Outlaw Offroad
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Well, as promised, here is the report after this last weekends nighttime pre run:
We finished up work late Friday around 7:30 and started prepping for the prerun of the “Black Op’s Night Run”. There were 3 of us from Outlaw going on the trip in our supercrew Raptor (RSV2). The plan was to pre run the entire course and log the route in our GPS including any hazards or cautions we found along the way. The course plan was to make our way out to Laughlin and from there to Vegas. We would then head home from Vegas along the north side on the “Peligroso Express Way”.
For those of you who have not pre run with us before these are some long, LONG days. The alarm went off at 4:00am Saturday morning and I hit the road at 4:30am headed to the shop. There I met up with Wayne (Outlaw Raptor Mechanic) and Joey (Outlaw Salesman/Video media) and we were off to Barstow, CA to run the new course! At 6:45am, with a quick fuel stop in Barstow, we started plotting the course across the desert to Laughlin, NV. At first, I had planned to take a number of trails and pole line roads to get there. Seemed like a basic and easy plan, right? But for those of you who know about this part of the desert, it’s never that simple! There are a ton of old abandoned mining roads that run for about 30 to 60 miles and then come to a dead end. Each time this left us having to turn around and backtrack to find a new route that actually went through. The good part about doing all this chart plotting is getting to see some of the sights the Mojave desert has to offer. I personally have been running trails in the desert for over 15 years now and I will tell you this is one of the most beautiful routes I’ve been on. There are so many sights to see with a ton of elevation changes, wild life, old abandoned buildings, rock formations and different trail terrains. It’s hard to describe the awesome feeling of being in the middle of the CA desert when just a few hours prior I was in my hometown by the beach. I owe this to having the best production off road truck made to date. That’s what owning a Ford Raptor is all about! Anyways, back to the course.. With a ton of dead end trails and flash flood warnings due to the monsoon weather, we finally found our way to Laughlin, NV. We fueled up, got some food, and headed off again navigating the trail from Laughlin to Vegas. By this time we had spent 9 hours on the trail but I did not have an accurate mileage read out on the course due to so many dead ends. I was starting to get a little worried about how long the actual night run would take. Especially when there was going to be 10 or more raptors involved. Even so, we continued to push through some really technical, very advanced trails. In fact, some of them were so harsh that in my opinion, they would exceed the demands of a stock Ford Raptor (so I decided to leave this section OUT of the run). Keep in mind, the Outlaw Raptor Runs were created to bring Raptor owners together and be fun for everyone that participates. Not to break and destroy people’s property!
We pulled into the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino Las Vegas around 6pm and we took a much needed break to refresh our minds. So far it had been a very long day! Because of this, we decided not to run the “Peligroso Express Way” home. Instead, we drove the exact course we had just taken, back. This way we could have an accurate time and mileage count for the night run. I knew this was going to be a late night for us so we packed some emergency provisions. In the case that there was an actual emergency, we had the International MXT chase truck “Godzilla” prepped and on call as well.
We headed out around 8pm back on the same course towards home but this time it was dark. This would give me the exact info I was looking for. The correct course on the GPS with no dead ends and accurate timing. We buckled down and turned on the Vision X LED light bar to help us navigate through the darkness. The original GPS route of the way up was being displayed showing all the cautions and turns. So with my co driver calling out the course we were on the gas heading for home! By the time we made it back to Laughlin I thought to myself “this might not be such a late night after all”. Boy was I wrong! After leaving Laughlin, the fun started. What was dry on the way to Vegas was now wet, slippery and brought out the wild life in a big way. I learned that desert animals in the night are extremely attracted to lights. Not only do they seem to love them but it feels as though the lights act like a tractor beam for them (lol). Rabbits were running into the truck at full speed, birds were aimed right at the windshield and cows… well cows did not move at all (see the quick movie clip). Yes you read correctly! We almost ended our run instantly when we happened to approach a cow in the middle of the trail as we were going 90mph in the dark! This is the exact reason why I like to run as the lead truck and good radio communication between everyone is a must.
After letting our nerves settle down, we were on the road again. It took us a few min to get back up to our normal driving pace as we were still a bit in shock. Soon enough though we were laughing about the whole situation and sliding around corners at high speeds. Suddenly, some type of low flying bird (which we later nicknamed “pterodactyl”) took us head on hitting our Go Pro camera and broke it clean off of the front bumper! We did not even realize that this had happened until about 80 miles after the fact. Then the decision had to be made: do we go back and search the dark desert for our little camera with such great footage on it? Or do we keep pushing on towards home? We made the call and drove back to look for the camera. We searched the desert for 2 hours driving on the trail at a mere 10mph with our eyes not blinking for a second. With our Vision X LED bar lighting the trail ahead we saw something reflecting in the distance. It was the battery cover off of the Go Pro! Close by was the camera that had broken off. It had come out of its housing but was still in perfect operational condition! What are the chances of that? Phew! So with one Go Pro housing down and 2 hours lost we were back on the road again and in good spirits. We ran the rest of the trail and finally hit the tarmac at 3am. Tired, dazed and on our last leg, we still had to drive home some 100 miles. With all said and done we were awake for 26 hours, drove off road for 19.32 hours, covered 707.4 miles and made it home safely just in time to have breakfast with the family.
