I went out to Vegas for the Vegas to Reno race excited and more than a little afraid. I came back tired, sore, immensely dirty, and completely in love. Riding in that race truck was one of the most exhausting, stressful, labor intensive, and without a doubt fun things I've ever done. And I can't wait to go back.
I admit, I underestimated the duties of a co-dog. I thought it was a much simpler and less stressful job. It was during contingency/inspection that I was first introduced to just how difficult the co-dog life is. The Rumble Goat Racing team had me sit in the seat, try putting on the belts (while reminding me that on race day I'd be doing this wearing a helmet and Nomex gloves), and introduced me to my jobs. All SEVEN of them. I would have to check the mirror for any faster traffic behind us (because failing to notice a faster car in time results in getting run into), check the gauges to make sure nothing is overheating, watch the GPS and let the driver know what was coming up ahead in terms of corners (or dangers. Or road crossings.), hit the horn/siren any time we came up on someone slower than us , use the radio to report our mileage and status to the chase crew, read the upcoming danger sections on the clip board so the driver knew what to expect, and keep an eye on the course itself to call out any rocks, mile markers, danger signs, or hitch-hiking aliens the driver might not see.
Learning how much more I had to do completely changed the rest of the day for me. I kept going over it all in my head. All I could think about was what I needed to do and how not to screw it up. I had some serious butterfly action going on in my stomach. Nervous as hell.
Day 1 course map. Click Here to see a larger version of the map.
I was scheduled to co-drive second shift on day 1, starting at Pit 4 at mile 161 and going to the day's finish at mile 332. Waking up early to get to the start and chasing throughout most of the daylight hours with the scouts distracted me and had me feeling better. Then after servicing the truck at Pit 3 I was told to suit up and get ready. The butterflies were back. And they brought friends.
We knew from the radio call-ins that the truck was getting close. The co-driver calls out every race mile on the radio, so we could hear it getting closer. "Truck 7302, race mile 158"... "7302, race mile 159"... "7302, race mile 160"... Finally a bit before 5 PM (a full six hours after the truck had left the line) the silver RGR truck appeared. As it pulled into the pit my heart was going a mile a minute. I waited for the first shift co-driver to get out, then began the process of getting in, as it had been taught to me the day before. Loosen all five belts. Climb in. Attach the belts. Tighten the belts. Plug in radio. Put on neck brace. Put on gloves. One of the crew members checked my belts and the radio to make sure I was secure, closed the door, and I was off. "7302, race mile 162."
Loosening the belts before climbing in.
Giving a thumbs up as I begin my first ride.
Pretty much immediately after leaving the pit there was a 3 mile blast across a dry lake bed. This is where we came across our first problem. I radio in "7302, race mile 163." I hear a faint buzzing. Jose (the driver) kinda turns toward me and says "Aren't you going to respond?" "Respond to what?" I ask. Turns out that although I can hear Jose fine, and the chase crew can hear me fine, I can't hear the chase crew. Jose can, but he's too busy operating the round thing in front of him and keeping us from falling off cliffs to do the radio communication stuff as well. So we come up with a system. When the chase crew says something, Jose repeats it, and I call back the response. It wasn't a great system, but it did the job.
Once we got the radio thing sorted out we found a second problem. When the previous co-driver got out, the clipboard full of danger areas went with him. The clipboard has every danger on the course listed, along with its mileage and what the danger is. Without the board there were only two ways to let the driver know of an upcoming danger. If the danger was listed on the GPS file (only about half were), I could call it out when it appeared on the screen (maybe 1/2 mile before we reached it). Dangers not listed on the GPS file were still marked by small orange signs on the course only a few hundred feet before the danger. Keeping an eye on the course was now even more important.
An example of a danger sign. Imagine trying to spot one of these while doing 40+ mph. While your eyes are being bounced out of your head.
