This Ain't No Indy Car

摘要

'Are you ok?" asks driving partner robbie groff, his voice punctuating the silence inside my helmet. "I'm fine," I respond, but in truth I'm not sure. Our race vehicle is lying on its side, and all I see are rocks and dirt. I check my 5-point harness. I'm still strapped tight. No pain either. I think I'm OK. The question now is: How do we right our racer, get it up the 12-foot embankment, and soldier on? So begins day three of this year's Nevada 1,000, the longest point-to-point off-road race (at an actual 922 miles) in the United States. I'm riding with the team of Robbie and Mike Groff―both former Indy 500 drivers―on behalf of POPULAR SCIENCE, mostly to see how their hand-built racecar handles the roughest terrain north of Baja. The Groffs together have more than 300 wins on the pavement, including five U.S. national championships, but they're new to off-road racing, as comfortable as a suburban commuter on the Indy oval.