Best In The Desert Vegas to Reno Race Report
“I missed out on Vegas to Reno last year because of an injury so my team was forced to watch from home. This year I was ready to race the longest off-road race in the United States for the first time iron man style with my co-driver Larry Heidler! We set out with a plan to be really conservative, let the race flow and race our own race.
The plan worked perfect we we running physically top 5 almost the entire race. As the race miles clicked off we continued with mostly a trouble-free race. We battled clutch issues for the entire race but were able to maintain a fast pace. We blew a belt early in and got a flat half way but we were able to make it to the pits to change out. After the last scheduled pit stop at pit 13 we decided to only to do a splash and go. As we raced to the finish line we were told we need to make up 3 mins on third place because they were beating us on time.
We took off, raised the pace and by pit 14 we were already beating them on time. We continued on to the home stretch! We hit the first of two really bad rock sections, moved through easily no problems. Halfway through the second rock section we hit a rock and blew up the rim and tire! I chose not to stop and change it, so for 3 miles we went to the finish on a rim!
We were passed by Sims with about 2 miles to go and knew we had time on our side to beat him. We stayed close but lost our safety net on third. I am bummed we didn’t get a podium, but really proud of everyone that helped this small team come away with a 4th place finish in our first go at the longest off road-race in the United States! Thank you!
-Ryan Piplic and team 925“
Antigravity Batteries is proud to sponsor multi-time champion Ryan Piplic. Follow him on Facebook.
