Vildosola racing race report BITD Vegas To Reno 2007

Vildosola Racing wins third consecutive Vegas to Reno
Mexicali B.C. August 26, 2007 for immediate release

On Friday August 24 the 11th annual Best in the Desert Vegas to Reno was scheduled to take on the Nevada desert and embark on a 560-mile journey from Johnny to Reno. The morning started in Pahrump where a record number of four wheeled vehicle entries paraded to Johnny, the official start line of the race. The first vehicle left the line at 10:30 am sharp, 40 minutes later the team’s Toyota Tundra Baja Protruck #1204 took on the challenge of the longest off-road race in the United States.

Vildosola Racings’ Protruck #1204 started 9th out of 11 Protruck entries behind Trick Trucks, class 1’s and class 10’s. Tavo Vildosola stared the race for the third year in a row and was hopeful to yield the same results as the previous two had, a win. “Last year I started the race and struggled a lot with the dust because we started in the back of the field, but we hung in there and waited for almost 300 miles to take the lead. From that point Bryan got in the truck and took it to the finish line for the victory. The plan was the same for this year, start and just hang out until it was our turn to lead and hand the truck to Bryan in first place,” stated Tavo. “The plan worked to perfection, we took an early lead, being able to get by all of our competitors before pit #2 at race mile 50. We had a good clean run with no down time to the driver change at Big Smokey pit #9, the truck kept overheating and we had to back down a little but that probably helped slow the pace and make the truck live.”

Once Bryan got in the truck a couple of problems started to surface, the overheating was still an issue and Bryan had to deal with it until the sun went down and the air cooled a little. But at pit #11 the transmission started slipping in 3rd gear and then at pit #12 while refueling the race truck the brakes caught on fire, then it spread when the fuel was being put in the truck and we had to evacuate the race truck and lost more than 7 minutes. “It was very scary, we are used to the brakes catching fire but it had never spread like it did this time, Steve Lewis, a member of the team, pulled Javi and I out of the race truck when he noticed this was more severe than a brake fire,” stated Bryan. “From that point forward I was very easy on the brakes and had to baby the transmission for the last 150 miles to the finish line, Javi also kept adding tranny fluid at every pit. But once again we are the first Protruck across the finish line for the third year in a row, the last 2 years our margin of victory was 2 minutes over 2nd place respectively, this year we had a comfortable lead beating Staats by over 14 minutes.”

The next race for the team is the CODE Tecate Mexicana Logistics 300, in Mexicali, B.C. the 28 - 30 of September, Protruck #200 will not participate, only Trophy Truck #4 will be racing that weekend. After that the team will prepare for the 40th anniversary running of the Baja 1000, both trucks will be participating that event with a similar plan to that of the Baja 500 where Tavo will start in the #4 then hand over driving duties to Gus and wait for #200 and take it to the finish in hopes of locking down their second consecutive Protruck Championship.

Vildosola Racing is sponsored by: Mexicana Logistics, Aguilas del Desierto, BFGoodrich Tires, Mastercraft, MSD, King Racing Shocks, Papas & Beer, PIAA Lights, OGIO, MOMO and Toyota Racing Development.

To check out pictures, videos, previous press releases, the teams’ progress in 2007 and other information go to www.vildosolaracing.com or the youtube site at www.youtube.com/vildosolaracing
For additional info on Vildosola Racing contact:
Media Relations- Victor Gasca - vgazca@vildosolaracing.com (619) 805-8444, Mex (686) 119-5618

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eFBJWBw8nU