Crew 35 Plans for 2010

We were so sure we'd have the truck at the 2009 Vegas to Reno that we even sent in our registration fee to Best In The Desert. Failing to make the race hurt like you wouldn't believe. Even worse, we also lost our chief fabricator/desert racing expert. While it's relatively easy to find a new desert guru in the southwest, such experts are few and far between here. Losing him made things tough and, for all practical purposes, put the build on hold. We also lost some of our scouts. Put all this together and as a result we found ourselves in a sort of rebuild phase. We had to take a step back, regroup, and restrategize.

Finally, after much work and much contemplation, we decided upon a schedule for the 2010 season. For those unaware, 2010 is the 100th anniversary of the Boy Scouts of America. As part of the 2010 celebration, the BSA is holding a centennial jamboree this summer that is sure to be like no other jamboree in history. Tens of thousands of scouts, countless thousands of visitors. This will be massive. Naturally, there's no way we could pass something like this up. After all, it's not like we can just wait and go to the next centennial jam.

Unfortunately, by going to Jamboree we have to sit out the 2010 Vegas to Reno. This was a painful and difficult decision to race. We said we could do this. We said we would do this. We want to prove we're more than just talk. So this decision was a difficult one. But it had to be made. Most of our kids can't afford to go to both Jamboree and V2R in the same year, the funds just aren't there. And the same goes for the Crew itself.

So when will the truck race? The answer is 2011. We've worked hard to get there, and we're saying definitively that '11 will be the year we race. The plan at present is to race the 2011 Vegas to Reno race. However, we've heard Best In The Desert racing series has a special race planned for 2011. They're saying it will be big and unlike any other race inside the U.S. As we've already proven, we like big and we like different. So depending on just what this race is and what time of the year it is (it needs to coincide with Crew members' school schedules), we may choose that race instead. But Venture Crew 35 WILL run one of these two Best In The Desert series races in 2011.

Plans for the truck: We will have the truck at least driving properly by late fall at the latest. Once it's driving we will use all available time to fine tune it and make it as good as possible. Shock valving, engine/suspension tweaking, finding weak spots and strengthening them, etc. We're only running one race in 2011 so we want to maximize our chances of finishing and (dare we say it?) winning. So we'll put as many miles and hours of testing into it as we can. In addition, we will take advantage of every available opportunity to show off the truck. This includes car shows, parades, and The Big E, a 16 day long fair that brings in over a million visitors every year (the 2009 attendance was 1,260,487, an average of 79 thousand people every day).

We may not be racing the Crew 35 truck in 2010, but that doesn't mean we won't be at the races this year. We will be attending select races and motorsports events here in the northeast, primarily as spectators. The Crew is currently discussing and voting on some of our races, but we can announce for certain that we will be at the Rally America New England Forest Rally in Maine and the AMA Motocross race in Southwick, MA.

Those are the plans for Crew 35. We're excited for what is to come and look forward to Jambo this year and racing next year. We would like to thank all our sponsors and supporters who have stuck with us and helped us get where we are now, without you we would have never gotten beyond the "dream" phase; BFGoodrich, Aero-Tech Services, American Racing Wheels, MasterCraft Seats, Schroth Racing, HMS Motorsport, Bilstein Shocks, HalRay Synthetics/AMSOIL, the Dezert People Video Series, K&N Filters, Frozen Rotors, Speedway Expo, Speedlox, Longacre, Rory's Off Road, Clayton Off Road, and last, but certainly not least, all the incredible people at Race-Dezert.com. Thank you all!






2010 EVENT SCHEDULE (Confirmed Events in Black. Possible Events in Red. More Events to Come):

May 8, 2010: Team O'Neil Rally, Dalton, NH
May 15, 2010: World's Largest Pancake Breakfast, Springfield, MA
May 21-23, 2010: Western Mass Council BSA Adventure 2010, Amherst, MA
June 19-20, 2010: Burke Mtn Hillclimb, East Burke, VT
July 15-17, 2010: Rally America New England Forest Rally, Bethel, ME
July 26-August 4, 2010: Boy Scout National Jamboree, Fort A.P. Hill, VA
August 28, 2010: AMA Motocross Southwick, Southwick, MA
September 17-October 3, 2010: The Big E, West Springfield, MA
October 16-17, 2010: Mt Philo Hillclimb, Charlotte, VT