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BFGoodrich® Tires 1000, Rocks 0. February 23, 2004 Mark Miller and Ryan Arciero had established an impressive off-road racing resume before winning the Trophy Truck class at the 2003 Baja 1000. Earlier in the year the duo piloted their UMI Racing Chevrolet Silverado to a second straight Baja 500 victory. And Mark had driven a specially built Trophy Truck to a class win in the 2003 Paris-Dakar Rally, possibly the longest and most punishing off-road event in the world. All of the wins coming on BFGoodrich® tires, winners of an unprecedented 18 straight Baja 1000s. Victory in the 1000 only cemented Miller and Arciero's standing as one of the top teams in the sport. Mark and Ryan credit their wins to carefully plotted race strategy, running clean and avoiding flat tires. So how do they avoid flats in a race that involves slamming over rocks for hours at a stretch? And how could they have possibly raced the entire length of the 1000 without a single flat tire? Basically, with the right tires and the right technique: "There's actually a technique to not getting flats," says Mark, who lives and runs his race team out of Carefree, Arizona. "Basically, it involves knowing where we could go really hard, and knowing where we had to go a little slower in a section with a higher risk for flats." The first tactical leg of the strategy, Mark says, was reaching the Silt Bed first. That's because the first racer to reach the Silt Bed is the only one that gets to drive through it with clear visibility. Beginning at about mile 360, the Silt Bed is a long expanse of silt up to four feet deep. "It's a total blind blackout for anyone behind you," Mark says. "It's like driving through flour that's anywhere from one to four feet deep. You have to have a path worked out through it, and follow it, or you'll go off and end up somewhere you don't want to be. Your speed through there ranges from 30 to 60 mph." Mark had to drive most of the first 200 miles without power steering, due to a loose power steering hose fitting. Driving without power steering was brutal, he says. "It was the toughest Baja 1000 I can remember." At mile 205, Mark pitted for a repair to the power steering, then resumed the chase to catch and pass the leader before the Silt Bed. "We were down about eight minutes behind the leader about 25 miles away from the Silt Bed," Mark says, "but we pulled ahead before we reached it." He had already stopped for a mandatory rear tire change at mile 305. Not because the tires were worn out but because race rules required it. Before turning the truck over to Arciero for the second leg, the rear tires were changed again. Again, Mark says, the tires didn't need replacing. "The ones that were on there were good enough to finish the race on, but we changed them anyway." In thinking about the performance of the truck's tires, Mark remarks on a section around mile 190 that was really difficult to drive. "It was like a whole plateau of big rocks, and without the power steering, the feedback in the wheel was horrendous. You're going over rocks so big you can't imagine how the tires can take it. And without power steering you know exactly what you're hitting. "Those tires are truly amazing — sometimes you hit rocks that are the size of your tire — and you say, no way that I'm not going to get a flat here — but it just goes right over 'em." Strange as it may sound, hitting rocks and driving straight over them is part of the key to Mark's success in avoiding flats. "If you're going to hit something," Mark says, "you want to hit it straight on. The best thing you can do when you know you're going to hit a rock is not to try to avoid it. By hitting it straight on, you have a lot more shock absorption in the tire than you do hitting it on the sidewall. You also have a lot more impact strength in the tread than in the sidewall." Mark began racing on BFGoodrich® tires when he started off-road racing in 1996, driving Class 1. "In my first season, I drove every race in the SCORE series with only one flat. That was amazing. And the one flat was pure driver error, when I slid off course and hit a rock with the sidewall." Photo courtesy Mark Miller Racing. 
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