Racing on open Texas roads boasts thrills, no spills

April 30, 2007
By Bill Sontag
Feature Writer

“The Most Challenging Open Road Race in the World” roared over 60 miles of southwest Texas landscape Saturday (April 28), featuring 145 drivers from a dozen states. Goosing everything from street rods and touring cars to Grand Prix and NASCAR qualifiers, competitors gathered for the joy, not the money.

The Big Bend Open Road Race course is a 65-mile stretch of U.S. Highway 285, closed between Fort Stockton and Sanderson to all public traffic for eleven hours, with the blessings and enthusiastic cooperation of sheriffs, deputies, game wardens, and volunteers in Pecos County and Terrell County. It’s a precisely-timed road rally, with cars released, about 20 to 30 seconds apart, from starting lines to finish lines a few miles from each of the two Big Bend region gateway towns.

The course was closed at 6 a.m. Saturday, and by 8 a.m., drivers and crews lined up their rumbling, growling vehicles on the asphalt roadway at Fort Stockton. At the front of the half-mile-long lineup were the fastest cars in the “Unlimited” speed class. Behind them were cars arranged by decreasing rated speed classes, in five-miles-per-hour increments, 150 mph to 85 mph.

In open road races, drivers compete individually on the basis of speed and timed precision, not in a heat of battle trying to outwit and outmaneuver each other on a track. So each driver-navigator team watches “Christmas tree” starting lights, beginning with red, then several ambers. When the green light flashes, the timing clock begins, and stops with the checkered flag at the other end. Two legs of the race – Fort Stockton-to-Sanderson, then Sanderson-to-Fort Stockton – are computed for each car’s final score.

The Big Bend Open Road Race (BBORR), now in its seventh year, attracts racers who love the sport, and don’t need the cash. “No, it’s a five dollar trophy and braggin’ rights,” chuckled Doug DeMots, driver from Aurora, Colo., when asked about winners’ purses. His brother-in-law, Randy March, Greeley, Colo., also DeMots’ navigator, has another perspective on remunerations: “My wife encourages it, because she gets the life insurance.”

As with most race team members at the 2007 edition of BBORR, DeMots and March welcomed car freaks, gawkers, and newcomers with hopelessly uninformed questions, as they sported around Fort Stockton, during race preparations Friday afternoon. DeMots’ gleaming little Factory Five Racing Roadster, came to him as a kit from the company in Wareham, Mass. For $11,900 and more for accessories – such as a mandatory roll bar – DeMots had the privilege of building his own racing machine.

His roadster is in a class limited by a top speed of 110 mph. Though open road racecars don’t vie for space and position during the race, DeMots said, “It’s still very competitive. A tenth of a second can mean the difference between first and second place in your class.” The team’s skills earned them a first place finish at the 2005 running of the BBORR.

A pleasant LIVE! chat with Fort Stockton Pioneer reporter Sharon Roosevelt, probed the importance of the race. She calls it “the most challenging open road race in the country,” explaining, “Because, in the last 50 miles, there are 50 curves.” And there are steep hills and plunging downslopes, too, often combined with the snaking curves. Roosevelt also commented on the social and economic impact of BBORR, on Fort Stockton, population about 8,000.

“That’s about four too many,” she quipped, then casually mentioned that race crews, organizers, fans, advertisers and family members drop about “half a million dollars” into the local economy of Fort Stockton, each year. Amy Terrazzas, a native of Chihuahua, Mexico, and owner/manager of Bella Terrazza, a new and elegant gifts and antiques enterprise on North Main Street, concurred.

“Oh, yes, the race is bringing very good business to Fort Stockton, and to my store, too. The wives and family members come in from all over the country and some make very big purchases,” Terrazzas said. She and her husband, Pete, shop the manufacturers in Guadalajara and other arts and crafts meccas in Mexico’s interior for top quality merchandise, which she believes appeals to the cosmopolitan crowd at the BBORR.

Events began with race registration at the Terrell County Courthouse in Sanderson, and technical inspections, qualifying and practice runs on Wednesday, followed by an elaborate Thursday night welcoming party at Bicentennial Park, sponsored by the Sanderson Chamber of Commerce.

It was all over Saturday night, with a Finish Line Party at downtown Fort Stockton’s Rooney Park, and a banquet and awards ceremony at the Civic Center. But the Saturday morning run to Sanderson had proven more eventful than race organizers could possibly cope with in advance.