Despite the initial issues, driver Jose proved to be a great teacher and within a half hour I'd gotten into the grove of co-driving. The trail itself was my primary focus. I had to watch for the mile markers, danger signs and rocks. Anything the driver might have missed. After that, it was the GPS (a 5 inch screen mounted about where the stereo and AC controls used to be). This was my tool for telling the driver how soon the next corner was, how long/sharp of a corner it would be, and if there were any GPS marked dangers coming up. At the zoom level it was set to, I usually had at most 10 seconds to let the driver know what was coming. Frustratingly, there were some sections where the road did a back and forth weave that was too tight to show up on the GPS. For these I was as surprised as the driver.
A few of the gauges had been reading worryingly high during the first shift, so I'd been told to keep an eye on them. This is much more difficult than it sounds. Take the Trans Temp gauge for example. There was a line on the gauge at the 250 mark. If the needle was just below it (say 248), that was ok. If the needle was above it (252), that was bad and should be called in. On a 2" diameter gauge this is hard no matter what. It's a million times worse when you're sitting in the world's largest paint shaker. This really was a difficult job.
Try reading these while jumping up and down
They had told me during inspection that the mirror would require my attention often. Fortunately by the time I got in, the field had spread out and for the entire duration of the shift only a few trucks passed us. All the same I made sure I looked in it at least every mile to ensure we weren't about to be run over.
The scenery on the race course was much more interesting than the scenery from the road. On the highway it's generally flat, smooth, and empty aside from the occasional building or "town" every 15 miles or so (and I use the term "town" loosely). You see mountains but they're a few miles to each side. On the race course we ran over, around, and through those mountains. Sometimes we'd have vertical walls of rock on each side, giving us a narrow canyon between them, other times we'd come around a blind corner and find ourselves on a winding, one-lane-wide trail with a 50+ foot vertical drop on the side. On a few occasions we would crest a mountain, and at that peak it would seem like we could see forever. Miles ahead we could see a dozen columns of dust rising off the ground, marking the locations of other trucks. It was surreal.
Example of a dust trail
When you're in a multi-layer firesuit in a race truck in the middle of the desert during 100°+ conditions, staying hydrated is critical. There were at least a dozen bottles of water inside my door. When thirsty we would unscrew the cap, stick the bottle up underneath the dirt skirt on the helmet and up under the front of the helmet. Since tilting one's head back in a helmet is nigh impossible, we had to rely on squeezing the bottle to get the water to the waiting mouth. I learned quickly that this made a mess, particularly if the bottle was more that 3/4 full.
Unfortunately, we weren't the only ones suffering in the heat. The truck had been vaporlocking all day. The hood had been removed back at pit 3, which helped, but even with the hood off the truck stalled and died a few times during the daylight hours. When it did all we could do was sit and wait a few minutes then try to start it again. It was frustrating and killed momentum, but relatively minor as far as issues go.
Not too long before reaching Pit 5 we had our first real mechanical problem during my shift. We rounded a fast corner and spotted a large pointed rock. Unfortunately it saw us first and made a bee line for our tires. We hit it and heard a bang. It was rather obvious what had happened. Jose pulled it over in the first clear space off course and I got out to take a look. All that was left on the rim were the two ragged, donut shaped flaps of rubber that had once been the sidewalls. The entire tread was gone. Jose got the jack and I got the breaker bar. In short order we got the wheel off, put on a fresh tire, and I was tightening the lug nuts I had just taken off. All the while promising Jose I'd give their team an impact wrench for Christmas. We secured the wheel in the truck's tire carrier, got back in the truck, and continued to pit 5. When we got there, the crew looked in the back, then came up to us and said "Hey, guys. Where's the wheel?" It had somehow fallen out.
