Flight of the X-treme phoenix

When Norwood's DENT Sport Garage co-owners Bill Washburn and Alex Grabau went out to Los Angeles last weekend for the X Games as part of a service crew for Ramana Lagemann's race team, they thought most of the hard work had already been done.

They were wrong.

Lagemann, who was competing in the X Games Rally America event last Sunday, nearly destroyed his Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution in a Tuesday morning practice. But Grabau, Washburn and a pair of others helped rebuild the car and Lagemann wound up finishing fourth.

The X Games Rally was a bit different from traditional rallies and included a 70-foot jump that had worried Grabau and Washburn. Both said last week they were expecting to have to do some suspension work on the car.

Turns out, the suspension was the least of their worries.

Tuesday, Lagemann was practicing the jump and hit it twice perfectly before coming up short on his third attempt, with disastrous results.

"We completely pile-drived the front-end straight into the ground and pushed the front bumper about two feet into the engine block," said Lagemann, a Somerville resident. "And we completely ruined the left rear suspension."

Lagemann said yesterday he was physically fine from the wreck that sent the car tumbling down the exit ramp of the jump, but the car and his emotions were anything but.

"I was emotionally destroyed," said Lagemann, who flew home yesterday. "To prepare and work so hard for nothing was devastating - at that point, I thought it was all over."

But Grabau, Washburn and a pair of mechanics from the partnering Cascade garage in Washington started examining the torn up car and thought it could be fixed.

"It was pretty much totaled," Grabau said yesterday from DENT's Endicott Street garage. "It was a mess."

Grabau, holding a Starbuck's coffee after his cross-country flight back to Boston yesterday morning, said the wreck turned the week into a series of all-nighters.

"It's funny. We went out there wondering if there was going to be much for us to do during the week," Grabau said with a laugh.

The team went to work immediately after the crash, ordering parts and trying to come up with a game plan. Once the parts came in Thursday, Lagemann said the team worked 14 hours straight to get the car ready for Friday's final practice runs and qualifying.

"They cut off the first two feet of the car, physically hammered out the shell with sledgehammers, replaced the rear left suspension - it was an incredible effort," said Lagemann. "I don't think anybody there that saw the crash thought we'd be back in that car."

Lagemann said the car was initially tough to drive Friday, but the team continued to work on the suspension and handling and by the time qualifying run rolled around, the car was again highly competitive.

But during that run, the car lost a cooling fan and a vital handling component, and both would plaque the car throughout the rest of the event.

As live television coverage started, Lagemann was paired with rally legend Colin McRae. The car began to overheat in the 15-minute wait on the starting line, and the engine control unit went into "limp mode" just as the race began. The engine in that condition is limited to 4000 rpm, and he was forced to return to the service area, where the team quickly fixed the problem.

McRae, however, rolled his Subaru WRX onto a barrier in the semifinals, leaving Lagemann with the chance to compete for the bronze medal against last year's winner Travis Pastrana. The race occurred after the live broadcast, and a damaged differential held him back, leaving Lagemann with a fourth-place finish.

"We thought we had a car that could win, so it was a week of highs and lows and ups and downs," said Lagemann. "But it was an incredible effort by the crew and shows what we're made of. I'm glad we were able to come back and fight for it rather than go out with a whimper."

Daily News staff writer Terry Donovan contributed to this story.

Daily News staff writer Brian Falla can be reached at 781-433-8339 or at bfalla@cnc.com