ObsessionRacing.com

MENIFEE, CA – The last four weeks have been jammed packed for Obsession Racing. It started off with Rick and I flying back to North Carolina for me to experience some driving time behind the wheel of a Monster Truck. Rick and I spent three days with Feld Entertainment’s North Carolina shop. The truck they had for me to test drive was Chuckie’s (Charlie Pauken’s) Grave Digger. This was an experience of a life time for me. Rick also enjoyed the time at their shop to learn different strategies and techniques on the Monster Trucks. We would like to give a huge thanks to all of the Feld Entertainments employees for all their hospitality and generosity.

The day we flew home from North Carolina we jumped from Airplane to hauler to our next event in Rancho Santa Margareta California for a Habitat for Humanity fund raiser to support our troops display. The day started out with ten guys that came over to Rick and Eric and wanted to know if they could help tire up? Just so they could say when they got to Iraq that they got to have the experience putting on big tires on a Monster truck. It was great to see all of the people in attendance there to support our soldiers. We need to keep them in our thoughts in prayers until they all come home. We would like to thank Monika at Cruzin for Wishes for all she does in coordinating this event.

On November first we were in Houston Texas at the Motor Sports Park for the first annual Ronald McDonalds House charity Monster Truck shoot out event. This event turned out to be a huge success. It even broke the track record for attendance. The success of this event has already started the negotiations to make it an annual event. The track was one of the most unique and longest that Rick has ever raced. Rick set fastest qualifying time and proceeded to win his way to the finals. During the final round Rick had some transmission problems and had to settle for second place against Daren Basl in the Fiesta King Krunch. We would like to thank David Smith for being the event coordinator and putting on such a successful event. We are looking forward to this event again next year. A big thanks goes out to John from EZ-Router for providing pictures of the event and to Jeff Jones for all of the help with driving and truck maintenance for the event.

MENIFEE, CA – On September 4th, 5th and 6th we were at the Sublimity Harvest Festival in Sublimity Oregon. This show is a fund raiser to help support the kids in the Southern Portland area. The show has 3 nights of freestyle and the trucks that are there are sponsored by local businesses. We were sponsored by AWI Diesel repair. The companies that sponsored the trucks to perform get to have the trucks on display at their facilities. This is where we got the pleasure to meet the owners of AWI Diesel, JR and Diane. There company is beautiful and it has everything any employee would dream of. AWI Diesel is a great place to have your work done and you would be taken care of by the most pleasurable people you could imagine. The truck ran hard all weekend and was a for sure crowd pleaser. We would like to thank Gary Basil for his help and the races and opening up his home to us and getting us to and from the airport. We would also like to thank Frank & Teresa with Chavez Trucking for the help on the truck and the great Harley tour.

Monday on our way home from Sublimity Oregon we booked a show for the L.A. Fair. This was a one night show held on that Thursday night. This was a freestyle show with a total of seven trucks competing. Rick put on a great show and the truck handled well. This show is usually set up mostly for wheelie competitions, so Rick was happy to see that they had also included some big air jump for him to shine.

The night of the Pomona races we came home for a few hours sleep and Rick and Jeff our Pitman/Sponsor had to be at the California Mexico boarder at 8:00 am to meet with the promoter to get their paperwork to cross into Mexico. After waiting on the boarder for eight hours they got through. Friday night they did a parade through the of Tijuana town with the Monster trucks on low boys. Saturday Rick and Jeff spent all day getting the truck ready to race for Saturday night. They were having issues with the magneto. Rick went out in qualifying and lay down with the fastest time. Racing Rick had to take each round one at a time and adjust the magneto and still made it to the finals. The final round was Rick and Jimmy Createn in Bounty Hunter. Ricks motor didn’t have one last pass in it and gave the win to Bounty Hunter.

This last weekend we had an event at the Southern California Fair in Perris California for WGAS motorsports. On Sunday AmeriGas held a great BBQ for all of the employees and drivers and families. I think they were proud as Rick took the win in Racing and took second is freestyle Sunday night. It was a great night for Obsession in it home town.

(By Lauren Z. Bonar) With my wife Lynette having a conference in Carlsbad, CA for her work scheduled in early June, we were on the road again and would be spending some time in California. With me simply being the “chaffeur”, I was left with little to do during the days while my wife was attending the conference. Only being a short drive from the home of our good friend Rick Swanson, I took the opportunity to visit Obsession Racing and revive the dusty LZ’s Pit Report feature here on the site. Rick has just returned from a six week tour of the Northwest and was tired, but still took time out of his schedule to show us around. [Read more…]