Racers Chase 200-mph Public Highway Record
30 March 2000
Drivers will try to average 200mph for a 90-mile section of closed Nevada highway; hundreds of racers to compete in slower classes "You heard it here first: No excuses, 200 mph in 2000," announced driver Rick Doria, an open highway racer whose modified Corvette averaged 195 mph at the September, 1999 running of the Silver State Classic Challenge, a legal 90-mile-long highway race held twice every year in the Nevada desert. "That's what I'm going for," said fighter pilot Kelly Sievers, who added he'll be driving a "secret" 850-hp specially built tube-frame racer at the May race. Sievers, an aerospace company owner, has run more unlimited miles on highway 318 than any other open road racer. "We've spent $225,000 on our new car," he added. At last September's race, winning driver Chuck Shafer set an open highway race record average speed of 197.9 mph in his Chrysler LeBaron-bodied ex-Busch series stock car. "I want to be the first to reach a 200 mph average. We can break the 200-mph average barrier, although we are pushing the envelope." More of these experienced drivers will battle to be first to reach a 200-mph average for the 90-mile race at the Nevada Open Road Challenge, held Sunday, May 21. Perennial open road race driver Dave Golder is entering a modified Winston Cup stock car, fresh from the stables of the Tony Stewart Home Depot NASCAR team. This isn't an outlaw race it's a sanctioned, legal event that's been held on a 90-mile stretch of Nevada state highway 318 every year since 1988. As these experienced racing drivers battle to be first to average 200 mph over the 90-mile closed highway course, they will be joined by hundreds of serious amateurs in slower bracket classes, pushing the limits of their machines. Of the record 211 entrants who raced full-throttle against the clock at the September event, some didn't make it to the finish, including John "Bo Duke" Schneider, driving a Dukes of Hazard-era Dodge Charger. "The Jesus clip disintegrated and now there are a bunch of little dings on the inside of my $400 chrome valve covers," said the TV star. The entry list is growing faster than it did at last September's race, too, so expect some dedicated high-performance car racing to fill the desert scenery. For example, no fewer than 19 Dodge Vipers raced the clock at the September event. Events begin Thursday, May 18, at the Showboat Hotel and Casino on the Boulder Strip in Las Vegas, with driver qualifying at Las Vegas International Speedway Park. On Friday, May 19, cars are paraded 245 miles north to the rustic, wild west town of Ely, Nevada. This trip is an excellent photo opportunity of the cars on the road. Saturday, May 20, is a parc ferme at the Ely high school football field, where all of the racecars will be on public display. At 5 a.m. Sunday morning, May 21, highway 318 is closed to the public, and at 8 a.m. the cars are scheduled to start, one-by-one, and race the clock for 90 miles. The course begins in the town of Lund, 40 miles south of Ely, and ends just before the town of Hiko. There's no cash prize fund, but the winner in the unlimited class is immortalized on a perpetual trophy that resides in the Carson City statehouse in the state's capital city.