Overall race winner and Trick Truck winner Rick Johnson.

When the Best In The Desert Terrible’s 250 at Primm started at 6 a.m. Saturday morning, no one expected the levels of excitement and carnage that were to come later in the day. 

Top Qualifier Mike Williams was the first off the line in his VW-powered Class 1100 buggy and he never looked back. Williams ran up front the whole day, but this being a lap race he did not have clean air the entire time as he came up on lap traffic during lap two.

When the checkers flew, Williams took the win over Matthew Kupiec by over 10 minutes. Bryan Folks, son of BITD promoter Casey Folks, rounded out the top three in 1100 35 minutes behind the winner. 

One of the best battles of the day was in Stock Fullsize (Class 8100). John Griffin (above), Kent Kroeker, Greg Foutz and Randy Merritt were swapping positions throughout the race.  While parts of the course were bladed to smooth it out, there were still plenty of rough sections left to challenge the drivers of the metal beasts, and there was plenty of carnage to go around. When the dust settled, John Griffin finished 20 minutes ahead of Kroker and 22 minutes ahead of Merritt to take the victory. 

Jeepspeed juggernaut Ray Griffith (above) drove hard and got the win by 5 minutes over second-place Bob Standage. In Class 2000, Paul Kurz took the win by 6 minutes over second-place Lorenzo Rodriguez, with Andrew Neal finishing in third.

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Rock crawling star Shannon Campbell brought out his latest IFS moon buggy (above) to race in the sportsman class and finished a very respectable second. He surprised many with how well this rock buggy worked in the rough whoop sections of the desert.

At noon the Trick Trucks and Class 1500 unlimited buggies left the line, with Top Qualifier Jerry Whelchel blasting off first for Chet Huffman Motorsports. Whelchel and Andy McMillin started to open a gap on the field shortly after the start and were within seconds of each other for two laps. 

By the third lap, Whelchel (above) had opened up a gap on McMillin and was charging hard in the dust when he hit a stuck 7200 truck near Race Mile 15. 

“I smashed into him, and when I backing up to go around him Andy drilled me right back under him again,” Whelchel said. “We ruined my truck, it was done after that.”

After the crash tied up the two leaders, hard-charging “Pistol” Pete Sohren was able to take the lead with only 55 miles to go. Sohren got a flat near Race Mile 43 that put him down for several minutes, which allowed Rick Johnson to take the lead. Johnson held on to the lead and took his truck back to Primm to take first place overall. Sohren finished second, Chuck Dempsey was third overall and first in Class 1500, while Andy McMillin finished in fourth. All of the top four drivers finished within 5 minutes of each other.

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At the finish, Johnson talked about how well his truck worked.

“The truck was phenomenal,” he said. “All the pieces of the puzzle came together and that’s what it takes to win a race.” 

The lack of an official pre-run did not greatly alter his plans.

“Well we actually entered the sportsman class this morning and did a pre-run. The win hasn’t even sunk it yet to be honest with you.”

With the overall win decided there was plenty of excitement yet to come. Kory Scheeler had a scary fire situation in the #51 Trick Truck where 90 percent of the truck burned to the ground. 

“It looks like the driveshaft let go at 100+ mph right after the road-crossing,” he said.  “The shrapnel from the driveshaft must have pierced the oil coolers or oil lines, as everything is right behind the seats on this truck. By the time I got it stopped I realized we were on fire, as the flames were shooting up my back & my pumper filled my helmet with black smoke. I pulled the onboard system but it wasn’t enough, nor was using the outboard fire extinguisher; everything seems like slow motion when you are trying to get out of a flame-filled racecar. The next vehicle was two or three minutes behind us (Loyd Sproule), and thanks to Lloyd he stopped and we grabbed his fire extinguisher, but it spread too quickly.

“We had a good run after doing a couple of 360s in qualifying. We went from 38th to 18th on the road in less than 100 miles, but oh well, that’s racing. We will be back, hopefully the chassis can be repaired as we have plenty of spare parts for this truck.” 

Fortunately, Scheeler and his co driver escaped without injury.

Not long after the fire incident, a call went out on the radio of a major crash on the pavement near Race Mile 40. Kevin McGillivray’s #56 truck suffered a mechanical failure at close to 120 mph, which resulted in a crash where the truck went end over end multiple times. Parts of the truck were strewn over a great distance, with the rear end and one lower link coming to rest 600 yards from the chassis. Luckily, both occupants were okay and the truck is already back at the shop to rebuild it for Vegas to Reno this summer.

The courses at Primm never fail to take their toll of equipment, but that toll was exceptionally high this year in what will become a very memorable Terrible’s 250.