Collins/Ragland, Winners of the BITD Vegas to Reno

Chuck Hovey, Overall winner of Vegas 200 in 2005

The 2004 event was won overall by Chuck Hovey in his four cylinder Chevy powered Jimco. He’d started first on the road, but had a flat on the first lap, and had to chase down a couple of competitors who went by while he changed it. His time for the 225 mile event was 4:09:25. In the Trick Truck class the win went to Dircks and Porter in their Ford, and David Scaroni drove the family Ford Protruck all the way to take the win in that class.

The weather in 2004 was miserable, and in general, this is not a warm weather event. For one or two years the early start was enhanced by a thin slick of ice on the puddles that graced the dry lake. Very cold weather greeted the early morning start crew and send-off pit people. But in 2004 there was heavy cloud cover, so it was a bit warmer, except that the sun never worked its way through the clouds, thus the temperature was chilly all day. The dry lake was ultra dry, and so was the course, so huge clouds of silt and dust rose over the track and stayed there, blinding the racers. Dust was their biggest problem all day.

The entry list for this year shows that Hovey is entered, whether or not he has his old 4-cylinder Jimco, or will debut the new car, is unknown. At any rate, barring mechanical difficulties, he should be good here, because it’s the type of terrain he most enjoys. B. J. Richardson and Pat Dean, both of whom have done very well here, are also both entered, and David Scaroni, who did so well in his Protruck, will be driving his Ford Trick Truck this year, along with his brother, Matt. Greg Foutz will be defending his championship in Class 8100 (stock full size trucks) in his Ford, and Steve LaRoza is still working on two class championships at once. He’ll race his Class 7300 Ford in the stock little trucks, and also an over-30 Pro bike in the early part of the day.

TEAM HUMMER, Rod Hall - Class 3100

Perennial racer Rod Hall has his Class 3100 Hummer H3 entered for this one, and his son Josh will drive the Class 4100 Hummer H2, while son Chad will pilot the Stock Full H1. All three are fun to watch in the desert, and should be highly competitive here.

The course itself will be a tough one. It includes a large portion of the SCORE Primm 300 course that was run on early this last September, and barring any heavy rain storms in the area, it will still be fairly well dug out. Of course, for those who raced that event, there’ll be some slight advantage, in that they’ll know it a little better than those who didn’t. But in general, all the roads and trails in the area are familiar ones, since Las Vegas racers use the area to test their cars and the trails have been used by Walt Lott, HDRA, SCORE, SNORE and the BITD for many years.

It’s a good race to watch, providing you stick to the BLM regulations and go only to their official spectator areas. Remember, in that part of the world, the BLM rules.