You know it’s always a great time in Las Vegas no matter what event you’re attending and if that event happens to be the Silver State race presented by The Dirt Racing crew, you know you’re in for one of the best 1/8th experience of the year. There’s not much to say and without any doubts, Joey Christensen and his crew have all the experience in the world making some magical 1/8th events that racers just love to attend.
2018 was the inaugural year that the South Point Hotel and Casino hosted the Silver State and now with a whole year to make think about changes and adjustments, this year’s event was even better. The new make-shift driver stand felt like a real driver stand, the 1/5th scale track turned into a practice track for guys to get more run time than just 3 five minute quals and to dial in their rides on a surface that was similar to the race track. Also without the 1/5th scale cars on the track, you could hear the announcer the entire time. Golden!
With all of the hotel resort amenities at your fingertips, the event is kind of an all-inclusive resort vacation with a track located in the Pavillion. You can eat at the hotel, you can hit the casino, watch movies at the theater, check out the regional rodeo contest, go bowling, watch the pro bowling competition upstairs, get your spa on, or hit the pool for some vitamin D and R&R. There isn’t a race quite like it, (IOCC was similar, but now moved to a race track facility) and that’s why this year’s Silver State grew from 500 entries to 660!
The track layout is always going to be fun as Joey and Aaron have been doing this for nearly 20 years now and they just understand racing and what it takes to make a fun track that challenges all levels. The real magic of the Silver State race is the evolution of the track and track surface. With Nevada being a desert climate and the driest state in the US, it’s really hard to find good natural earth dirt to make a track. However, by using what they have, the sandy fine dirt never packs together for longevity and over the course of the weekend will break apart creating holes, craters, and broken jump faces making it extremely difficult to race on by the mains. Despite all this, this is what makes the Silver State so special as it really does test the racer’s ability to adapt and overcome. To be honest, it takes a will of a giant to stay focused and not blow out or getting fired up over a few crashes that really wasn’t your fault. In the end, the challenge is what brings people back for more. If it were easy, the Silver State wouldn’t be as popular.