Coming into Pit 5
If someone finds one of these in the desert with shredded rubber on it, let us know
We got rolling again and back in our groove, but Murphy wasn't done with us yet. We were bombing through a silt bed trying not to get stuck (slow + silt = stuck). The truck slammed into something in the silt and sent our front end skyward. We came down hard in an explosion of dust. Jose tried the gas to make sure the drivetrain was intact and the truck accelerated like nothing happened. We cleared the silt bed feeling like we'd dodged a bullet. Then I found myself saying "Do you smell burning rubber?" We pulled over. Again. I got out. Again. I circled the truck. No flats. But the stench of rubber was unmistakable. Something was wrong. I got on my hands and knees looking under the truck. I found the problem in the right front. The knuckle (aka spindle) had bent, causing the tire to lean inward so far that it was rubbing against the end of the upper A-Arm.
Not something you want bent
The RGR Ford Ranger is a 4 wheel drive truck. While this helps get through the rough stuff, it's bad news when you want to change a knuckle because in addition to everything else there's a drive shaft to deal with (unlike the diagram above). Jose informed me that the next pit would close in 30 minutes and the team had never changed one in under 45. And here it was just him and me. And I wasn't familiar with the truck. And the sun was going down. And every time another truck went by it made too much dust and we had to pause. We were in trouble. I was sure this was the end of the day for us. It felt over.
Jose, knowing much better what to do and how to do things, did most of the work while I acted as the parts fetcher, grabbing whatever he said he needed. We worked feverishly, always choosing running over walking when we had to go to the back of the truck for a part or a tool. The light faded with alarming speed, forcing us to break out the flashlight, which predictably decided not to work. We were forced to use the small light that had been attached in the cab so co-drivers could read the danger clipboard at night. A few stragglers passed us, their co-drivers often giving us a wave as they went by. Two or three stopped to ask if we were ok or if we needed anything. Camaraderie is strong in the desert.
By some divine miracle Jose got the knuckle replaced. We secured the damaged tire in the holder, put the tools in the cab, and threw the jack in the bed, not even taking the time to secure it properly. We had to go fast if we wanted to make it before the pit closed. Jose drove brilliantly and got us to Pit 7 both fast and without issue. I don't know if the BITD official was feeling charitable or if we were just lucky but we were told we made it with pretty much seconds to go. The chase crew swapped out the tire in the carrier and got all the tools and stuff secured properly. They inspected the repair job (along with the rest of the truck), and we were on our way.
It was now dark. And in the dark it was completely different. Anything either too far in front or too far to the side to be illuminated by the lights no longer existed. The world was now whatever the light touched. Every corner was now blind. The dust hanging in the air gave off an eerie, almost alien glow when the lights hit it. The desert had become a world of UFOs, and we were one of them.
The alien glow of a race truck
After four and a half hours I was starting to feel stiff. The joints in my legs were tightening up, the chin strap on my helmet pulled against my Adam's apple during rougher bounces, and the transmission was cooking my left foot through my driving shoe. On top of all this the forehead pad in my helmet had slipped and now the corner of the hard foam was digging into my scalp. It was like having my head pressed against the edge of a knife for an hour. I found myself starting to count down the miles till we finished.
Some time after 11 we pulled into a stop checkpoint (the race has checkpoints at undisclosed locations where you need to stop so they can record your number and the time you arrive. This is to make sure nobody shortcuts the course). The front facing number on the truck had been on the hood, which after the morning's vapor lock issues was on the trailer. The side numbers were completely coated in dust and unreadable. So the check official has to come up to my window and ask us the number. After this incident I'm going to make sure the Boy Scout truck has the number on the windshield visor.
The miles and the minutes passed slowly as my forehead began to hurt more, the hard foam edge cutting into it. I put as much focus on my duties and on the course as possible in an attempt to distract myself from the pain. We cleared the final pit at mile 302. Just 30 miles to go. I couldn't wait.
I caught a flash of orange in the lights. Extreme danger ahead. "Extreme danger. Back it down, back it down" I said to Jose. He backed it down to a crawl, and it was a good thing. Dead center on the course the lights lit up an enormous cement block. It was an old bridge pylon, a good eight feet wide, at least twenty long, and maybe three or so feet high. If we had hit that at speed, it would have ended more than just our race. We chuckled and drove carefully around it. I made a mental note to be sure to get that clipboard the next day.
