Crowdog
07-12-2002, 02:22 PM
Desert racers pursue their passion in Nevada
JEFF WOLF, Las Vegas Review-Journal
Wednesday, July 10, 2002
©2002 Associated Press
URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2002/07/10/state1626EDT7050.DTL
(07-10) 13:26 PDT LAS VEGAS (AP) --
Gravel roads and deep-rutted paths in the sun-baked wilderness might be a daunting landscape to most people, but desert racers find the environment alluring.
Their challenge is not only to conquer rugged terrain and unrelenting summer heat in a variety of vehicles but to do it faster than anyone else.
More than 50 years ago, the popularity of racing World War II-era surplus jeeps began in California and quickly spread to Arizona and Nevada because of their plentiful desert and desolate landscapes.
Today, because of population growth and environmental restrictions, no major four-wheel races are held in California and only one takes place in Arizona. Nevada, meanwhile, has become a hotbed of desert racing.
The Los Angeles-based SCORE International, the nation's oldest major desert racing organization, will hold three of its six annual events in Nevada this year. The newest race, on Saturday, is a joint venture with the Henderson Convention Center and Visitors Bureau, and Terrible Herbst Oil Co. of Southern Nevada.
The start-finish line for the inaugural SCORE Henderson's Terrible 250 will be in the city of Henderson near Las Vegas. The fastest racers are expected to complete five laps of the 50.22-mile course in less than five hours. The race, which will award nearly $500,000 in cash and product bonuses, is expected to attract about 200 teams.
No pavement is needed for these racing machines, which include motorcycles, all-terrain vehicles, desert buggies and $300,000 custom-built trucks with engines that produce more than 750 horsepower.
As residential and commercial developments have started to encroach on the vast expanse of southern Nevada, Sal Fish, chief executive of SCORE, has seen bureaucracy nearly overcome logistics as the biggest hurdle to putting on a desert race.
Time is limited for a desert course near Primm, Nev., near the California state line. The land off Interstate 15 is used for major events organized by SCORE and the Best in the Desert series, which has scheduled eight races in the state this year.
But the course is on the Jean dry lake bed south of Las Vegas where a regional cargo airport is to be built by the end of the decade. The project will wipe out the site for about a half-dozen races that use existing paths and service roads.
"The big challenge in the last 15 years has been the population expansion that is encroaching on traditional race course areas," said Bob Bruno, outdoor recreation planner in the Las Vegas office of the Bureau of Land Management since 1979.
The BLM manages nearly 48 million acres of public land in Nevada -- 67 percent of the state's total land area. Only 9 million acres are closed to all vehicular use, with an additional 812,000 acres offering limited access.
But "open" and "limited" don't mean anything goes. The BLM is mindful of the desert's fragile nature, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issues mandatory guidelines for land management that the BLM enforces.
Race organizers also must account for rising expenses. The price of a permit is about $200, but charges for security, course monitoring and post-race inspections add to the cost. And for large events, organizers can face an additional charge of up to $15,000 to cover the cost of BLM personnel.
But the biggest obstacle to the sport since the energy crisis in the mid-'70s has been coexisting with environmental groups.
Meet Gopherus agassizii, the desert tortoise. The habitat for the 8- to 15-pound creatures that can live 100 years is in the Mojave and Sonoran deserts of southeastern California, southern Nevada and south through Arizona into Mexico.
About 12 years ago, the desert tortoise was declared a threatened species. A conflict arose when desert race courses were deemed a threat to the tortoise's habitat.
Many environmentalists believe that because the desert tortoise has been around since the age of dinosaurs, the species should have squatter's rights to the land.
Leana Hildebrand, conservation organizer and coordinator of urban issues for the Sierra Club's Toiyabe Chapter of Southern Nevada, said, "I've seen this city grow and I can understand the wide-open spaces and the beauty of the desert, but I have issues with how it's enjoyed and how it's appreciated."
"We have a finite number of creatures, and once they're gone, they're gone," she said.
Bruno said race organizers working with the BLM have protected desert tortoise habitats.
Fish acknowledges that he and other off-road racers have changed their thinking about protecting the desert in the past 30 years, thanks in part to BLM rules that weren't always well-received.
