Lucky Dog 1000 Miles of Thunderhill
Photo: Dakota Snow
It was a bit of a wild weekend at Thunderhill for the Lucky Dog Championship enduro. We had a driver lineup of David Hampton, Tom Burt, Jim Gallagher, and our own Martin Sarukhanyan in our Red #161 E46 M3.
Photo: Dakota Snow
Photo: Dakota Snow
Friday during testing we lost the S54 requiring an engine swap. We brought our backup Blue #162 M3 with us and grabbed the S54 from that car. We finished the job at about midnight on Friday! Our guys worked really hard to make it happen.
Photo: Dakota Snow
We took the green Saturday morning and battled in the top 6 overall throughout the day. Working our way up into the top 3 multiple times with our drivers running very well. This race is cumulative meaning Saturday rolls into Sunday and the first car to reach 1,000 miles wins.
Photo: Dakota Snow
The race resumed Sunday morning and immediately we had a transmission line leaking fluid so Martin came in right away to fix that and we added fluid. David got in next and the LR axle broke. Got a spare on and then shortly after we had a belt tensioner failure that we also had to replace. At that point we were out contention for a good result and when Jim got in for his stint we figured we might as well run a Super Dog lap just because that was one thing that hadn’t gone wrong or happened all weekend Jim was flying and having some fun.
Photo: Dakota Snow
After a long and busy 14 hours of racing we battled through a lot of hardships to finish P11 in class with Tom bringing it home for us with a great stint of fuel saving to get the car to the checkered. We showed good pace and were fighting for a podium Saturday before the bad luck struck Sunday. We’re proud of our crew and our drivers for pushing through this one!
Photo: Dakota Snow
Now it’s time to regroup and repair our M3’s for the start of the 2025 Lucky Dog season! Our Arrive & Drive program has availability for next year if anyone is looking to join the team. Reach out to us today to discuss.