Category: Xtreme Outlaws 250

Dogg and Ginger and me taking morning coffee on their patio.

All of us with Desert Dingo Racing want to extend our sincerest thanks to Dogg and Ginger for allowing us to invade their lives for five days during the Xtreme Outlaws 250 in Reno this past weekend.

We started showing up around midnight Wednesday and finally departed midday Sunday. In the interim, we took over their driveway, their garage, their basement, most of their parking, their washer and dryer, both bathrooms, their internets, their refrigerator and their patio. I also waylaid their 12-year-old cat Spike. I may have also listed their house as Desert Dingo Racing Reno HQ on FourSquare. And Ginger chauffeured me all over Sparks for trips to the grocery store, bank, gas station and an auto parts store.

Thank you both, again. And if anyone is in the Reno/Sparks area, I highly recommend Dogg’s french press coffee.

We’re 1107. Petfinder is 1106. The Green Booger is 1112 If you want to see real speed, follow Roger Norman’s No. 8 Trophy Truck.

VORRA is testing SPOT trackers for second time with this race. They’re a heck of a lot cheaper that what other race bodies have been using and the technology is a generation or two more advanced. You’ll be able to follow us via this map page.

Thanks to Mats Jansson of Trackme360.com for getting us configured properly for the race. Our unit will go live around 6 a.m. Saturday.

While it may be counter-intuitive, its better to break down during the pre-run, since it’s preferable to discover a problem before the actual race.

Pre-ran the Xtreme Outlaws 250 course with Crusty at the wheel. iPhone battery died part way in so here’s my report: Brutal. After 10 hours of sleep, I still feel like I’ve been in an MMA cage match, but my lungs don’t feel like they’ve been scraped with sandpaper, the headache’s mostly gone and my eyes look more like the day after a serious bender instead of yesterday when people said I looked like Darth Maul.

Today’s a light day. Tech from noon to five and a party tonight at the Grand Sierra Resort. We’ll tweak 1107 but for all intents and purposes the car is ready to go.

Here’s a recap of yesterday:

That’s us on the right. Notice how clean 1107 is.

Everyone gathered in the overflow parking lot of the Wild Horses Adult Spa & Resort (formerly the Mustang Ranch). Our planned 7 a.m. departure took off right on time around 8 a.m. Within about four minutes we were stuck in silt and some Good Samaritans in a Hummer H1 pulled us out. Crusty made a solo run to the top, made it, I humped it up the hill, buckled in and we were on our way.

This is a course – designed by Baja Legend Rod Hall – of cattle roads, goat trails and utility roads – all embedded with every type and size of rock on God’s green earth. There’s some great rally car-style two lane gravel stuff (with a steep cliff on one side) and few miles of actual paved road that took us into Virginia City.

This is us pre-running with the big dogs.

The biggest challenge for us on the pre-run is that we could get through a lot of the technical stuff faster than some of the folks who brought their stock trucks mainly because 1. We’re lighter and B. if we break something, it’s a lot cheaper to fix than it would be for them, so we take more chances. Where we ran into the most problems was getting stuck on a climb behind another vehicle, losing momentum and stalling. That means I have to lighten the car by 200 pounds, by getting out of it, getting next to the car and pushing. All this happens between 4,000 and 7,000 feet above sea level.

This course has a lot of loose shale on hill climbs (slippery), volcanic rock embedded in cattle roads (puncture-y) and some of the most beautiful scenery to be found anywhere, including herds of long-horn cattle, all manner of wildflowers and wild horses that don’t give you the time of day. I’d have more photos, but my iPhone battery has the lifespan of a fruit fly.

So we’re bombing along and I’m thinking “This is about as far from civilization as you can get,” we clear a rise and here’s this gigantic, vacant distribution center like something out of the X-Files, which never made any sense to me.

VORRA, the race organizers, arranged a great BBQ lunch for us in Virginia City and we headed out to finish the last 40 miles. I only had to yell at a Crusty a few times “WE’RE NOT RACING” but sometimes things just happen, like when we saw the Petfinder.com 1106 being towed up the last long climb and we thought we had a shot at catching him. With a mile to go, we were on his bumper and honking. Then his carburetor conked out and he pulled over. We told them we’d alert their pit crew. In the mean time another Samaritan with a tow rope came by, hooked up and nearly tore their front bumper off. Good times. We’ll be loaning them our welder.

