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Mobile GasMarch 18, 2005 BFGoodrich® tires are so tough that they allowed defending SCORE Baja 1000 Trophy Truck-class champs Mark Miller and Ryan Arciero of Arciero-Miller Racing to come to the 2004 Baja 1000 with an innovation that helped them win their class again in the 2004 event: ground-to-ground refueling on the fly. That's right. The team that added yet another Baja 1000 championship win to the BFGoodrich scrapbook perfected a refueling system modeled after the air-to-air systems used by military fighter planes. You see, the tires are so durable that even in off-road racing conditions across the punishing desert and rock bed landscapes of the Baja peninsula, Miller and Arciero figured they could skip a tire stop. If they didn't have to stop for tires, why stop for fuel? In a moderately low-speed section of the race, on pavement outside the Valle of Trinidad, they rendezvoused by radio with a chase truck waiting for them at a predetermined point—approximately 330 miles into the race. 
The chase truck, with the refueling probe in place, ready to hook up with the receptor installed on the rear of the Arciero-Miller Trophy Truck, was rolling at 50 mph when the race truck came by at 60.
"As soon as we passed them," says Miller, who drove the first half of the race, "they accelerated up to 60 mph, matching our speed. Then they plugged in the refueling probe just like a C130 and a fighter jet." The on-the-fly refueling went without a hitch, allowing the Arciero-Miller team to avoid the first pit stop. Because of the location, on a six-kilometer stretch of straight pavement with a 60-mph speed limit and no passing allowed, there were no pits and little chance for the operation to be a problem for other vehicles. Did the unusual technology get much spectator comment? "There were about six helicopters checking us out from the air while we did it," Miller said. "Other than that, there was just one truck, making a pit stop across the highway, that saw us." The comments came after the finish of the race when the story about the extraordinary refueling technology of the winning Trophy Truck team circulated. "Most of the comments were positive," Miller said. "I'd say 98% of the comments were admiring. The one remark, that was a 'jealous' comment, was from the Terrible Herbst team. They said they wished they'd thought of it." (The Herbst "Truggy" was the overall winner of the event.) The comments from SCORE officials were less enthusiastic, and Miller says he fully expects to see a change in next year's rules to ban such refueling technology. "That won't bother me if it's banned," Miller says, "because I question whether other teams would go to the diligence we did to make it safe. We had so many safeguards built into the system that our statistics showed it was as safe as regular fuel stops. But I don't know that every team would go to that much trouble." What's most telling about the radical new refueling technology is what it revealed about the tires. The distance that the truck traveled without refueling (only the first stop was eliminated) was made possible by the confidence the Arciero-Miller team felt in their BFGoodrich tires. "If we hadn't been certain our tires could last that first 330 miles of the race," Miller said, "the moving refueling technology wouldn't have done any good because we would have had to stop for a tire change anyway." Ironically, Miller said, the moving refueling technology allowed him and Arciero to drive at a slightly slower pace—since they weren't going to lose the few minutes of a fuel stop—which enabled them to drive a smoother race. "Knowing that we had a slight time advantage allowed me to drive a little more conservatively," Miller said. "And that really helps in Baja. The things that get you in trouble with tires is over-driving. You can run over stuff hard and not get in trouble. That's not over-driving. But when you get on the edge of the race track, run off the side, and run into a rock from the side … that's over-driving. And our fuel-stop advantage kept us from having to over-drive, and stay away from the edges and out of harm's way." What about running an entire race—1000 miles of the Baja Peninsula—without a flat tire, which is what Miller and Arciero did? "The situation speaks for itself. We went the whole way with no flats, running close to a record-setting pace. When we changed tires around the 700-mile mark, the ones we took off looked as if they had 700 miles left on them." "It's amazing. You can't even say anything about it other than it truly is amazing." Especially because the Arciero-Miller Trophy Truck won their class on regular production Baja T/A® tires: available to every BFGoodrich tire dealer. Says Miller, "The nice thing is that every tire place in the U.S. carries the Baja T/A. We really are running and winning on the tire you can just go up to the store and buy." More proof that BFGoodrich tires are The World's Toughest Off-Road Tires™. From 1/1/04 through 12/31/04, BFGoodrich tires won 240 of 310 major off-road competitions. Photos courtesy Arciero-Miller Racing. |
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