Finally we hit the loop at the end of the day's stage. The loop was a 14 mile section on a wide, smooth, graded road. We rolled through this final section at a good clip, feeling confident and relieved. No more silt. No more rocks. Just this one stretch of road a minivan could probably navigate without too much trouble. We had no competitors near us so there was very little dust in the air in front of us. I was able to crack the visor on my helmet open about a half inch. Cool night air rushed in through the opening. It felt absolutely incredible. Like a cold drink after a long day of summer yardwork. It made that final loop so much easier to deal with.
Finally, after a good 20 minutes we exited the loop. One mile to go. We had already radioed the support crew and they were setting up in the work/repair area in Tonopah. I radioed in that we were at race mile 331. I'm sure the excitement was evident in my voice. We were a mere minute away from finishing.
The final mile was another smooth section. Halfway through I could see vehicle lights on the nearby highway. Finally, after hours of desert, we were returning to civilization. We crested a final small hill and there it was. The finish line. Elated I hit the horn as we approached. This was it. My first finish in a race truck. We'd done it. I'd done it. The feeling was indescribable. I was on top of the world. And happy to get my helmet off my head. I rode the mile from the stage finish to the work area with my helmet in my lap.
When I got out, my body acted like I'd spent nearly seven hours sitting in a truck. My legs were wobbly and it took a few steps for them to re-learn walking. My forehead was red and my Adam's apple hurt like hell. I was tired dirty and thirsty. And I couldn't care less. I was riding a high like nothing I'd ever felt before. Racing was a thrill. Finishing was divine. Even if it was just the day's stage.
I rejoined the scouts and drove us into town. We searched for food, finally grabbing some random items from a gas station, then searched for a place to pitch tent and sleep. Both Camp Adventure and the Camp Adventure overflow area were packed. We ended up on a hill on the outskirts of Camp Adventure. Exhausted, we put up the tent and fell asleep quickly. One day down. Two to go.
Day 2 course map. Click Here to see a larger version of the map.
I had originally thought I was going out first shift on day 2, but in the morning I was informed I'd be second shift. While I was initially disappointed by this because I wanted to see what it was like to run with the pack, it ended up being beneficial for me. It meant I wasn't in the truck when it got rolled onto its side (the passenger side at that). Somewhere between pits 2 and 3 it got rolled, damaging the steering rack. Replacing this rack guaranteed it would be another late finish for us.
I would be getting in this time at pit 5 (mile 540) and riding it to the day's finish at mile 699, a 159 mile journey. This time I would be riding with Jim. Whereas Jose was the better teacher, Jim was the better driver. Jim likes to go sideways whenever possible. And he's very good at it.
The truck arrived at pit 5 just after 7 pm. The sun was already beginning to get low in the sky. Finishing before the finish line closed was a very real concern. Despite this the Rumble Goat team was very methodical in their pit stop. Their movements were determined but not frantic. They knew what they had to do and they made sure they got it done right.
I once again climbed in and strapped myslef to my seat. Closing my door was a problem. Because of the rollover it no longer latched. Fortunately, the BITD rulebook anticipates that sort of problem and mandates a backup system. On this truck it was an old GM seat belt screwed to the door and doorframe. One of the crew members had to reach in the window and latch it. But it did the job well, keeping the door shut. We were about to leave and start day 2 when a crew member from Jeepspeed class truck 1736 came running over. Their truck had run out of gas between pits 5 and 6 and they wanted to know if we would take some fuel out to them. Naturally Jim agreed and the Jeepseed crew tied the fuel can down in the bed. Once everything was ready, the crew waved us out and we were on the road once again. It was time for day two.
The truck arrives
Climbing in for another day of fun
A crew member latches the door
Day 1 had been a course full of silt. It was obvious from the start of my shift that day 2 was going to be a day full of rocks. It seemed like every danger on the clipboard (which I had remembered this time) was rocks. Every ten miles or so there was another danger section labeled "Danger: Rocks" or "Danger: Big Rocks." Rocks kill tires. Flat tires kill momentum. Lack of momentum creates frustration.
