A Great Race Weekend at Vegas to Reno

A Great Race Weekend at Vegas to Reno

Greetings to all,

As many of you might know, I had the honor of racing this past weekend at the Best in the Desert Vegas to Reno race – the longest point-to-point desert race in the United States. The opportunity came along thanks to my friends Greg Foutz from Foutz Motorsports and Dave Winner from Fabtech, and it was one of the most fun, and more rewarding times I’ve had behind the wheel in years.

Dave and I co-drove a specially prepared Ford F250 in the Stock Full category, a second team entry for the Foutz team that was supported by Fabtech, BFGoodrich, Ford Motorsports, Dirt Sports magazine and a host of other team supporters. Greg co-drove his truck with guest driver P.J. Jones, the son of racing legend Parnelli Jones. In my 16 years of competing in off-road, I have rarely been around a team and a race effort as organized and committed to winning as the Foutz team; a fact that was made clear on race day.

Dave started the race in Tonapah, Nevada second off the line in a class of 10 trucks. Greg started behind him, but quickly put his Ford in first place. Dave was also making up great time before a flat set him back aways, but he also quickly made up that time. By the driver change half-way through the race, Greg handed the truck over to PJ in first place despite rolling the truck over. In second only minutes back came Chad Hall in a Hummer, then about 10 minutes behind that came Dave in third. Having only 15 minutes of driving time in practice made me a bit nervous, but about 10 miles in my co-driver Tim (one of the best I’ve ever had) assured me that the pace was just fine to keep up. Certainly, driving one of the big beasts takes a totally different approach than what I’m used to, but driving a truck for the first time in my racing career was really fun nonetheless.

As day turned to night we kept at it, but a mistake on our parts caused the big Ford to get stuck for just over an hour. It took a big effort to get it out, but ET and I managed to do it without anyone in our class passing us. At this point, PJ was still leading but then got stuck too at race mile 500, turning over the lead to Chad Hall. Unfortunately, we got stuck there too. PJ and I both got out (at different times) and he managed to finish in second spot. I got out, had to nurse an overheating transmission, but ended up third in class.

Certainly, it was great finishing a desert race again after the last two efforts that resulted in a broken back and then a blown engine. My sincere thanks to Greg Foutz, Dave Winner, ET, PJ Jones, BFGoodrich and the entire Foutz team for making it all happen. It was a truly great ride.

Best,
Marty Fiolka