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Rider Updates

Nov 8 2010

Drivers find challenge, adventure

in long-distance desert racing


Dust will rise in the desert outside Wendover this Saturday, as trucks and buggies, side by sides, quads and motorcycles compete in a style of racing all their own.

Bonneville Off-Road Racing’s Wendover 300-REWOUND race on Oct. 23, will be the third and last of the off-road desert racing group’s 2010 racing series. According to its website, the group was formed in 1989 by local racers. It was later purchased from its founders last year by Allen Gerber to further opportunities for local desert racing.

Several Tooele County residents will be participating in Saturday’s race, including Tooele brothers Gary Scott and Dean Whitehouse.

Gary said the group is a way for local people to race Baja-style without having to spend the kind of money it costs to actually go to Baja.

“A lot of people see the Baja 1000 and Baja 500 on TV,” he said. “We do the same thing, just here locally.”

Gary as the driver and Dean as co-driver will be riding in their UTV (utility terain vehicle, or side by side) for nearly 140 miles in Saturday’s race. Bigger trucks and buggies will race twice that distance, for almost 280 miles.

“There’s a course they mark through the desert cross country, through washes and old roads and through the trees,” Gary said. “We just follow the course that they mark out.”

Motorcycles, quads and side by sides will start racing at sunup and finish about noon. The course is in the shape of a figure 8 and these vehicles will go around once. Trucks and buggies will begin later and can go until after dark. They will go around the course twice.

This weekend’s race i