Lompoc, CA - August 20, 2008: After getting their program back on track with a big win at Best in the Desert Racing Association’s ‘Terrible’s Town 250’ in February, Aaron and Ian Dixon bring their #7101 Dixon Bros. Racing Ford Ranger pickup to the ‘Vegas to Reno’ race, August 21-23, optimistic about their chances for a good finish in this year’s event. As the third race in Best in the Desert’s five-race Silver State Series, the ‘Vegas to Reno’ is usually the pivotal event in the season for many classes and for the second consecutive year, Dixon Bros. Racing comes into this race second in the Class 7100 points series. In 2007, after a race highlighted by fuel pump problems and a broken spindle late in the race, the Dixon Bros. Ford Ranger emerged from the ‘Vegas to Reno’ with a third place finish and took over the lead in the Class 7100 points championship, which they went on to win by a substantial margin last year. The Dixon Brothers won this event in 2003 and have their sights set on another win this year. Although the original course was scheduled to start in Johnnie, Nevada, about 60 miles west of Las Vegas, in July the Center for Biological Diversity expressed concerns for the habitat of the “Amargosa Toad”, which is native to part of the race course near Beatty, so the starting line was relocated north of Beatty to avoid the endangered creature’s habitat. While this course alteration shortened the course by almost 100 miles, the solution was one that everyone could live with and allowed the race to go on as scheduled.
    Billed as “The Longest Off-Road Race in the United States”, festivities for the ‘Vegas to Reno’ race begin with tech and contingency throughout the day on Thursday, August 21st at the South Point Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. On Friday morning the action moves 125 miles north, to the starting line at Pioneer Road, about seven miles beyond the old mining town of Beatty, NV, where more than 200 cars and trucks are scheduled to stage for the start of the race at 10:30 AM. During the race, which covers 475 miles across parts of the Mojave and Great Basin deserts, racers will face elevation changes rangin from 2,000 feet through the sand washes and river beds in the south to over 6000 feet across the northern mountain ranges to finish in Dayton, Nevada just south of Reno.
    Aaron will start the race with Ed Ramirez in the second seat. At Tonopah, 154 miles into the race, Ian Dixon will take over behind the wheel and Phil Ramirez will navigate until the truck reaches Hawthorne, at racemile 294, where Aaron and Ed will get back in the truck and take it to the finish. Rounding out this family effort, in the support vehicles, will be Jim Dixon, the driver’s father and Andrea and Manny Ramirez, the co-rider’s parents. Everyone on the team is looking forward to a family reunion at the finish line, in Dayton sometime in the late evening hours on Friday, if all goes as planned.

-grt-