The first 50 miles were routine and almost mundane. Mostly sweeping corners, fast straights, and slow sections where we were forced to crawl around rocks. The one thing that kept it interesting was the door damage. There was now a panel gap between the door and the fender. And in that gap I could actually see the ground through the body work. Somehow this amused me. We covered the 25 miles from pit 5 to pit 6 in about 50 minutes, which included stopping to give the Jeepspeed guys their fuel (the brotherhood of desert racing. Always help a fellow racer). I had remembered to ensure my forehead pad was in the right place, and most of the soreness was gone from day 1, so I was feeling good. We left pit 6 at 7:54 with the sun setting in front of us.
25 Miles down. You can see the damage to the door
Departing into the setting sun
Around 9 PM we hit mile 592 and the course became interesting, as it began a 20 mile run through a narrow mountain pass. A narrow mountain pass full of TREES. This was very foreign and strange compared to the over 200 miles I'd seen up to this point. I learned later that this section of the mountain was full of springs, making it rather lush and fertile.
The narrow pass was full of tight, blind corners. I had to work hard to keep Jim informed as to what was coming up, telling him the direction and the degrees of the next corner. "Left 90 into right 100 into right 30 into left 100..." After five miles of this we started catching a whiff of dust. It was clear we were closing in on something. Fortunately the wind in the narrow canyon blew the dust away enough for us to maintain visibility. "...Left 90 into left 90 into right 100..."
Over the next five miles we continued to close. At mile 602 we reached the highest point of the mountain pass, 8000 feet above sea level and 2700 feet above the beginning of the pass ten miles ago. As we crested this rise and began our decent we caught a glimpse of an amber light darting around a corner. We were closing in on the truck making dust. The chase was on.
Chasing another truck in a narrow canyon full of corners like that one is a blast. The walls of the pass were over 30 feet high on either side, meaning you could only see up to the next bend, which would sometimes be a distance of less than 200 feet. We would often round one bend just to see the truck dart around the next. This was both fun and useful, as it showed us where the next corner would be. As we closed I found myself straining to see what the truck was. I could tell it was a smaller pickup with four large lights on the roof. I knew it wasn't either of the other two stock trucks in our class and this excited me. We were running down a truck from a faster class.
The chase went on for miles. Always rounding a corner just to see the amber light of the other truck disappear around the next one. Both trucks charging down the mountain, gassing it on the short straights, braking hard into the corners. Finally, after a good seven miles of chasing, we got close enough for me to hit the horn. I pressed the button on the console and our truck's siren wailed. The other truck pulled to the side and we blew past. Another new experience for me. My first overtake. It wasn't going to be my last.
We exited the pass just before the next pit at mile 612. We were back down to 4700 feet. A 3300 foot drop over the course of ten miles, an even more extreme altitude change than our ascent had been. We pulled into the pit for another routine stop. The engine temp was a bit high, but not enough to make it an extended stop. After giving the truck a thorough look over, we were released back into the night.
Clear of the mountain pass it was back on the straighter roads. Unfortunately we weren't able to pick up any speed due to the constant rocks (which, ironically, had not been present in the pass). Fortunately around 10:30 or so the monotony was broken up by another shorter pass and what was almost certainly the strangest moment of the race.
We were running another narrow pass with steep sides and hard corners. I called them out as best i could based on the GPS and what I saw ahead of us. "Left 90, right 90, left 90, right 90, COW!!!! right 90..." We had rounded a blind right hander and there on the left edge of the course was a huge longhorn steer, his front legs actually on the course. As we passed we could see him stare at us, watching us go by with that "bored cow" look on his face, as if he didn't care about the truck passing two feet away from his head. Jim was cracking up in the driver's seat, laughing like a madman. "What?" I asked. "When did we get to Baja?" he replied. This got both of us laughing.
