Putting the Generals to the Test
Ok, so I had this brief conversation with BJ Baldwin about tire testing on Sunday March 29th after the Mint race.
On Thursday the 2nd he texted me to confirm everything was in place. I got on a plane at 6am and flew to Las Vegas to pre-run the sections that we’ll be testing in.
Friday the 3rd we spend the whole day finding the crappiest most chewed up and spit out terrain in Nevada.
Saturday we went to watch the Lucas race in Primm, NV and then I jumped in a car with Klaus and headed back to Cali to pickup camera equipment and my Ninjas.
Sunday I had about 1 hour of face time with my girl then drove back to Vegas the same day.
Monday morning started bright and early (just like pre-running) at BJ’s shop we got the trucks loaded and headed out to the spots we picked 2 days prior. Bj is not known for being easy on anything, so we got right to it and started flogging the trophy truck through the unflinching terrain. The tire engineer from General kept piling giant sharp rocks onto the course so BJ had something to aim for. As you can see by the photos it didn’t matter much. We drove over everything , jumped everything, slid sideways through everything and drove through at everything at high speeds (90+) and still couldn’t get a flat. The day ended with Nevada’s finest rolling up on us and asking “Do you have a permit and what the hell are you doing?” Luckily for us they ended up being the coolest fuzz I ever met and fans of off-road. All they really wanted was a ride in the Trophy truck. Who doesn’t? We left baffled that we still had no flats after all this trying but determined to come back the next day.
Tuesday morning we came back out in search of either rock or stick flats. We started out in the parking lot of the Las Vegas Motor Speedway doing donuts on three wheels around the tire engineer from General. After a couple of hours of sliding the truck sideways like a drift car we headed back out into home turf. Right away BJ went plowing through silt beds sideways and jumping big hits. Once we created enough dust in that area we headed to our test loop just outside of Las Vegas. We spend the rest of the day jumping and sliding the truck from pavement to dirt. We ended our day at sunset on the dry lake bed sliding the trophy truck at high speeds until the sun went down. We loaded up the truck, send it back to the shop and jumped into our rides to head to BJ’s house. Literally as I pulled of the dirt onto the pavement and accelerated Mr. Law drove past me and proceeded to pull me over, lecture me and give me my donation request for the beautiful state of Nevada.
Turns out there are speed limits on public roads in Nevada. Thank god there is none on the dirt!
