The Gambler 500 is the ultimate budget Motorsport. It's technically not a "race", it's more of a off-road navigational challenge in cheap cars. While there's no strict budget, people are encouraged to do the most with the least. $500 cars abound. 4wd is considered "cheater class". Build something impractical and show up.
Typically, you have no idea where you are going until the day of the event. Arrive at the start location to an impromptu car show of oddly modified beaters ready for adventure. At the drivers meeting waypoint sheets are handed out then everyone is let loose to find their way from point to point. Daily distance is usually limited to 250 miles which doesn't sound like a ton but can take well into the night once dead ends, traffic jams, obstacles, and breakdowns are accounted for.
Rule #1 is "Don't be a Dick". Gamblers always help each other when stuck, broken down, or lost. At every stop people pick up as much trash as possible to try to leave public lands cleaner than they found them.
2018 Utah Gambler 500
A few buddies of mine decided to run a pair of Saturns, specifically a SL1 and a Vue. Preparation mostly consisted of spray painting the cars to match. The Vue was leaking all kinds of fluids and coolant was disappearing at an alarming rate. After dumping a variety of stop leak concoctions we decided it would be fine. Most of the leaks dried up and we ended up having to fill the coolant about every 50 miles.
Somehow the SL ended up being more capable than the Vue off road. Unfortunately, during slow off roading the little sedan was overheating and we had to stop frequently to allow it to cool down. Removing the hood helped it run a bit cooler.
We ended up in some really rough trails at up to 10k feet that seemed to be typically used by hunters on ATVs or UTVs.
At one waypoint as we pulled out to hit the trail again, someone noticed a concerning puddle beneath the Vue. We had smacked the alloy oil pan and trans case on rocks and both were leaking.
Luckily we had some JB Weld steel stick putty and we're able to slow the leaks. We would be more mindful of our low hanging delicate bits and try to avoid the big rocks the best we could.
We finally round our way out of a maze of forest roads and took a brief detour on asphalt to a tiny mountain town to fill up the gas tanks, grab some atf and oil, and grab some food.
We finished off the day arriving at the final destination well after dark and treated ourselves to a well deserved meal.
Day 2 would take us up over 2 mountain ranges and out into the Utah desert. Lots of high speed graded roads out there and we were having a blast!
Someone had a bit too much fun and ended up off the road. We stayed until sometime with a bigger vehicle could pull them back onto the road and we helped change the tire.
In our excitement to get to the finish we forgot to top off the coolant in the Vue and this was the result
We tried to let it cool down and filled the reservoir with water, but as soon as we restarted the engine, coolant geysered out violently.
We were about 10 miles from the finish and decided to go for it! The ECU would go into some sort of protection mode and shut down the engine multiple times. We just disconnected the battery to clear the ECU and continued on. This happened half a dozen times until we finally coasted into the finish! The poor Vue would never run again. Luckily my buddy had trailered the car to the event. The car was destined for the junkyard anyway and the Gambler was the perfect end of its life!
2019 Utah Gambler 250
My brother was offered a 96 2wd Suburban for free by a neighbor. It had overheating problems and they had tried to sell it on the local classifieds with no bites. They didn't want it to get scrapped and my brother promised to get it running and use it as his summer driver and camping vehicle. A water pump, thermostat, and intake gaskets for it back on the road.
I offered to buy him a set of tires if he let me take it on the upcoming Gambler 250 run. A little but if research taught me that these older 2wd Chevys have the same bolt pattern as the newer Jeep Wrangler. At that moment I knew what our theme would be!
I found a set of 5 Wrangler factory takeoffs and they actually fit great on the suburban with some wheel spacers to get the offset a little closer to spec
Since April is too early to get very high up in the mountains around here we did a 250 mile desert loop. The Suburban did great! Even with only 2wd it crawled right up some steep, rocky hill climbs. We made quick work of the first 5 waypoints and found ourselves at the front of the pack most of the day. We managed to stay on course and only got lost once.
2019 Utah Gambler 500
I had decided that I wanted to build something crazy for this Gambler. I would need to find the cheapest car possible to start with and I didn't even care what it was.
I went to look at a few cars and they either weren't cheap enough or were too crappy for my intended purpose. One day while cruising FB marketplace I came across this Corolla listed for $300. Runs great, needs work, etc.
It did run great, but above about 50mph it had a death shake that seemed like a bad wheel bearing or CV axle. The odometer read 175k but it was not functioning any longer and the car seemed like it had more like 300k or more. It was filthy, beat, and sloppy, but the engine ran very smoothly and the trans shifted nicely although there was an internal leak in the clutch hydraulics that caused the clutch to engage if you left the pedal down for more than a few seconds.
I gave the guy $250 and drove it home 30 miles trying to avoid the death shake.
My plan was to buy some 27" atv tires, cut the fenders for clearance, and send it!
Unfortunately I found out that the 27s were harder to come by in my budget than the larger 29" size which comes stock on the front of the Polaris RZR 1000. Ok. I guess I'll go with the 29s! I acquired 7 tires for $190 and sold the best one for $80.
First test fit with cut fenders. The fronts cleared the cut fenders ok, but at full suspension travel they were going to hit the inner fender badly. Not a chance the rears were going to work.
I decided a super sketchy "lift kit" that would give me 2.25" in the rear and almost 3" lift in the front. Budget hit, $15 for hardware at tractor supply. The ¼ steel bar came out of my scrap pile.
Next, with the RZR tires mounted on the stock Corolla steelies, they were still too close to the struts. I had ordered some spacers in anticipation of this problem, but I had a crazy idea. What if I cut out the wheel centers and flipped them? Could it work?
After much time with the grinder and Hammer, I had a wheel center separated from the barrel. I flipped the center, pressed it back into the barrel and tacked it in one place. I bolted the wheel to the car and used it as a rudimentary balancing fixture. Using an indicator I was able to get the running within .030" which I thought was pretty dang good! I then ran a series of alternating stitch welds until the center was completely welded to the barrel.
It was a lot of work but they worked great! One funny thing about this mod is the valve stems end up on the inside of the wheel.
Both front wheel bearings and CV axles had a lot of play so I swapped out complete knuckle, hub, and axle assemblies sourced from the junkyard.
This was the result of the first test drive with the new tires. Oops! I guess the wiring harnesses need to be tucked up higher in the fender.
Suspension and tire clearance mods complete!
I removed the trunk lid and cut out the rear trunk wall (including half of the tail lights) to make room for my spare tires and cargo. I figured the vertically mounted spares would give it a very trophy truck style.
I also mounted a roof basket directly to the roof using lag screws into chunks of 2x4 inside the cabin. My brother helped me sketch out some flames on the car and I masked and painted them. I decided to drive the car to the event (ABG!) But swapped out the knobby tires for the street tires for the 100 mile each way transit.
The car did awesome! With the tires aired down to about 20psi it felt like the car had an additional 4" of travel. The only drawback to the 29" tires was the poor gearing for slow obstacles and hill climbs. This was compounded by the wonky clutch which made clutch slippage nearly impossible.