We cleared the cow and a road crossing and reached pit 8 sometime around 11 PM. This was our final stop and from here out we were on our own. It was a long 53 mile stretch to the finish, so the crew was thorough, making sure everything was set to go to the finish. The truck was starting to show some wear. It had been stalling out whenever Jim had to really get on the brakes. The voltage was down to the point where we ran with as many electronics off as possible, which included the gauge lights, the fans whenever possible, and even one of the two sets of lights on the front bumper during the faster, clearer sections. On top of this the water temp had been running between 240 and 255 throughout the entire shift (a change from the day before when it had been the tranny temp that was through the roof). Despite all this the crew was confident we could make it and they sent us out into the night one last time.
It was more rough going. Rocks. Washouts. Silt beds. Jim ran it careful but fast. We caught a buggy and another couple trucks (and ourselves got caught by a UTV, embarrassingly). Midnight came and went as we approached the finish. I wasn't in nearly as much pain, but all the same after 5 hours in the truck I was starting to get stiff. I wanted to get out, at least long enough to stretch my legs (a luxury that had been provided to me during day 1 thanks to the tire issues). I was counting down the miles. Less than 20 to go...
At race mile 690, we came across an insane sight. A massive field of boulders. Rocks littered the ground, some as big as five feet in diameter. Sitting in the middle of this mess, resting on one of these large boulders was a 7200 truck. The fiberglass was gone from both the front and rear and at first it looked like even some of the front suspension was gone. One of the drivers was laying on the back of the truck. The truck looked so bad that we actually stopped to ask if they were injured.
Fortunately they were ok and we moved past them. That's when we discovered there wasn't one stuck truck, but four. It was a graveyard. Trophy truck. Class 7200. Class 1100. Even a class 2000 that had rolled over trying to escape the rocky minefield. We made it through the field to the exit, a steep silt covered hill which seemed to exude menace. Jim stopped at the bottom of the hill and shifted the truck into low range before attempting to scale it. I could feel the eyes of all the stuck drivers on us, watching to see if we would become one of them. Even though it was a short hill, less than 200 feet, it felt like it took forever (and, seeing as we were doing about 1 mph tops, it kinda did). A few times I could feel the truck slide backwards as the silt shifted beneath the wheels, but finally we cleared the hill. Jim let out a yell, mentioned how awesome it was to have low range, and we descended out of the mountains into Hawthorne. After that hill, the final 9 miles felt like cake.
Just before the finish we caught up with truck 7330, one of the competitors in our class. 7330 had accidentally short cut the course, missing a full 33 miles between pits 4 and 5. To catch up to them even after this short cut was a huge thrill. Between scaling the impossible hill and passing 7330, we crossed the line around 12:30 AM feeling exhausted but elated. I once again joined the scouts for some gas station dinner before pitching tents again and going to sleep, with the lights of the Voss team's welders flickering off the canvas.
Day 3 course map. Click Here to see a larger version of the map.
Day 3 was my chance to finally start first shift in the truck. I'd imagined what it was like to see that light turn green and blast through that Red Bull arch, surrounded by the competition before they have a chance to spread out. Now I would finally find out. Jose and I got into the truck in the impound area, a small oval dirt racetrack. Trucks were already being lined up by BITD officials. We got the RGR Ranger started up and joined the queue.
It was a long drive from impound to the start. Being in the slow moving parade of trucks made it feel longer. We passed some of the military ammo depots, crossing over numerous sets of railroad tracks. Finally, we were within sight of the arch. Now it was a waiting game. We sat patiently as the 80 or so trucks ahead of us went off the line, 30 seconds at a time. Desert racing chaplain Steve Hansen, known to most as either "Chappy" or "Padre Steve" was doing pre-race prayer sessions with all the teams. He came up to our truck and he said a prayer to keep us safe in the race. I thought this was very cool.
