From sand to speedway

Sun Buggy Fun Rentals expands terrain offerings

F. ANDREW TAYLOR/VIEWSun Buggy Fun Rentals employee Justin Ford drifts around a corner on the new Terra Drifting Paved Course at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Feb. 9. Above, Las Vegas resident Miguel Paredes drifts around a corner on the Terra Drifting Paved Course. Left, heavy rainfall on the course makes for exciting driving.Photos by F. ANDREW TAYLOR/VIEW Above, Las Vegas resident Miguel Paredes drifts around a corner on the Terra Drifting Paved Course. Left, heavy rainfall on the course makes for exciting driving.Photos by F. ANDREW TAYLOR/VIEW Advertisement

As the driver rounds the corner, he hits the gas hard and the back end spins around over the wet asphalt. For a moment, the vehicle is moving almost sideways, then, it snaps back straight and careens forward. Fortunately, that's exactly what the driver was trying to do.

Sun Buggy Fun Rentals, which has operated from its office near the Las Vegas Motor Speedway for more than three years, has added a new facet to its dune buggy tours of the Nellis Dunes: drifting, the art of the controlled vehicle slide.

Company operations manager Scott Bradford said that setting up the drifting course was a natural extension of what staffers were already doing.

"We test-drive the buggies before we take them out every day, and the guys being guys, they would be doing doughnuts and figure eights, trying to see just what they could make them do," Bradford said. "We rented the track one afternoon and went out there and tried out about six different kinds of tires, cars with different gear ratios and different suspension settings. We played with the air pressure. We spent about five or six hours working things out."

It took the company three years to work out everything to its satisfaction and get the drift buggies to where they were ready to unveil them to the public.

"We switched them to one-wheel drive from two, modified the shocks, changed the gearing, the steering is set up faster," Sun Buggy President Randy Jordan said." It wasn't just a matter of switching out the tires for slicker ones."

The company's new Terra Drifting Paved Course is set up in one of the speedway's parking lots on a more or less permanent basis. It consists of a pair of mirrored tracks defined by stacks of tires and traffic cones.

A specialized vehicle traverses the track periodically spraying water to make the surface sufficiently slick. The company will move the operation out to the Nellis Dunes a couple of times a year when there are big NASCAR events at the speedway.

In addition to the new course, the company moved to new offices that are about 30 percent larger than the place it operated out of across the street from the current location.

"We wanted the frontage so we could be on Speedway Boulevard. When the Mario Andretti Racing School moved out of the space, we made an offer. It was a no-brainer," Bradford said. "We get walk-in business now, which we almost never did before."

In addition to setting the price for the Terra Drifting Paved Course at $99 for the first six months, the company also is doing a monthly special event in which all the proceeds for a weekend will be donated to Haiti relief through the American Red Cross. The next fundraising event is set for March 6 and 7.

Sun Buggy Fun Rentals is located at 6925 Speedway Blvd. and can be reached at (866) 728-4443 or visit sunbuggyfunrentals.com. Buggy tour prices begin at $99.

Contact Sunrise and Whitney View reporter F. Andrew Taylor at ataylor@viewnews.com or 380-4532.