In 1984, during the grueling Parker, Arizona 400 mile race an early formula of Lubrication Specialists' Formula 3 was tested in a 1982 Toyota truck. The following is a transcript of a taped interview between Ron Stadsklev, interviewer and Jim Travis, driver of the truck.

April 2, 1984

Ron (Stadsklev); "Jim, what happened out there?"

Jim: "Well, the water temperature gauge started climbing 150, 200, 210, 220, 230, 240 and it was like 30 miles to the next check point and there wasn't anybody on the side of the road either, so I just said, well, 'looks like we need a new motor' and continued to drive hard without letting off it, all the way to Bouse (Arizona).

Ron: "Is that a checkpoint?"

Jim: "Yes, it's a checkpoint."

Ron: "And, so you weren't reducing your speed at that time?"

Jim:"No! I knew that there was a problem and I figured if I stopped and slowed down, I would never get it started so I continued just as hard and fast as I could. We got to Bouse and I pulled into a pit there and the engine was cracking. We looked and found a hole in the radiator. Figuring there was nothing we could do about it, we kept putting water in it. After about 45 minutes, it cooled down but the water was pumping out so fast that we couldn't repair it. So we filled it full of water one last time, took the cap off the off to eliminate the pressure and I drove all the way back to the pits, there the beginning of the Arizona side."

Ron: "How far was that, would you say?"

Jim: "Oh, that's was about 80 miles."

Ron: "And the first stretch to the checkpoint was how far?"

Jim: "Oh, I would say it's about 30 miles. We brought it back to Tucson figuring this motor was shot. You know, because we had to get ready for the Laughlin race."

Ron: "Oh yeah."

Jim: "And all we did, we pulled the pan down and pulled the engine a little bit and the bearings showed just a little bit of wear, but the motor had like 30,000 miles on and all we did was put it back together again and change the oil and the filter and we tuned it, put a new set of tires on it and took it to Laughlin and raced."

Ron: "Now you put new bearings in?"

Jim: "No!"

Ron: "You didn't?"

Jim: "No, we didn't do anything to it - nothing!"

Ron: "The rings?"

Jim: "No, we didn't take the head off. Then we raced the Laughlin race and we were running second in the race when the right front wheel fell off. Two miles from the finish line. We could see the finish line. By the time we got the wheel back on, we got across the finish line. We pulled in a fifth. So then we raced to the San Felipe, That's where I saw you, all we did was return the truck and get everything ready for it."

Ron: "You mean you still hadn't replaced those bearings?"

Jim: "Still hadn't done anything to the motor!"

Ron: "Were the rings a little crystallized?"

Jim: "We never looked at the rings. Rings have never been looked at since the motor came from Japan. The oil was real black, but when we fixed it up, took compression checks, it had a real good pressure on it so there's no reason to go through the motor again. Then we went and race the San Felipe race and we were running about 3rd place there after starting about 6th. A bolt came out of the carburetor by the velocity stacks and sucked in through the head and got underneath the valve and on top of the piston."

Ron: "You guys really get the breaks, don't you?"

Jim: "Weird stuff, just things that don't happen."

Ron: "That's right."

Jim: "Well, it just beats the top of the piston to death. It was rattling real bad but when we pulled into the pit, it quit so we adjusted the tie rods a little bit and ran it all the way to the top of Mike's Sky Ranch. It started rattling again and that's when we shut down, came back and put it on the trailer and came back to Tucson, pulled it all down. That's when we found a bolt laying underneath a valve. Even though we had loctite, it worked itself out, went through the carburetor into the intake, and underneath the valve. So the only damage to the engine still is that the top of the piston is beat to death and of course, that cylinder on the head, and it bent one valve. We pulled it down and we'll show you the motor. The motor isn't hardly even worn. But now what we've going through it, put new pistons in it, go through it, and get ready for the mint 400."

Ron: "I'd like to be back in time for that."

Jim: "You see, we've won all these races before in our other truck, the Datsun that we raced in the Baja 100 Classic, the Baja 500 International and the Mint 400, etc., those and won them. But now we built a Toyota because the Toyota is so good in contingency now. Plus our sponsor said he'd build it. But We've just been plagued by these simple problems that put race cars out of commission, so now the motors completely down and completely out of the vehicle and it shows no taper on the cylinder wall, nothing. And I'll tell you another thing, we put an airbox on it and somehow the bottom of the airbox got separated in the Laughlin race and all we did is suck pure grind, sand in it. It didn't create a problem the wear."

Ron: "Do you run with blowers or anything?"

Jim: "No, we run Mikuni carburetors, two Mikuni's side drafts, and that engine is basically absolutely stocked, it has a header on it, and put a real mild cam, and two Mikuni's on it, and that's all we did, that's all the motors got and it runs with the best of them. What we're doing now on this new motor, it will develop more horsepower because it will have a heavy duty set of forged pistons in it. But that stuff [Formula 3], you know if it hadn't been in there, that motor would have froze up when I got to the checkpoint, or I could have got stuck out there. But it lubricated enough, in fact, more than enough, so that it didn't hurt the bearings. We didn't replace them. As much as it costs for us to go to a race, when we pulled it down we were satisfied that the motor was all right. We couldn't believe it!"