I should have tracking data up shortly and photos of tech and contingency later today. Racing starts tomorrow around 8 a.m. I’ll be co-driving both laps and incommunicado for the duration.

Lastly, I wanted to say thanks to Ginger and Dogg for allowing us to take over their home in Reno and turn it into our remote workshop and crash pad.

This should be a walk in the (industrial) park. Also, I lied about the last post being the last one before we leave. This one is.

Sometime around midnight VORRA released the GPS file for the Xtreme Outlaws 250 course. Took about 10 minutes of futzing to get it over to a .kml file and loaded into Google Earth. We take off from the parking lot of a local resort and spa and head up to Virginia City and back. A combination of fast and rocky with a few 200 foot cliffs thrown in to remind us of our humanity. Here’s the .kml file if you’re of a mind to fly the course.

As much as I’d like to trade paint with Baja Legend Rod Hall, he’s driving James Garner’s Baja 1000 442 and that would be blasphemy. Now any given H3, on the other hand…

Typically a few days before a race, the organizers release a GPS file compatible with Lowrance GPS units that pretty much all the teams plug into their in-car units to guide them around the course. I turn it into a .kml file and load it into a Dell Mini and run it on a continuous loop on my desk next to my work Mac. Depending on the length of the course, I set the speed at 250-300 mph so you can complete a loop in about 10 minutes, since I have the attention span of a fruit fly.

This being the inaugural off road race of the Xtreme Outlaws 250, it’s expected things take longer than for established courses, so you take course info wherever you can get it.

So I’ve collected posts from the VORRA forums and a particular Facebook page with info on what the course will be like, including live updates from one of the VORRA organizers who I think was capturing the GPS data for the race.

Here we go…

Race Course is loop, 95 miles long! Total race miles will be 95+95+80= 270 miles. or 95+80+95= 270 miles. Yes we have some fun stuff for you. There is a 15 mile loop that you can cut out on one of your three laps. Everyone has to do the full course for your first lap but you can cut out the 15 mile loop on your second or third lap. Should be great fun for everyone. GPS and course maps will be posted soon. And Yes I know you have heard that before.

You will need lots of spare tires for this course, the most rocks I have ever seen!!! Cliff!! Did I tell you about the goat trails?!?! Please Please Please be on your A game on race day!!! And make the Pre Run. No extra wide trucks on the Pre Run. And Albert said if you are riding a quad on the Pre Run you need to make sure you have a very good skid plate, LOTS of ROCKS!!!! and “Goat Trails!!!”

There is a nice little drag strip at RM1. Could be great to watch!

First 4 miles very fast stuff. High speed!!!!

RM 4 starts the ROCKS!!!!

RM10.5 BIG ditch!

We made it to the bow tie. Aka Pro Pit / Check 1.

RM30 COWS!!!! Lots of them many with BIG horns. It the watering hole so I’m sure they will still be here.

So beautiful back here!!! RM32

RM34 starts the serious goat trails!

RM35 more cows!

RM45 its all good! The flowers are great!

RM48 its been 100% rocks and more down arrows and red X’s then I can count!!!!

Made it to VC (Virginia City) RM55. Having lunch now.

Ok so now that I can breath again, I am adding a change of shorts to the list of things to bring with you in the car! OMG “The Summit” is OMG! Crazy!! 4 black diamond run!!!

RM60 super narrow, tight turns, and lots of rocks! O’ya and you’re on a goat trail!

RM65 running low on supplies but still moving.

Aaahhh. the worst is yet to come!!!

Check pt. 4 RM 75 sun is going down. 20 more miles

We made it to Lockwood. We will have to finish tomorrow. RM76 to 79 super fast down hill, very narrow, with tons of switch backs, 200 ft cliff one side, mt on other. You are going to need to watch yourself and not get comfortable with it. You will put yourself in a world of hurt!

You know we are going to have to set some rules for the vehicles that can go out on the pre run. If you don’t have at least 18 (inches) of ground clearance forget it. If it can’t handle very steep washouts with rocks all over and I mean BIG rocks. And the summit is almost F’ing straight down with switchbacks and very tight turns. I was in low and both feet … See More on the brakes and I could not stop if I wanted too. This is no Sunday drive in your 4wd vehicle, this has some very serious shit and if someone is careless people will get hurt!