When all 997 miles of the three-day Vegas to Reno race were completed, Andy McMillin emerged as the victor of the win “The Longest Off-Road Race in the United States.” McMillin came into the day with about a 10-minute lead on Pat Dean’s vehicle that was starting in front of them and was first off the line, and about an 18-minute lead on the truck just behind them off the day three starting line in Troy Herbst. In the end, McMillin earned the victory despite Herbst crossing the finish line first on day three.
“It was stressful, man,” McMillin said of day three of the race. “We started second behind Pat Dean. We knew we had 10 minutes on him on the overall, and we had 18.5 on Tory Herbst, who started right behind us, so we knew he had to beat us by 17:38 to win the overall. We got a flat at miles 60, the jack wouldn’t work, so we had to take off the spare jack, and it took us about 11 minutes to change that tire. We just ran it in and from there and not let troy get too much time on us because he had clean air.” Herbst was able to pass the McMillin team when they had issues with their tire early in the race, and he was then able to get by Pat Dean when he made stop in pit three. Herbst never lost the physical lead in the race after that point. “We did good. I think we did good today and ran hard, and no flats,” Herbst said after the race. “We stayed out front the whole time.” Defending race winner Rick D Johnson was the second vehicle across the line today, but he was unable to make up the time difference to challenge the overall. “We ran as hard as we could,” Johnson said. “We started fourth today, and the three in front were good runners. We ran hard. McMillin got a flat right away, so we were third on the road. We were just trying not to get a flat and run hard where we felt really comfortable running hard, and we were conservative in the rocky sections, and we were hoping that Herbst stumbled because they had 8 minutes on us.” Though Johnson was able to get by Dean’s team when they had issues to move into second, the stumble he was looking for from Herbst never came and Johnson crossed the line second on day three. Results are still pending for the overall finishers. Class 1500 “We just had agreat day,” Colan said after the race. “Our whole strategy for the entire three days was just to keep a good, hard pace and keep the car together and drive it 85 to 90 percent and just see if we couldn’t get to the finish line first. TJ drove the first day complete, and he had us in first aplce. And then we split yesterday. Today we started fifth and just sat, ran our pace, and just got it to the finish line with no flats and no finish line.” In Class 1000, the team of Bryce Menzies and Larry Job took the win after running up with many of the Trick Truck and Class 1500 buggies. They had a giant lead on the rest of their class, so the strategy was to get to the finish line. “We just tried to play it cool,” Menzies said after the race. “We had 30 minutes on everybody and just tried to play it cool and finish. I started the first half and did about 160, and Larry Job did the rest but he got two flats. We were running with all the Class 1s and Trophy Trucks, so it was pretty gnarly.” | ||
