Working in temperatures well over 100 degrees, the crew replaced a faulty turbocharger on Thursday, shortly after arriving in Las Vegas for the start of the race. Although the Pick-up was running with the leaders for the first 100 miles, Hall continued to fight a mysterious fuel delivery problem, which kept the HUMMER Pick-up from achieving full power during the early stages of the event. At race mile 111, ten miles before Pit #4, the pick-up broke both front half-shafts after crashing into the forward lip of a ditch obscured by the dust cloud from a truck he was passing. Forced to limp into the pit at Scotty's Junction, the crew replaced the damaged axles in record time but the car failed to start. Crew chief Brad Falin was able to quickly trace the problem to a faulty wire leading to the injection pump fuel shutoff solenoid but the wire, located in an awkward spot under the intake manifold, took 45 minutes to repair. Once the HUMMER got back on the course they had fallen back to ninth position.

During the next 150 miles the HUMMER was finally running up to it's full potential and Hall was able to move up to third place by the time he pulled into Pit #8, just after Tonopah and the half-way point in the race. Apparently the earlier crash that had taken out the front axles had damaged one of the front shock mounts. After taking on some fuel the suspension was quickly welded back together and the pick-up was back in the chase, still holding onto third in class.

Just outside of Hawthorne, some 400 miles into the race, Hall was getting ready to make his move on second place when the radiator developed a leak in the area of the filler neck. Since there was no time this late in the race to change the radiator without losing several positions, they slowed the pace enough to minimize the coolant loss and maintain third place. The #8101 HUMMER of Hall/Stoskoph crossed the finish line third in class shortly before 1:30 AM, Saturday morning.

Aside from the frustrations of the day, Chad Hall was very happy with the way the crew and the truck performed during the event. "The team has never performed better", said Hall. "All the work we have done on the suspension is really starting to pay off and we're finally able to get all the power of our new diesel to the ground. Before we went into that ditch no one was able to pass us and I felt we were pretty much in control of the race. When we did run into trouble, the crew had the problems repaired and got us back on the road in good time. We had some bad luck early on but if we can avoid the big rocks and holes in Baja, this is going to be a hard team to beat."

Roy Davidson started the race in the SUV with team mechanic Glenn Wolfe riding in the second seat. The new power-plant was performing beyond expectations for the first 20 miles but the SUV came up with their first flat tire three miles after Pit One in the rocky trail leading north into the Armargosa Valley. The onboard CTIS (Central Tire Inflation System) as installed on the SUV is divided into two systems, front and rear, and each is self-equalizing so when one tire goes flat, both tires dedicated to that system go flat. After sorting out which tire was damaged, the CTIS was disabled and the team headed off in pursuit of the leaders. Shortly after getting underway, they discovered that the same ditch that had caused the flat had also taken out a half-shaft.

If this wasn't enough of a problem, Wolfe also found that the molded hose connecting the turbo to the inter-cooler was split, causing a significant loss of power and subjecting the new motor to the possibility of damage from the introduction of silt into the intake system. Duct tape was immediately applied to the faulty hose and the half shaft was replaced after they babied the big HUMMER into Pit Two. The Duct-tape patch proved no match for the 14 lbs. of turbo boost even at lower boost levels and the SUV continued along at a reduced pace. Meanwhile, Rod drove ahead to the NAPA auto parts store in Beatty where he found a smog control hose, after ransacking their inventory, that proved to be perfect for the job. He met the wounded SUV at Scotty's Junction, on the rim of Death Valley where the new hose was installed.

Back up to speed now, everything appeared to be back to normal until the alternator stopped working just south of Tonopah, 240 miles into the race. After spending some time replacing the defective alternator, Davidson had another flat just after Millers, about 20 miles further on. This one proved to be a bit of a problem as it occurred in a deep silt-bed and the jack wouldn't lift the truck enough to replace the tire. After about an hour of digging a hole deep enough to allow replacement of the tire, they finally pulled into Candeleria for the scheduled driver change. Before getting into the car Rod noticed that another half-shaft was broken and no one had any idea how long that condition had existed. Not that it mattered since the team was out of replacement shafts so Rod locked out the transfer case and motored on in two-wheel drive mode.

After re-learning some of the principals of two-wheel drive operation, the serpentine belt went south just as the SUV was coming into Hawthorne, late into the evening. Rod was able to get the truck to the checkpoint lights just before the pit, replaced the belt and was back underway in less than ½ hour. Finally, after mastering the 2WD driving style and getting past the near-disaster in Hawthorne, he was headed north with just over 100 miles left to the finish. Suddenly a loud explosion occurred causing a tremendous shudder through the cab of the vehicle. A thick spray of hot oil replaced the coating of silt all over the front-end of the vehicle which quickly came to a halt in the moonlit Nevada evening, spewing smoke and looking like this was one problem that could not be overcome within the time allotted.

Apparently, something caused the transfer case to lock up, causing the front universal joint to break. This caused the front drive shaft to whip wildly around and quickly took out the oil filter mounting assembly in addition to some other suspension damage. After a day of frustration and lacking the necessary replacement part, Team HUMMER was forced to put the SUV on the trailer at mile maker 411.