Mongo Racing Has Best Terrible's Town 250 Finish

Mongo Racing competes in the 2005 Best In The Desert “Terrible’s Town 250” in Pahrump, NV with great results.

Pre-race activities began Friday April 29, 2005 with morning time trials for the top 20 starting positions and class starting positions. “We elected not to run time trials and run our plan for the race,” stated, Driver of the 8104 Ford F-150, Randy Merritt.

This allowed the team to attend the Rosemary Middle School race vehicle show. It was a chance to show some of the 1,100 children some of the technology that is shared in desert racing and the vehicles their parents drive.

12:00 o’clock saw the opening of contingency and tech inspection in the parking lot of the Terrible’s Town Casino in Pahrump, NV. With over 200 entries expected, contingency and tech was busy all day. Race fans and racers were treated to a delightful array of vehicles, from motorcycles and quads to trucks and buggies. Contingency row was a half mile of vendors for all your off-highway needs.

Tech inspection was followed by a mandatory driver’s meeting at 7:00 pm at the Terrible's Lakeside Casino and RV Resort.

Saturday, April 30, 2005, brought the heavily anticipated race day. With the 15 mile parade to the starting line at the old Johnnie mine. The first race vehicle started at approx. 9:30 am. The first Class 8100 Full-Stock off the line was the Ford F-150 of Dave Morrison at 10:47 am followed by Chad Hall and Greg Foutz in 30 second intervals. At 10:51 am Randy Merritt and Chris Golding piloted the number 8104, Black 2005 Ford F-150, off the starting line, ninth in the class of eleven. By mile marker 4, Chris radioed in commenting that the truck had never ran this good.

At pit 1, Randy had driven the truck into 5th position physically on the course. By pit 2, Randy and Chris was the fourth vehicle on track and on the bumper of the 8108 truck of Dave Moore. At pits 3 and 4, little changed except the lead that Greg Foutz had extended because of the traffic Randy had to maneuver through.

At Pit 5, Randy had passed the 8108 and put 5 minutes on him. Randy brought the Ford F-150 in to the pit box where it was fueled and looked over by the crew. With a very short pit Randy and Chris were back on their way now in 3rd position on the track and corrected time. 11 miles later at Pit 6 Randy drove pass the parked Hummer of Chad Hall for 2nd place. 3 minutes later Randy was told, “Chad was leaving the pits and back on course.”

At Pit 7, Randy and Chris were still having fun with the Ford F-150 truck, but Chad Hall was sneaking back up on them only two and a half minutes behind. However, Randy knew Chad had to pass him and put 4 minutes on the Ford truck and today that was no easy task. At Pit 8, Randy had extended his lead over Chad to six minutes and was not looking back, because no race is over until you pass the checkered flag.

At the finish line Greg had his largest lead of the day, but that did not discourage the Mongo Racing team. This was the first time in a while they were waiting for Randy and Chris with excitement and enthusiasm for a second place finish. Chris was still giving updates until the checkered flag and then we knew Mongo Racing had our best finish in the new truck and future looked positive. Completing the race in 5 hours and 56 minutes was the fastest the team had finished this course to date.

On the podium, driver Randy Merritt praised Sway-A-Way for their efforts and fine-tuning of the shocks and with the few changes the team made to the suspension worked great all-day and problem free. Chris added that he did not have to get out the truck once and the Goodyear Tires were amazing after the pounding they took and not to have a flat.

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

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