SAFETY FIRST - It Takes A Team

gets fed. It’s usually pretty challenging up to a week before the race; fi guring out the sleeping arrangements, the pit plans, the logistics, the vehicles, and the trailers. There’s a lot that goes into it. It’s worse when I’m driving too, but we have a great crew, and great volunteers that help us out. Once it comes down to the race, everybody knows what to do. We’re typically put together a week before our testing is done and ready to roll. We still have to rely on a lot of outside vendors for things like magnafl uxing, transmission rebuilds, torque converter rebuilds. So you are at the mercy of those shops to get your parts back in time. We are pretty religious about our spare packages so we have options if a part is delayed. I usually don’t think that much about it but now that I’m talking about it, I guess it’s kind of crazy what we do. Everyone loves it, and everyone gets along. It’s like a big family at Herling Racing.

Joe Herling at the recent Silver State 300. Photo by Daniel Noble Photography

IT TAKES A TEAM

By David Nehrbass

A little different topic for this edition of “Safety First “will focus on one of our teams. Motorsports Safety Solutions is made up of nearly 60 active team members that range from Retrieval Specialists to Physicians. Each of them has a significant value to the off-road industry and what they bring to each event they work.

Today we will focus on our most experienced team on our team:

Rescue 11 –Karl and Nancy Hartmetz

Karl and Nancy have been involved in off-road racing since its early years. Karl started in 1972 as the sport of off-road racing was starting to boom. Nancy got into the sport a few years later in 1977. They weren’t just fans of the sport, they were active in the building, prep, and racing of some of the sports greatest teams and race cars including time with people like Bill Stroppe, and Rod Hall.

After decades of racing and chasing in the sport, Karl and Nancy, joined up with Motorsports Safety Solutions in 2010 when we started our relationship with Best in the

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Desert. They were essential to our success in Parker based on their knowledge and contacts in the Parker area. As long time Parker residents, they helped us get to know the people, the locations, the roads and locals we needed to be successful in a new area. With Karl having years of Fire Department and EMS knowledge and Nancy’s decades of medical experience, they were an instant fi t for our team. Rescue 11, as they are known operate a generation 1 2010 Ford Raptor. This truck has been places Ford never dreamed of when they came out with their extreme offroad vehicle. They have helped thousands of racers from being stuck, broken, rolled over or injured. Their truck is not only equipped with medical equipment, fi re suppression gear and extrication tools, but is very well supplied with tools and supplies to repair broken race cars. Karl’s fi rst hand knowledge and experience of race vehicles and decades of experience put him in that rare “never give up” old school group of racers that can rig vehicles with band aids and duct tape long after others have given up. Nancy, however, offers the most critical skill at every event. Affectionately known by our team as the Keebler Elf, while Karl preps the truck, she preps the cookies! Not only does she make sure staff and volunteers get a little baggie of cookies, but each team recovered in