Pre-Race Report // Lone Kid Racing - Vegas 2 Reno

[JoeyD23]

With summer in full swing, the Lone Kid Racing Team has been preparing for the longest off road race in the United States, The BITD TSCO
Vegas to Reno.

We have added two drivers to the line up this year. Being it is a 552mile race the team wants to be fresh and alert. The race will kick off this Friday morning just south of Beatty, NV at sunrise, a very early start for the UTV class as is the case in most BITD races. The race will throw in a ton of challenges including large silt beds,technical mountain roads, washes, long dry lake beds, elevation changes, and HEAT!

To help us compete this year we have brought in Rusty Baptist, a veteran around the UTV industry who will be starting the race. We have also added Nick Dempkowski, a class 12 veteran who will be taking the middle section. Team owner and manager Lucas Hand will be doing the final leg of the race.

Race festivities kick off for the team on Wednesday night at Hussong's Cantina in the Mandalay Bay resort for a fundraiser which will benefit FAST-aid (FAST-Aid - Fast-Aid - Racer's Helping Racer's). Jim Holthus and his TORR radio show will also be broadcasting LIVE (torrshow.com) so please listen in at 6pm Wednesday night. You can find us Thursday morning at the Aliante Station casino for technical inspection and contingency. We will have
the Lone Kid Racing John Deere 825i Gator on display at the GBC Motorsports trailer. Make sure to stop by, say hello and check out the John Deere Gator and all of our sponsors products which we have applied to the race UTV.

We start the race at sunrise on Friday morning where unfortunately we drew the last spot in our class forcing us to be last off the line. We are really hoping the race will come to us as the day goes on. We have three chase trucks helping us navigate all the way to the finish. We will be going through some of the old west's mining towns such as Goldfeild, Gabbs, and Tonopah. From there the course takes taking us all the way up to Dayton, NV just outside of Reno for the finish.

We look forward to seeing you all at the finish line!!!


Lone Kid Racing would like to thank all of our awesome sponsors which without them none of this would be possible:

John Deere, FOX Racing Shox, GBC Motorsports, Rigid Industries, MSD Ignition,Ringers Gloves, Elite MFG, Dirtbagz, UTVUnderground.com, Lone
Kid Racing, Fast-aid.org, Simpson, Lucas oil, Greg's Fab Yard, OffRoadPress.com Overrevv Industries Azunia Tequila​

 

[staggs]

good luck guys

 

[Ignore Amos]

Nice write up guys!!!

Depending what time we get into Vegas.. love to stop by the Hussongs gig...but will have to take it easy on the cerveza's and margaritas! We hope to have more than our fair share of those in Reno!

look forward to seeing you all at contingency!

 

[dmurray]

Congrats on the great starting position. Our starting spot is just about as good as yours, second from last. No where to go but up! Good luck with the race! Its a long one. See you out there.

 

[brevndeb]

Good luck guys and drawing last is not that bad just find a nice pace and let everyone brake in front of ya..............And have FUN! Wish I was going.............

 

[Rusty5150]

Well what can I say. We tried really hard to finish this race but it was not in the cards for us.

I started and was scheduled to drive 300 miles in the 1913 John Deere Gator. This would be my 1st time racing any form of motor sports. I have chased all over baja but I have never been in the driver seat. I did not get any seat time in the car before staging at the start line. I had also never met my co-driver Frankie but Lucas assured me he was the man for the job.

So about 7 miles into the race is where our trouble started. The gauges said the car was running hot. So we pulled over and let it cool down. Once we where going again the car would continue overheat. So we limped it into to pit 1. Lucas told me to just run it and don't pay attention to the stock gauge. So we left pit 1 and made great time to pit 2. We got a splash of fuel and they sent us off to pit 3. About 10 miles after pit 3 the car died. It was acting like it was running out of fuel. So we pulled over and replaced the fuel filter. Within 3 miles same problem. This time we pulled the filter off the vent tube. We died again just before the 1st checkpoint and knowing the trucks and buggies were less than 5 miles behind us we had to act fast. Luckily a very nice Hummer pulled up behind us and towed us up the hill. We pulled every fuel connection apart, we replaced the fuel filter on the return line, we checked the vent tube to make it was not pinched and we could not find anything that would cause this problem. Once we had the car running again we decided to push on so for the next 50 miles we had to stop every 3 miles and purge the fuel system all while 800 HP trucks went flying past us. My poor co-dawg had to get out of the car about 15 times before pit 3.

Once arriving to pit 3 we turned the car over to Nick and Chip. We replaced the fuel pump and a bad connection to the pump switch. They left under their own power and within 4 miles they would encounter the same problems. For the next 8 hours they would battle mechanical issue's and a beaten race course just to go 51 miles. With zero radio contact we sat at pit 4 waiting for any sign of our race car. The silt beds were torn up from the big trucks and cars. They had managed to limp the car all the way to the massive silt bed at RM 151 where they would get stuck and end the race. The BITD official closed pit 4 and then went to recover our race car.

Even after a brutal day of racing our team is still proud to say we never gave up. We were going to continue 3 miles at a time until a pit closure stopped us from going any further.

I want to give a huge thank you to all the people that helped make this happen for me.


747INK.COM
Black Rhino Performance
George Plumbing Company
4130 Clothing
Hydro Zen
Off Road Warehouse
UTVUNDERGROUND.COM

 

[Rusty5150]

A couple of pics from the race.

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