This night run coming up is going to be the 1st night run in our schedule. It is going to be one of the best times you’ll ever have off road. We have really taken notes and done our homework. The course is not too challenging nor overwhelming. The speed of this course is a slower, more steady paced driving structure. And we hope the experience of being a part of The 3rd Monster Energy Outlaw Raptor Run “Black Op’s Night Run” will stay with you forever.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dP--1gu7Y3U
We finished up work late Friday around 7:30 and started prepping for the prerun of the “Black Op’s Night Run”. There were 3 of us from Outlaw going on the trip in our supercrew Raptor (RSV2). The plan was to pre run the entire course and log the route in our GPS including any hazards or cautions we found along the way. The course plan was to make our way out to Laughlin and from there to Vegas. We would then head home from Vegas along the north side on the “Peligroso Express Way”.
For those of you who have not pre run with us before these are some long, LONG days. The alarm went off at 4:00am Saturday morning and I hit the road at 4:30am headed to the shop. There I met up with Wayne (Outlaw Raptor Mechanic) and Joey (Outlaw Salesman/Video media) and we were off to Barstow, CA to run the new course! At 6:45am, with a quick fuel stop in Barstow, we started plotting the course across the desert to Laughlin, NV. At first, I had planned to take a number of trails and pole line roads to get there. Seemed like a basic and easy plan, right? But for those of you who know about this part of the desert, it’s never that simple! There are a ton of old abandoned mining roads that run for about 30 to 60 miles and then come to a dead end. Each time this left us having to turn around and backtrack to find a new route that actually went through. The good part about doing all this chart plotting is getting to see some of the sights the Mojave desert has to offer. I personally have been running trails in the desert for over 15 years now and I will tell you this is one of the most beautiful routes I’ve been on. There are so many sights to see with a ton of elevation changes, wild life, old abandoned buildings, rock formations and different trail terrains. It’s hard to describe the awesome feeling of being in the middle of the CA desert when just a few hours prior I was in my hometown by the beach. I owe this to having the best production off road truck made to date. That’s what owning a Ford Raptor is all about! Anyways, back to the course.. With a ton of dead end trails and flash flood warnings due to the monsoon weather, we finally found our way to Laughlin, NV. We fueled up, got some food, and headed off again navigating the trail from Laughlin to Vegas. By this time we had spent 9 hours on the trail but I did not have an accurate mileage read out on the course due to so many dead ends. I was starting to get a little worried about how long the actual night run would take. Especially when there was going to be 10 or more raptors involved. Even so, we continued to push through some really technical, very advanced trails. In fact, some of them were so harsh that in my opinion, they would exceed the demands of a stock Ford Raptor (so I decided to leave this section OUT of the run). Keep in mind, the Outlaw Raptor Runs were created to bring Raptor owners together and be fun for everyone that participates. Not to break and destroy people’s property!
We pulled into the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino Las Vegas around 6pm and we took a much needed break to refresh our minds. So far it had been a very long day! Because of this, we decided not to run the “Peligroso Express Way” home. Instead, we drove the exact course we had just taken, back. This way we could have an accurate time and mileage count for the night run. I knew this was going to be a late night for us so we packed some emergency provisions. In the case that there was an actual emergency, we had the International MXT chase truck “Godzilla” prepped and on call as well.
We headed out around 8pm back on the same course towards home but this time it was dark. This would give me the exact info I was looking for. The correct course on the GPS with no dead ends and accurate timing. We buckled down and turned on the Vision X LED light bar to help us navigate through the darkness. The original GPS route of the way up was being displayed showing all the cautions and turns. So with my co driver calling out the course we were on the gas heading for home! By the time we made it back to Laughlin I thought to myself “this might not be such a late night after all”. Boy was I wrong! After leaving Laughlin, the fun started. What was dry on the way to Vegas was now wet, slippery and brought out the wild life in a big way. I learned that desert animals in the night are extremely attracted to lights. Not only do they seem to love them but it feels as though the lights act like a tractor beam for them (lol). Rabbits were running into the truck at full speed, birds were aimed right at the windshield and cows… well cows did not move at all (see the quick movie clip). Yes you read correctly! We almost ended our run instantly when we happened to approach a cow in the middle of the trail as we were going 90mph in the dark! This is the exact reason why I like to run as the lead truck and good radio communication between everyone is a must.
After letting our nerves settle down, we were on the road again. It took us a few min to get back up to our normal driving pace as we were still a bit in shock. Soon enough though we were laughing about the whole situation and sliding around corners at high speeds. Suddenly, some type of low flying bird (which we later nicknamed “pterodactyl”) took us head on hitting our Go Pro camera and broke it clean off of the front bumper! We did not even realize that this had happened until about 80 miles after the fact. Then the decision had to be made: do we go back and search the dark desert for our little camera with such great footage on it? Or do we keep pushing on towards home? We made the call and drove back to look for the camera. We searched the desert for 2 hours driving on the trail at a mere 10mph with our eyes not blinking for a second. With our Vision X LED bar lighting the trail ahead we saw something reflecting in the distance. It was the battery cover off of the Go Pro! Close by was the camera that had broken off. It had come out of its housing but was still in perfect operational condition! What are the chances of that? Phew! So with one Go Pro housing down and 2 hours lost we were back on the road again and in good spirits. We ran the rest of the trail and finally hit the tarmac at 3am. Tired, dazed and on our last leg, we still had to drive home some 100 miles. With all said and done we were awake for 26 hours, drove off road for 19.32 hours, covered 707.4 miles and made it home safely just in time to have breakfast with the family.
This night run coming up is going to be the 1st night run in our schedule. It is going to be one of the best times you’ll ever have off road. We have really taken notes and done our homework. The course is not too challenging nor overwhelming. The speed of this course is a slower, more steady paced driving structure. And we hope the experience of being a part of The 3rd Monster Energy Outlaw Raptor Run “Black Op’s Night Run” will stay with you forever.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dP--1gu7Y3U
