Rough Start At Tonopah 250

Driver Sven Ellstrom and co-driver Ryan Holz fought back from a rough start at the Tonopah 250 Saturday to score a hard earned top 10 finish. Just 10 miles into the race, an encounter with a large rock caused an unscheduled pit stop which cost the team over 10 minutes and allowed over a dozen competitors to get by before the Ellstrom/Oberto team could resume racing.

240 miles later, Ellstrom and Holz had passed all but two of the other Turbo UTVs in the race to finish third on the course and sixth in the timed results. Long narrow sections of the 250 mile desert race course made passing impossible for long periods and did not allow the team’s superior speed to be more of a factor.

Team owner Erick Ellstrom was pleased with the team’s performance, saying, “It was a tough day for us but we continued to move up the learning curve and the information and experience we gained will be valuable as we prepare for 2018. We want to congratulate Mitch Guthrie on another great win in the Turbo UTV Class and we look forward to racing Mitch and his great team again.”

Ellstrom said a new computer system performed perfectly and gave the team data which will be very useful in the planning for the next race in the Best In The Desert Series, the Pahrump Nugget “250” December 3, the final race of the 2017 season.

Ellstrom praised his team sponsors - Tensor Tires and Holz Racing for, “Really giving us the ability to get back up to the leaders after giving them a head start.”

Ellstrom added, “The really good news is, we were fast. The tuning Mark Holz has done for us has given us a real rocket on the race course. Sven said the vehicle was the fastest it has ever been and he could have finished a lot sooner if there had been more room for passing. After one more race to gain experience, we should be able to represent Oberto Beef Jerky, Tensor Tires, Holz Racing, Walker Evans and Vision X with a lot of podium finishes in the 2018 season.”