LAS VEGAS (Nov. 3, 2016) — Michelin North America's BFGoodrich brand wants to send a couple of fans to the 2017 Baja 500, but it's making them earn the chance to do so.
BFG is marking 40 years of off-road racing involvement at this year's Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) show in Las Vegas with a pit-stop competition that will earn one team a trip to the 2017 Baja 500.
BFG is hosting a “one-of-a-kind” Pit Crew Challenge outside its booth at the SEMA Score Baja Experience outside of the South Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center Nov. 1-3. Each two-member team will compete against the clock and other teams by conducting a controlled pit stop and testing their skills in changing BFGoodrich Baja T/A KR2 race tires and simulating a fuel stop on a SCORE Baja Chenowth Pre-Runner buggy.
Each day the team with the fastest time will win a set of BFGoodrich Tires. One lucky team selected at random will be rewarded with a trip to the 2017 Baja 500 as guests of BFGoodrich.
BFG's direct involvement in the sport dates to 1975, when a group of the firm's engineers traveled to Baja California, Mexico, to test a new concept — a radial light truck tire for both off and on-road use. The company learned quickly that they could use the Baja peninsula as a real-life laboratory to develop tires — if they could withstand the grueling terrain of Baja.
BFG's first radial all-terrain tire, the Radial All-Terrain T/A, debuted a year later. BFG chose to prove the durability of the new tire by competing in the SCORE Baja 500 desert race.
Mounted on an Oldsmobile Starfire, the experiment worked to strengthen the brand's commitment to prove they could make it work. That decision, BFG said, was a catalyst in the growth of the light truck and four-wheel drive vehicle industry and triggered the beginning of the desert racing history of the brand.
Since then, the BFG brand has chalked up 86 class wins in SCORE Baja racing.
BFG also is demonstrating a Virtual Reality (VR) video and Augmented Reality (AR) video experience throughout the show.