Friday afternoon, drivers, crews, family members and admiring onlookers strolled around the BBORR car show at Rooney Park. The cars were obligingly parked, nose out, herringbone style, all around the tree-shaded, grassy commons. Marsha Borders, navigator for her husband driving a NASCAR Monte Carlo, a red-and-yellow screaming bomb, asserted the open road racer’s creed. “We just want to race safely, and finish,” Borders said.

Safety and speed can be a difficult mix, and Borders illustrated with her expectations for completion of the two-leg, 118-mile course the following day. “Our car is NASCAR rated, but modified for open road racing with different balance and a navigator’s seat [required for open road “Unlimited” and other classes], but if we do well tomorrow, we’ll do the course in less than 40 minutes,” Borders said.

She and Michael have been racing for 12 years, but Saturday morning the husband/wife team was tested in a new way. Starting the race as the holders of position number one – they hold the BBORR course record of 165.769 mph, set in 2005 – the Borders were the first to encounter trouble on the highway. In Sanderson, during the noontime transition around the Terrell County Courthouse between legs, Marsha Borders was subdued in reply to a comment on road conditions. (Heavy mist and drizzle were a concern; at racing speeds, a wet open road race may be postponed or cancelled.)

“Oh, the run was good. The road was dry, everything was fine – until we hit the buzzard!” Borders said, still a bit unnerved from the near catastrophe. Only ten miles southeast of Fort Stockton, Mike and Marsha Borders spotted a group of four turkey vultures, dining on a rotting carcass. Three flew away from the direction of their car, the fourth careened into the roof line on Marsha’s side, smashing the windshield post and ripping away a fourth of the roof. The Borders barely faltered, but Marsha rode the rest of the route drenched in the stench of buzzard viscera, blood and feathers.

The Borders finished that first 59-mile leg in 20 minutes, 32 seconds, with top straightaway speeds of 212 mph, according to their on-board GPS system calculations. Wildlife near-misses seemed to be the trend Saturday. Driver Les Steinhoff, in the number 23 car, a gray 2003 Corvette, narrowly missed a javelina that wandered into the road, “So close to me, I couldn’t even see him out the window,” Steinhoff said. His 135-mph-class car finished the leg in 26 minutes, 13 seconds, with only a pause for the peccary.

Frank Suttles and Jerry Cox, in a 2001 canary yellow Corvette, also had a scare from a mule deer that strolled onto the asphalt as they zipped past. This is Suttles’ fourth year to race the BBORR, and the Midland resident’s top speed on the southeast leg was 168 mph.

The wildlife of the Chihuahuan desert scrub merely kept driving crews on high alert, Saturday, but did nothing to damage enthusiasm or performance. Kenda Furman is the City of Fort Stockton director of tourism, and her elation was palpable, Sunday night (April 29). “We had scheduled the race for 150 cars, but we were completely sold out a month before race day,” said Furman, who also served as acting race coordinator.

Breakdowns always take a toll, however, and only 145 started, and 141 finished the BBORR. “One car needed a tire, and it couldn’t arrive fast enough, and another had an alternator go out on the way to the starting line, that kind of thing,” Furman said.

On the brighter side, Furman said, the Borders, no longer vulture victims, were victorious in the 2007 BBORR: “They ended up first place winners in their class, overall winners, and they broke their own course record with a course average this year of more than 172 miles per hour.”

Crew chief Randy Beddard, left, holds nearly spent fuel bottles, as driver Gary Porter, Elko, Nev., and navigator Myra Spaulding, perform some last minute cleanup before starting the next leg of the 2007 BBORR. (LIVE! photo/Bill Sontag) (click image to enlarge)

Race starter John Stutes, Sanderson Amtrak locomotive engineer, signals Phil Parker, Odessa, to watch the signal lights for the launch of his 2000 Corvette on the second leg of Saturday’s BBORR. Stutes said he enjoyed his starting responsibility for all 146 cars in the race, “And I gave them the checkered flag when they arrived here this morning, too.” (LIVE! photo/Bill Sontag) (click image to enlarge)

Gary Porter, driving his 2004 Monte Carlo with navigator Myra Spaulding, takes the “Christmas tree” green light at the Sanderson starting line for the return leg to Fort Stockton. On the first leg, Porter logged an average speed of 152 mph, with fuel mileage of 4.6 miles-per-gallon. (LIVE! photo/Bill Sontag) (click image to enlarge)

Dale Kuehn, Abilene, and navigator Dave Traweek, rocket past race watchers on the return leg of the BBORR. Their attention-getting 1970 Superbird was in the 120 mph class of Saturday’s race. (LIVE! photo/Bill Sontag) (click image to enlarge)