Joan Barreda knew good and well that tackling Best in the Desert’s General Tire Vegas to Reno, the longest off-road race in America isn’t for the faint of heart, and it’s not easy for a team of riders to win.
But to take on that challenge by yourself? And even more outlandish—do it in the hopes of taking the overall victory?
Well, it’s not impossible. Quinn Cody proved that when he soloed to triumph at the 2010 Vegas to Reno. Since then, only a few have tried and all have failed.
At the 20th anniversary edition of the race, however, it happened again, this time with Team HRC Rally’s Barreda of Spain matching that history-making feat at the General Tire Vegas to Reno “The Long Way,” Presented by Fox, round three of Best in the Desert’s (BITD’s) American Off-road Racing Series, August 19-20.
For this historic 20th running of Vegas to Reno, promoter Casey Folks switched it up and made Vegas to Reno a two-day race, with a team’s combined times over those two days its final time. Day one started at the Delamar air strip east of Alamo, Nevada, and finished 296 miles later in Tonopah. Day two started in Tonopah and ended in its traditional location of Dayton, southeast of Reno, after a two-day total of 644 miles.
Despite never racing in a BITD race before—or in America, for that matter—Barreda proved competitive from the outset. He had two teams starting in front of him (the Pro teams started one minute apart, with Rockstar Energy Husqvarna Factory Racing Off-road Team’s Jacob Argubright the first to get the green light at 5:46 A.M.) but managed to pass one en route to the first day’s finish. After figuring in the start-time differences, however, Barreda found himself in first place followed by Argubright with the THR Motorsports/Chidester Transport Racing/Precision Concepts trio of Max Eddy, Jr./David Pearson/Tuffy Pearson a close third.
While the BLM had granted BITD permission for the course to pass through a new monument area with the stipulation that competitors could only go 35 miles per hour over the particular 37-mile section between pits one and two, a U.S. military helicopter crash the night before in the area caused the entire course between pits one and two to be closed for the resulting investigations. (The crash resulted in four personnel being injured, none seriously, according to the Nellis Air Force base public affairs office.) However, most racers discovered only just before the start that they’d race to pit one, then load their vehicle and transport it down the highway to pit two, offload and resume racing. This wasn’t something BITD officials had foreseen, and they had to make decisions on the fly, with several teams complaining later that their start times at pit two were incorrect based on how they’d finished at pit one.
Nonetheless, the important thing was the race continued, and it became a three-horse affair between Barreda, Argubright and the Kawasaki-mounted trio. Barreda quickly picked up on the nuances of the Nevada desert and BITD course marking, though he and fellow Team HRC Rally rider Michael Metge retained the road books and computers on their CRF450 Rally factory bikes. Of course, the road books didn’t include turn-by-turn notes, only the danger areas with corresponding mileage provided by BITD and transferred by JCR Honda personnel.
Barreda started the second day first off the line and kept that physical lead all the way to the finish, completing the 644 miles in nine hours and 59 seconds, unofficially.
“The most difficult [thing] is to learn the kind of navigation; the race [markings] and everything are different, the pit stops and a lot of things [are] different [than rallies],” Barreda said. “For the track and [this] area of the desert, it was really good, really demanding, a lot of kilometers.”
And that’s what he and Metge looked for in the first place, Vegas to Reno actually being the finish to almost a full month of durability testing on the bikes as they prepare for the 2017 Dakar Rally.
The Eddy/Pearson/Pearson team moved into second to stay (with a final time of 9:08:38, unofficially) after Argubright lost his rear brake and launched his FC 450 off the course as a result. Shaken but not seriously hurt, he got going again to finish third in his Vegas-to-Reno debut in 9:18:33.
Though last Open Pros to start on a course notoriously difficult to pass on due to the high speeds and walls of dust, Skyler Howes/Tallon Taylor made their way into fourth in 9:40:07 with Ray Dal Soglio/Braxton Gallian fifth in 10:25:00.
Other class winners included Cooper Ashton/Jared Schlapia/Taylor Stevens in Open Expert (seventh overall bike), Brett Aguilera/Mike Aguilera/Jesse Canepa in 300cc Pro (ninth overall), Jason Alosi/Keith Alosi in Over 30 Expert (11th overall) and Derek Ausserbauer in Ironman Expert (15th overall combined bike and ATV). A total of 342 teams entered in total with 111 of those being bikes, and of those, 84 finished.
2016 BITD General Tire Vegas to Reno
Alamo, Nevada (start)
Dayton, Nevada (finish)
Unofficial Results: August 20, 2016
Overall (rider of record)
1. Joan Barreda (SPA)-Hon
2. David Pearson (USA)-Kaw
3. Jacob Argubright (USA)-KTM
4. Skyler Howes (USA)-Yam
5. Braxton Gallian (USA)-Hon
6. Michael Metge (FRA)-Hon
7. Taylor Stevens (USA)-Hus
8. Troy Vanscourt (USA)-Hon
9. Mike Aguilera (USA)-KTM
10. Ryan Hauser (USA)-Hon
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