Get local news delivered to your inbox!
Sandhills Open Road Challenge inspectors check out the cars and drivers on Friday to make sure everything is in order before they hit the road at the One-Mile Shootout about 15 miles north of Cozad on Road 421. About 120 cars participated in the shootout that gives the drivers an opportunity to hit speeds between 140 and 200-plus mph.
Starter Robbi Smith of Arnold flashes the green flag for car No. 112 as the driver takes off from the starting line at the Sandhills Open Road Challenge One-Mile Shootout north of Cozad on Friday. The drivers get a chance to punch it on the long straightaway for a fun time before Saturday’s SORC that runs north from Arnold to Dunning.
COZAD — Road 421 cuts through the sandhills north of Cozad and a straightaway offers race car drivers the opportunity to put the pedal to the metal.
The Sandhills Open Road Challenge began Thursday with the Loup 2 Loup race and on Friday, racers had some fun trying to hit their top speed in the One-Mile and Half-Mile Shootout.
Cars and trucks designed to go fast took off from the starting line reaching speeds that ranged from 140 to more than 200 mph.
John Huff, of Casper, Wyoming, has been racing in the SORC since 2007.
“This place is fun,” Huff said. “You get to go fast, take chances and cheat death.”
He said a friend of his came to race in 2005 or 2006 and encouraged Huff to give it a try.
“We came the next year and have been coming ever since,” Huff said. “It’s a lot of fun, the people are fun. We love the set up. They feed us good; they treat us like royalty so we just keep coming back.”
Huff’s car is a 1970 Plymouth Barracuda.
“After a few years of driving some other cars, we built this car just to come to this race,” Huff said. “This has a 340, which is bored and stroked, but it‘s a 408 cubic inch engine, naturally aspirated, no turbos, no blowers, no nitrous, no nothing, but it ran 158 mph last year.”
Entrepreneur Kirk Sharp of Valentine and Omaha, loves the SORC racing as well.
“This is my ninth year (at SORC),” Sharp said. “It’s a lot of fun. I do a lot of bow hunting and belong to a lot of groups and like with anything, whatever it is, it’s always the people.
“This is an excuse to come out and meet a lot of people and have a good time and enjoy things that other people enjoy.”
Sharp drives a 2015 Corvette ZO6.
“They shoehorned in a 6.2 liter engine in here and it’s got a supercharger on it,” Sharp said. “It develops about 650 horsepower stock.”
His car has been modified to produce over 700 horsepower now, which he said makes it “a little faster.”
“My wife and I drove it to California for a wedding anniversary, a 5,000-mile trip, and we averaged 33 miles to the gallon with a 650 horsepower engine,” Sharp said. “It was amazing.”
Sharp said it is an all-purpose car that can go almost 200 mph.
Matt Vos and Brad Roorda of Pella, Iowa, collaborated to build a racer out of a 2002 GMC Sonoma truck. This is their second year to race at SORC.
“In 2019 I came up and navigated for a gentleman,” Vos said. “(Roorda) and I got to talking between the two of us that it would be fun to build a truck and let’s go race here.”
He said the duo also races at the Bonneville Salt Flats and the Standing Mile at Blytheville, Arkansas.
“We wanted kind of a multi-purpose vehicle, so this fit the bill,” Vos said.
Roorda said that basically he’s the fabricator and Vos is the engineer.
“I tell him, we need this, and he tells me, OK, this is how we’re going to mount it or where we’re going to put it.” Roorda said. “We work pretty well together. He does the management side of things and I’m the crew chief.”
They have been working on cars together for the past 30 years. Vos is a project engineer, mechanical engineering with Vermeer Corp. and is in charge of new product development for brush chippers.
Roorda also works at Vermeer and he is a test application engineer.
“I basically get to test the prototypes (Vos) builds and then I try to break them,” Roorda said. “I make his life miserable for him.”
Driver Shanda Gronseth and her husband Dustin of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, have been racing at SORC for the past 10 years.
“We started in 2012 together,” Shanda said. “My husband ran with Brad Wheelhouse in 2010, we got married two weeks before.”
Shanda said they won the 90 mph class their first year and took second in the 100 mph class last year. She is one of the few women who drive in the SORC.
“There are a few wonderful ladies that have the same itch that these guys do for speed,” she said. “It’s a great time.”
Get local news delivered to your inbox!
I am a Colorado native and have been at the Telegraph for 18-plus years, including a 10-year stint as managing editor; my interests are in feature writing that focuses on people.
Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
“The shortage of workers has really had an effect on us,” said Mike Gage, a 17-year Union Pacific Railroad veteran at Bailey Yard in North Platte.
A Lincoln County judge sentenced Harlie E. Saathoff to 15 to 18 years in state prison Monday for the fatal stabbing of a 20-year-old North Pla…
The policy, which also lays out the process for questioning the inclusion or exclusion of particular materials, will be presented to the school board for action Monday.
A City Hall press release said Carman, who had been running for a fourth council term, cited desires to relocate closer to family and to truly retire as his reasons.
The Lincoln mother found out Friday that she reached the semifinals for the Maxim cover girl competition.
“When you close on a house, there’s a whole lot of things that have to be done,” Sustainable Beef LLC CEO David Briggs said Thursday. “That’s what we’re doing now.”
The Douglas County Sheriff's Office has identified a man who was found dead on the side of the road Sunday morning.
The state will restock Wagon Train with hundreds of thousands of game fish, but it could be a few years before it produces keepers.
Long before “North to Alaska” was a hit song and a movie in 1960, Addie Braxton and Ruth Wilson went that way and made pioneering journeys.
To succeed under state law, at least 1,059 signatures must be verified as being from registered voters inside city limits. That equals 10% of the total vote in the city’s November 2020 election.
Sandhills Open Road Challenge inspectors check out the cars and drivers on Friday to make sure everything is in order before they hit the road at the One-Mile Shootout about 15 miles north of Cozad on Road 421. About 120 cars participated in the shootout that gives the drivers an opportunity to hit speeds between 140 and 200-plus mph.
Starter Robbi Smith of Arnold flashes the green flag for car No. 112 as the driver takes off from the starting line at the Sandhills Open Road Challenge One-Mile Shootout north of Cozad on Friday. The drivers get a chance to punch it on the long straightaway for a fun time before Saturday’s SORC that runs north from Arnold to Dunning.
Get up-to-the-minute news sent straight to your device.