Pahrump Nugget 250 resurrected

NORTH LAS VEGAS--Off-road racing returns to the valley as Casey Folks, owner of Best in the Desert, resurrects the Pahrump Nugget 250.

Folks announced on Friday at the Aliante Casino and Hotel that his company will be coming back to Pahrump after an absence of eight years. The race will be held in Dec. 3, 2016.

"It's great to be coming back to Pahrump," Folks said to packed ballroom on Friday.

According to Russ Turner, spokesperson for Best in the Desert, the last Vegas to Reno race to start in Pahrump was in 2007 and the last Terrible's Town 250 was also in 2007.

SNORE had a race called the Nugget 250 in 2010 and that was the last big off-road race Pahrump had.

Folks told the PVT in 2014 that Best in the Desert left because of cost and manpower to hold the race.

In that same conversation he said if he lost a race he had a course already set up to go in Pahrump and the town would be the first to get a race.

In the end, he didn't lose a race.

Instead, he said, "It was time for a change."

The result was Henderson lost the Mint 400 and the Henderson 250.

"Henderson didn't do anything wrong," Folks said. "I just wanted some change."

He said Best in the Desert signed a three-year contract for the Pahrump Nugget 250. The race will start with a parade from the Nugget to about 15 miles out of Pahrump and it will then go up to Beatty. It will loop around Beatty and finish at the Pahrump Nugget."

The town of Laughlin will get the Mint 400.

Folks said he has been wanting to come back to Pahrump for some time and started working on this project in 2013.

Nye County Commissioner Butch Borasky said this was a group effort to get the race, which involved the County, the Pahrump Nugget, the town and Folks.

"I kept pushing Herbst to return with his race," Borasky said. "And I started talking to the Herbst brothers and when Terrible's came back to Pahrump I asked them to arrange a meeting with Casey Folks. I wanted the Herbst brothers to bring back the Terrible's 250. At the meeting with Folks, it was then that we were told he had made plans with the Nugget."

Borasky said a race like the Vegas to Reno race can bring up to $16 million to the region from Beatty all the way to Reno.

"Folks told us this at a meeting and floored a lot of people with those figures," Borasky said. "Folks said a smaller race like the Pahrump Nugget 250 could bring in around $3.5 to 5 million to our region."

He said the race will bring 175 racers, 300 support personnel and up to 1,000 support vehicles.

Borasky also assured Pahrump that Folks knows what he is doing.

"Casey is highly organized and has been doing this for some time," Borasky said. "If he says there will be no problems with the watering of the course, then it will be watered. He will also handle the crossings of the highways. The people can count on his word to clean things up if there is a mess."