We continued to near the start line. Five cars ahead of us. Four. Three. Two. One. Finally it was our time. Jose pulled us up to the line. BITD president Casey Folks leaned in briefly to wish us luck. I was eyes on the lights. Waiting for them to go from red to green. The 30 seconds felt like it took 30 minutes. I didn't want to blink. I didn't want to miss it.
"Green! Go! Go! Go!"
Jose gassed it. We rolled off the line and into one of the most evil silt beds ever. This was true silt. Dry quicksand. The stuff that will rob all your power and bury you the moment you make the mistake of failing to respect it. It was so bad that after just two miles Jose was convinced we were riding on a flat tire. He sent me out to look. I circled the truck twice. No flats. No suspension damage. I got back in the truck telling Jose there was nothing wrong. We rejoined the silt, dropping into the blinding dust of a buggy that had just passed.
Jose gave it all he could but in that silt there was just no power to be had. The truck struggled hard, trying to move itself through the mess. We rounded the hard left hander at mile 706, went maybe 200 yards, and then BOOM! A metallic explosion came from the engine. I could see the needles on the gauges in front of me drop. Jose pulled it off to the side and we got out.
We didn't even need to look at the truck to tell something had gone catastrophically wrong. The 500 yard trail of oil in the dust made it clear. We had broken and broken bad. A look underneath confirmed it. There was a huge hole in the oil pan. This time it really was over.
Jose radioed the support crew, who radioed the BITD officials. They told us we would have to wait until all the cars were off the line before anyone could go out and get us. They estimated it would be an hour at least. An hour in the hot desert sun sitting next to a dead race truck. I wanted to know what it was like being a racer and I was getting the full experience.
Time passed about as quickly as you'd expect in those circumstances. Before too long the last race truck had come and gone. But we were told they couldn't send anyone out to get us yet because there might be a race truck or two leaving the line late, depending on if they got the trucks working. I passed the time by following our oil trail and thinking about the past few days and the roller coaster ride it had been. Finally, after what seemed like forever we were told there was a truck coming to get us.
The truck was a brand new, stock looking white Best In The Desert Ford F-150. The official attached a tow strap from his truck to ours and began pulling. His truck hung up on a mound of dirt. The driver responded by giving it some gas. Jose and I moaned as we watched the tires dig the truck straight down in the soft silt, all the way until the official finally had it buried up to the bottom of the doors. Now we were both stuck out there.
It took another 10-15 minutes for another truck to arrive. This time it was a massive bright orange Chevy Blazer with some obvious extra horsepower under the hood. It pulled the stock Ford out of the silt no problem, then proceeded to hook up to the dead Ranger. The Blazer towed us to the left turn at mile 706, where one of the RGR chase trucks was waiting. It pulled us up to the highway and the waiting trailer. The battered and broken race Ranger was put on the trailer. The race was officially over.
Two stuck trucks and an orange Blazer. Shot from the highway over 1/2 mile away. Even from here you can tell how buried the white truck is.
The race ends a bit earlier than expected
The oil-soaked undercarriage
After loading up the truck, we all went to the town of Mina for some food and milkshakes. Mina only has one "restaurant" and it's basically a burger shack with outdoor seating only and a sign above the order window that says "NOT FAST FOOD" (and trust me. That sign doesn't lie). It was a relaxing meal and it gave me time to think about all that had happened. The past three days had been chaos. 115° days. 40° nights. Blinding dust. Silt. Scary cliffs. Flat tires. Silt. Blown motors. Mountains. Silt. Valleys. Passing cars. Being passed by cars. Cows. Silt. Rocks. Exhaustion. Fatigue. Pain. And silt. My firesuit was a different color from when I started. Hell, I was a different color from when I started. I had dirt in my shoes. I had dirt in my hair. I had dirt in my eyes, my ears, my nose, my underwear. It had been an indescribable adventure. Three days. 706 miles. A million stories. And the adventure of a lifetime. No words can describe what it's like in that truck. The incredible scenery. The demands on one's body and mind. The concentration. The anticipation of the start. The joy of a finish. It was like nothing I've ever experienced. And I can't wait to experience it all again.
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