"The changes have made for better and safer races," he said.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
JEFF WOLF, Las Vegas Review-Journal
Wednesday, July 10, 2002
©2002 Associated Press
URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2002/07/10/state1626EDT7050.DTL
(07-10) 13:26 PDT LAS VEGAS (AP) --
Gravel roads and deep-rutted paths in the sun-baked wilderness might be a daunting landscape to most people, but desert racers find the environment alluring.
Their challenge is not only to conquer rugged terrain and unrelenting summer heat in a variety of vehicles but to do it faster than anyone else.
More than 50 years ago, the popularity of racing World War II-era surplus jeeps began in California and quickly spread to Arizona and Nevada because of their plentiful desert and desolate landscapes.
Today, because of population growth and environmental restrictions, no major four-wheel races are held in California and only one takes place in Arizona. Nevada, meanwhile, has become a hotbed of desert racing.
The Los Angeles-based SCORE International, the nation's oldest major desert racing organization, will hold three of its six annual events in Nevada this year. The newest race, on Saturday, is a joint venture with the Henderson Convention Center and Visitors Bureau, and Terrible Herbst Oil Co. of Southern Nevada.
The start-finish line for the inaugural SCORE Henderson's Terrible 250 will be in the city of Henderson near Las Vegas. The fastest racers are expected to complete five laps of the 50.22-mile course in less than five hours. The race, which will award nearly $500,000 in cash and product bonuses, is expected to attract about 200 teams.
No pavement is needed for these racing machines, which include motorcycles, all-terrain vehicles, desert buggies and $300,000 custom-built trucks with engines that produce more than 750 horsepower.
As residential and commercial developments have started to encroach on the vast expanse of southern Nevada, Sal Fish, chief executive of SCORE, has seen bureaucracy nearly overcome logistics as the biggest hurdle to putting on a desert race.
Time is limited for a desert course near Primm, Nev., near the California state line. The land off Interstate 15 is used for major events organized by SCORE and the Best in the Desert series, which has scheduled eight races in the state this year.
But the course is on the Jean dry lake bed south of Las Vegas where a regional cargo airport is to be built by the end of the decade. The project will wipe out the site for about a half-dozen races that use existing paths and service roads.
"The big challenge in the last 15 years has been the population expansion that is encroaching on traditional race course areas," said Bob Bruno, outdoor recreation planner in the Las Vegas office of the Bureau of Land Management since 1979.
The BLM manages nearly 48 million acres of public land in Nevada -- 67 percent of the state's total land area. Only 9 million acres are closed to all vehicular use, with an additional 812,000 acres offering limited access.
But "open" and "limited" don't mean anything goes. The BLM is mindful of the desert's fragile nature, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issues mandatory guidelines for land management that the BLM enforces.
Race organizers also must account for rising expenses. The price of a permit is about $200, but charges for security, course monitoring and post-race inspections add to the cost. And for large events, organizers can face an additional charge of up to $15,000 to cover the cost of BLM personnel.
But the biggest obstacle to the sport since the energy crisis in the mid-'70s has been coexisting with environmental groups.
Meet Gopherus agassizii, the desert tortoise. The habitat for the 8- to 15-pound creatures that can live 100 years is in the Mojave and Sonoran deserts of southeastern California, southern Nevada and south through Arizona into Mexico.
About 12 years ago, the desert tortoise was declared a threatened species. A conflict arose when desert race courses were deemed a threat to the tortoise's habitat.
Many environmentalists believe that because the desert tortoise has been around since the age of dinosaurs, the species should have squatter's rights to the land.
Leana Hildebrand, conservation organizer and coordinator of urban issues for the Sierra Club's Toiyabe Chapter of Southern Nevada, said, "I've seen this city grow and I can understand the wide-open spaces and the beauty of the desert, but I have issues with how it's enjoyed and how it's appreciated."
"We have a finite number of creatures, and once they're gone, they're gone," she said.
Bruno said race organizers working with the BLM have protected desert tortoise habitats.
Fish acknowledges that he and other off-road racers have changed their thinking about protecting the desert in the past 30 years, thanks in part to BLM rules that weren't always well-received.
"The changes have made for better and safer races," he said.
------------------------------------------------------------------------