At mile 130 Cody hit a rock and broke the left rear wheel but instead of getting out of the car to fix it he doubled back to a group of locals they just passed which just happen to have a jack and were more than eager to help swap out the wounded wheel.
“Those guys damn near pulled the car up the hill to their pit and changed the flat.” said Cody. “They were so awesome, we never had to get out of the car! I think they were bored until we came along and can’t thank them enough. It stories like that what make Baja racing so cool.”
The car was fueled at 140, the primary filter was checked and they were sent on to mile 190 for the next scheduled pit stop where the car was fueled but shortly after mile 200 another belt broke. The belt was replaced and for the next 80 miles the car and crew were beat to death by the infamous Matomi Wash as they headed towards mile 280 for the next pit.
At mile 280 the car was fueled and even though there was only 40 miles to go it wasn’t over yet. Matomi Wash took its toll and shortly after mile 280 Cody and Fern thought the car was on fire. It turned out the radiator mounts broke causing the radiator to fall against the spare tire and reflect red from the brake lights back into the cab.
They stopped and started to secure the radiator in place but once they lost a position Fern decided they would get back in the car and reach over their heads to hold the radiator in place for the last 20 miles to the finish.
At the finish, after starting 16th, falling back to 21st, then climbing back as high as 6th place Cody finished the San Felipe 250 in physical 7th place however, due to two cars being caught cutting the course they were disqualified and Cody was awarded 5th place overall.
When I asked Cody to sum up the San Felipe race his reply was simple; “That was a lot of whoops.”
We can’t thank everyone enough for the support.