The 2005 Best In The Desert Blue Water Resort and Casino “Parker 425” race activities began Thursday with optional qualifying for Saturday’s race. Mongo Racing decided to run qualifying for starting position reasons. At the end of Thursday Mongo Racing would start 6th off the line in the 12-truck field.

Friday brought a nice sunny day for contingency and tech inspection. The 2005 “Parker 425” contingency was the biggest in years and packed with fans and team personnel. The 7:00 pm drivers meeting followed contingency and tech inspection.

As the sun rose Saturday morning, a spectacular day for racing was in the forecast. The fans showed up lining the Parker’s main street in town and the new revamped Parker python area. The first truck off the line left at 7:30 am, the Mongo Racing Ford F-150 driven by Randy Merritt and his co-rider Chris Golding left the line at 8:20am. By the Bouse spectator, area Randy had driven the truck into 4th place physically on the track. By the Midway pit, the top 4 running had not changed positions, but the rest of the class was dicing it up in the back.

With only a few miles to Parker, the truck veered and Randy steered the truck safely off the course where Chris found a broken tie-rod. Shortly later, an odor of oil filled the cab. Shock oil had escaped the shocks and required fixing before continuing on the second lap. Randy and Chris where again back on the track, but with instructions to maintain a slower pace to conserve the shocks. With a win now out of the question, a finish was not. Randy set out to drive a smart 2 laps and not do any more damage to the truck.

On the third lap, Randy and Chris left Parker 27 minutes behind the Hummer of Chad Hall. At the finish line, Randy and Chris were met by their crew and learned they finished seventh in class, only 11 seconds behind Chad Hall.

The next race for Mongo Racing is the BITD “Terrible’s Town 250” in April.

Mongo Racing would like to thank their sponsors: Ford Trucks, Visteon, TNC Machine & Metal Fab, F & M Baldenegro Farms, Goodyear Tires, Borla Exhaust, Diagtek, Valley Spring, Bodyline Auto body and Paint, For You Tire & Auto, Gibb’s Repair, Lickity Stitch, Sway-A-Way, Desertracing.com, NAPA in Parker.

For more information, you can visit www.bitd.com, www.mongoracing.com or www.desertracing.com.