The Nevada Passage Adventure Competition

BIG DUNE CHALLENGE

LOCATION: Big Dune in the Southern Nevada city of Amargosa – roughly 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas on scenic Highway 95.

WINNING TEAM: REALTORS

GL Brown, Ada, Michigan
Tina Burgos, Houston, Texas

RECAP: Day two of the Nevada Passage adventure competition ventured to Big Dune – a rare and unusual series of rolling sand mountains that go on for five miles and reach as high as 500 feet. Despite wind and nature, Big Dune has kept its profile for thousands of years.

Today’s stage put participants behind the wheel of a 30-horsepower sand rail style dune buggy in a race against the clock on a ½ mile figure eight track. Held in a sand bowl on the north side of Big Dune, drivers had to negotiate up three steep inclines and make sharp left and right turns back to the valley floor.

“The key to today’s stage was all about momentum,” said Dave Nicholas, the race director for the Nevada Passage. “Drivers that could turn the least to negotiate the corners so their wheels didn’t get dug into the sand could go the fastest.”

It also seemed that the lighter the driver, the faster the sand rail. As proof, the petite Caroline Colonna of the Physicians squad turned in the fastest lap of the day at one-minute, five seconds. It is a team challenge, however, so scoring was based on the combined lap times from both team members.  At 6-foot-2, 190 pounds Colonna’s teammate Peter Hanson simply couldn’t get that single-seat buggy moving as fast, thus their combined time of 2:22.95 was only good enough for 8th place.

On a stunningly clear and picturesque 85-degree day in the desert the team that ‘buggied’ the best was the Realtors – GL Brown and Tina Burgos. The duo were the first team to drive by virtue of finishing last in yesterday’s stage, and set the standard for all to come with a combined 2:19.45. The victory propelled the Realtors up five spots from 10th to 5th in the overall standings.

“That’s why we’re always on time to our appointments, because we can drive like that,” smiled Burgos.

Just five one-hundredths (0.05) of a second separated the Realtors from the runner-up Wild Card team of Phil Glenn and Lisa Bommer. Even closer was the battle for second as the defending champion accountants came in a mere one one-hundredths of a second slower than the Wild Cards.  With their third place finish today the accountants remain on top of the pack in the overall.

After the race athletes boarded the bus for an excursion in the ghost town of Rhyolite just west of Beatty.   Decked out with Electra cruiser bikes, the 20 athletes cycled around to the historic sites of the mining town from the 1900’s - visiting the old jail, school house, bank, a unique “bottle house” made completely of glass bottles, and the Goldwell Open Air Museum that boasts colossal outdoor sculptures created by a group of Belgium artists in the 1980’s and ‘90’s.

Tomorrow the teams get back on those same bikes for a relay on the million-year old dried up Alkali Lake outside of Tonopah and Goldfield.

More tomorrow, from the Nevada Passage…

STANDINGS THROUGH FIRST TWO STAGES

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