A "Terrible" weekend

Well, I had every intention of riding my motorcycle from Las Vegas to Portland this weekend... but after talking with Jim & Mark of Bi-Polar Racing (they had just driven the same route a couple days earlier) I decided not to ride it. They said it snowed on them through a couple of the passes and that the wind was really nasty. I hadn't thought about the wind factor. The good news was, Jim and Mark live in Vancouver, WA and had plenty of room in their trailer for my bike. And, they offered to take it home for free. The decision was pretty simple at that point to let them take it back and for me to use my FREE ticket (THANKS JERSEY!) and fly back home.

The rest of the weekend was KILLER though! Dragonfire was racing their Class 1 car in the "Terrible 250". I flew in to Las Vegas Friday morning and hitched a ride to Primm, NV (which is in the middle of nowhere, in case you wanted to know). The shuttle dropped me off and I was told to just go behind Buffalo Bill's Casino and find the car. As I walked behind the casino, there hundreds and hundreds of cars and trailers and people everywhere. I was supposed to find the Dragonfire car in the maze of Contingency. But, as luck would have it, they were RIGHT in front of where I walked out. The car was just getting ready to head into Contingency - so Todd told me to jump in and steer the race car. A few people asked me if I was racing - kind of funny. And then they let me drive the Teryx for a bit too (once I figured out how to start it). The Teryx is REALLY fun to drive!


The entire day was spent going through Contingency and then heading back to camp to get the car prepared for the race. After we (and by "we" I mean Darren and Jack) got the car ready, Jack and I went over to Buffalo Bill's to ride the roller coaster. I screamed the entire time - Jack said I was yelling incoherent jibber jabber. Afterwards, my cheeks hurt from laughing so hard. His hurt from laughing at me the whole time. We got back to camp and everyone was pretty tired from the day, so we called it an early night, eagerly anticipating race day.

There were 2 races taking place on Saturday - one that started at 5:30 am and then us starting at noon. So, at about 5:00 am, we were all woken up to the cars and trucks getting ready for the early morning race. These things were LOUD... and, we were parked at the staging area. I finally rolled out of the trailer around 7:00 am, and had a front row seat as the cars came through the pits all morning long (and by front row, I mean they were about 10 feet away). Hans arrived with my bike at about 10 am - so we just unloaded it and stored it in the trailer until the Bi-Polar guys could take it back to Oregon (THANKS HANS and THANKS JIM!!).

Around 11 am, we all headed out to our pits while Todd and Jack made their way to the staging area. I was with Hans at Pit #1. We pulled in, set up the flag just in time for the 1st place Trophy Truck and Class 1 car to come FLYING by us at mach speed. It was super loud and super dusty. Dragonfire came by about 25 minutes later (they had a staggered start), but they didn't need anything, so they didn't even slow down. 2nd lap was the same. Finally, on lap #3, they had blown a tire about 15 miles from us, so when they came in, Hans had to change the spare out and I had to get Todd's intercom working again. They were only stopped for like 3 minutes, but it was enough to get our heart pounding.

We packed up our pit and headed back to camp just in time to see Jack and Todd pull in to camp. They finished strong and I think they ended up 7th overall. Needless to say, I was impressed. To see these cars and trucks up close, going 100 mph is friggin RAD!

So, even though my whole goal for the weekend was to ride my motorcycle back to Portland and I didn't do it, I still had a great time. I really enjoy this desert racing scene and hope to be able to do more in the future. Everyone was so nice and it just seems like they're all there to help each other out. Just a great group of people.

ps - this was our sweet set up for the weekend.

I have a bunch more pics from the weekend:  Terrible's 250 - Dragonfire Racing