OAKLAND, CA MARCH 13, 2012 Shaffer-Motorsports car #401 won the San Felipe 250 in Class 4 last weekend in Baja, Mexico. After a long week of prerunning and a 24 hour turn around to the US for a rebuilt transaxle, the team made the mad dash to the finish line with only 12 minutes separating them from second. “It was quite a race. From being down at the half way point, then making a great pass at RM194 for the lead, then watching Daniel put some time on them, we just focused on keeping the sprint up,” said Mike Shaffer, driver of record and owner of Shaffer’s Offroad.
The race didn’t come without consequences, as with most desert races. They wound up with three flat tires and four wheels that need some serious attention. But the tolls of the course didn’t stop the drivers Mike Shaffer, Shawn Twitchell and Daniel Aeberli from pushing the Transfer Case Express car to its max and finishing. “All of the drivers and co-drivers are working really well together and you can see the difference at each race as they meld together,” said Shaffer.
Prerunning may have been more of an endurance experience than the race itself. During the shock tuning session on Thursday the transaxle gave way. Ron Weddle, from Weddle Industries, invited them to the shop in Southern California to get it fixed. “He showed up at 2:45am in the morning when the guys got there to work and had them back on the road to Baja by 7:30am,” said Shaffer. Within 24 hours the Shaffer-Motorsports crew had diagnosed and fixed the problem, and had the car through tech and ready for the green flag Friday morning!
Read more of the Transfer Case Express driver reports on the Shaffer-Motorsports website: http://www.shaffer-
The next race for the Red, White and Black Transfer Case Express car will be the Baja 500 June 1, 2012.
Shaffer-Motorsports Website: http://www.shaffer-
Shaffer-Motorsports Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/
More about Mike Shaffer: Mike Shaffer is the owner of Shaffer’s Offroad that helps customers build the vehicle of their choice, from bolt on accessories to custom one off vehicles. Shaffer has been racing for 27 years, starting with BMX and then age 16 in drag racing and his first desert race was fourteen years ago. Shaffer was driver of record for 3 Baja 1000 wins, 3 SCORE Championships and one BITD Championship in Class 1700, along with rock crawling National Championship and ARCA Championship.
More about Shawn Twitchell: Shawn Twitchell started desert racing motorcycles in 1972, went to drag racing in the 1980’s, circle track in the 1990’s and is now back in the desert driving with Shaffer Motorsports. He has been a member of Shaffer Motorsports team since 2008 helping win three SCORE 1700 Championships. Twitchell is the Business Unit Manager for FMC Technologies’ Technisys Group and has been married for 30 years to Vickie. Desert racing is in their family encompassing four generations including his son Ian, who will co-drive for Shawn. Two of seven grandkids are already earning their stripes in the pits and at the shop.
More about Daniel Aeberli: Daniel Aeberli is the CTO of Meditron, a Swiss medical distribution company that he co-founded 20 years ago in Switzerland. He raced with the Shaffer Motorsport team in 2010 helping them win SCORE Primm in Class 1700. Aeberli drove the first section of the 2010 SCORE Baja 1000 and is looking forward to coming back to the United States to race in BITD including Vegas to Reno and SCORE Baja 1000. Active in many sports, he especially enjoys skiing and hangliding in Switzerland.
Sponsors: Transfer Case Express, Torchmate CNC Cutting Systems, BFGoodrich, PowerTank, RuffStuff, PSC Steering, Shaffer’s Offroad