Hay Hauler Resurrection

[deleted]

Mark Cowan is restoring the Benny Abatti, former Robby Gordon Hay Hauler. Mark has starting cleaning this truck up and putting it back together. Yesterday I spent some time in Mark’s shop looking at this masterpiece. This truck was before my time, I have never really got a chance to take a look at it. The truck is truly amazing. There was a lot of time spent on the fine details of the truck. I find it amazing that every structural piece of this trucks bolts onto the frame. The truck has 4 shocks per corner. With modern shock technology, it is amazing to see what we can do with 1 shock what used to be done with 4 shocks.

If it is ok with Mark and Benny, I am going to post some pictures of the restoration process.

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[partybarge_pilot]

Please post pics!!!!

A lot of the older trucks had the cages bolted to the frame to keep the heat treat from getting screwed up by welding on them. The old Walker Dodge pre-runner that WOB has is the same way and has many,many miles on it and still no frame cracks.

[johnnyweb]

Some pictures of the old school truck would be cool to see.

[DSRacing]

Glad to hear someone taking the time to keep a piece of off road history alive. Please post up photos of the restoration. Does anyone know how many times the Hayhauler raced in Class 2 and was the wheelbase extended before or after it started racing in the unlimited class?

As far as pics,

Couple from RG's website





A few I took





And a couple links with more pics,

http://pix.race-dezert.com/thumbnail...lbum=2&page=26

http://www.robbygordon.com/cgi-bin/I...T_-Old_School-

[Vtr_Racing]

Yes, I remember that bumper vividly. Our 5/1600 car was taken out by that. Nice pics and its very cool somebody is restoring that truck.

[_deleted_]

i have a video of robby, when he broke a pittman arm during a gold coast race or maybe a mint/nissan 400. he was pissed. he was talking about how he has to drive that old truck insted of his new truck cuz it wasnt ready. he was racing class 8?? i dunno i gotta get the video out and watch it. ESPN was interviewing him

[fashionbiff]

PICS PICS PICS would love to see it with the body parts off and getting all pimped up again. Did I mention PICS come on, we wont tell anyone

[Mark Newhan]

I saw the cab and doors at the painter today. I remember the truck vividly. Jon Nelson built it and it changed everything about racing. The Vessels Chevy was the first really "trick" truck, but the hay hauler is what changed the face of off road racing.

Ben Abatti is a very good guy. I enjoyed racing against him in 1993 down at the FUD races. I hope he and his son have a good time. Before I built my current prerunner I went to look at the Hay Hauler to turn it into a prerunner. I did not buy it because I did not want to change it (and I would have). It is a piece of off road motorsports history.

[DSRacing]

I don't recall exactly which race it was, but sometime in 88' we were out taking pics and had moved to different areas of the course and lost track of the vehicle positions. I distinctly re-call seeing RG come by in the Hayhauler and thinking he had fallen behind because he wasn't anywhere near the other Class 8's.

He was mixing it up with some of the limited class vehicles so we figured he was close to an hour behind the leaders. Ends up he was so fast he over an hour ahead.

[steveG]

I'm dying to see pics! I've been waiting patiently for it to be restored since Mark first posted about looking at as a potential prerunner.