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CASEY’S CHRONICLES - Heartfelt Stories About Casey Folks
Photo by Dirtfocus
Casey’s Chronicles feature stories and tall tales about our founder, Casey Folks. In each issue we will share a bit about the man himself and some of the key moments in his remarkable career that went into creating the legend that Casey became. Each article will be presented by a different member of the BITD family and staff. Some are funny, some are serious, some are just designed to fill you in on some amazing history and facts you may not know about the man. For our second issue of DirtVenture, who better than Daryl Folks to tell the story. Welcome to Casey’s World!
By Daryl Folks
Writing this has been an interesting trip through the past. It was 1984, and my dad was working on a race called the “Whiskey Pete’s World Championship Hare and Hound” (WCHH). Like everyone else, I was excited by the name alone and the fact that it would be another “Folks Formula” layout. Translated, this meant: “As good as it gets in the Nevada desert”! The race started at the Whiskey Pete’s Hotel and Casino in Primm, NV, and finished in Sloan, NV, just 20 miles further north on I-15. However, leave it to my Dad and his crew to layout 120 miles of the most amazing course, including several valleys and mountain ranges in between. Throw in a double-check and maybe a triple-check or two, and it was an instant classic. Like I said, “The Folks Formula.” The inaugural World
Casey competing in a Baja race in 1973. His deep passion for motorcycle racing is what eventually led to the birth of the Best In The Desert Racing Association. Photo by Jim Ober, Trackside Photo
First Whiskey Pete’s World Championship Hare & Hound program cover featuring Scot Harden in 1984 Program cover of the 1987 Whiskey Pete’s NISSAN WCHH featuring Daryl Folks
Riders gather in front of Whiskey Pete’s for the Riders Meeting at the 1987 race
Championship Crown belonged to the legendary Dan Smith on a Husqvarna 500 XC. The 1984 WCHH came and went, laying the foundation for what happened next: creating the “Best In The Desert Racing Association”. The WCHH joined another points race already promoted by my father, “Las Vegas 400 Professional Team Race”. With it, an association was born, and my Dad was finally living his dream. And I say that with conviction. When I was about twelve, I remember dad telling me that his dream in life was to be a professional race promoter, and it all started with the WCHH.
From the first WCHH, all of us who raced knew we had not just ridden another race but something very special. A well put on, wellorganized, creative race that set a new standard for hare and hound racing. However, I don’t think any of us, including my dad, saw what was coming next. The inaugural race offered a $20,000 purse, and while the turnout wasn’t huge, as I remember about 110 entries, it received a mountain of great press. So much so the Primm brothers, especially Gary Primm, owners of Whiskey Pete’s, couldn’t have been happier. And because desert legend Dan Smith won the inaugural race, it added even more prestige to the event. With all the media hype and the Primm family solidly behind it, the 1985 WCHH purse increased to $25,000 cash, ensuring the future of a 1980’s motorcycle desert racing icon. Entries almost doubled in 1985, with racers traveling from all over the Western States and even back East to showcase their talents and race for big money. The 1985 event was another classic WCHH featuring a 140-mile four-leaf clover layout with the last loop exclusively up in the Clark Mtns. California. At the finish, I remember telling my
dad I can’t believe the course I just raced as it was at the time the most creative of all his past works. The 1986 and ‘87 WCHH races were bigger and better yet, with more media hype and the cash purse growing to $35,000, with the total entries going over 260. As I recall, there were over fourteen #1 plate holders between the open class and the 250cc class from twenty different states and three countries that came to Southern Nevada to do battle for the crown and the big dollars. Even more racers from back East and the MidWest joined the fun, including National Enduro Champions and ISDE Gold Medalists, to challenge Western desert champions. The Overall winner in ‘85 was a dark horse racer on an ATK named Chris Crandall, followed in ‘86 by Garth Sweetland and Dan Smith again in ‘87.
In 1988, the race moved north ten miles on Hwy 15 to Jean, NV, and retained the name “Gold Strike World Championship Hare and Hound” after the Gold Strike Hotel. As I recall, Dan Smith came back and won at least two more of those events, along with Greg Searle out of Reno, NV winning in 1990. In 1991 it became the Danny Hamel show for the next five years straight. Looking back through time, it only seems appropriate for such an iconic race that peaked the limits of any other desert motorcycle race to be won by “The Greatest Of All Time” (GOAT) Danny Hamel. In the end, four legends were created in the mid-1980s up through the mid-1990s; Best In The Desert, The World Championship Hare and Hound, Casey E Folks Jr., and Danny Hamel. The race came to an end in 1995 when Best In The Desert diversified and introduced the four-wheel racing community. Hats off to Dan, Garth, Chris, Greg, Danny, and all the rest who participated in and won one of the
Daryl Folks on board a factory supported Husqvarna on his way to a 4th place in the 250 Pro Class in 1987
greatest desert races ever.
Fast forward to 2020, my brother Bryan and I were sitting in the Best In the Desert office when Bryan came out of nowhere with, “What do you think about bringing back the World Championship Hare and Hound?”
The talk from there became a new reality, so we tweaked the name from what it originally was to something with a better ring. You don’t say World Championship Heavyweight; you say World Heavyweight Championship. I told Bryan that Tonopah, NV should be the location, and I immediately started working on the project. I was already planning a new race called the “Battle Born 250” slated on the 2020 schedule. Unfortunately, we had to cancel the Battle Born 250 and replace it with another race due to the Covid 19 situation. The Battle Born 250 was formatted as a motorcycleonly two-loop course while the four-wheel vehicles would race on a separate course. It sounds pretty simple; convert the already laid out course to a point-to-point race versus the two-loop format. But, as it turns out, it wasn’t that simple as the BLM Recreation Planner I had been working with transferred out of the Tonopah Field Office to a new office. This meant we had to start over working with new management and building new relationships. It was more difficult than any of us imagined. Fortunately, Trac-On organized trail rides from 2006 - 2014 in Tonopah and held permits for those events. This sealed the deal at the end of the day. You see, I keep very organized files on everything Trac-On produces, and because of that, we had prior approval to fall back on. From there, our entire staff worked
tirelessly to see this through, especially our Race Operations Manager, Jeff Phillips.
This brings us up to Saturday morning, May 22nd, 2021. When I looked across the starting line of the 2021 Rocky Mountain ATV/MC World Hare and Hound Championship Presented by GPR, me on one end and one of my best friends, Jeff Phillips on the other, I thought to myself, “I know dad’s looking down on us; I wonder what his thoughts are?” I quickly realized that I’m sure he was thinking one of two things. Either we are super dumb, or he was mighty proud. And in the end, yes, I’m pretty sure it was the mighty proud part. In the end, all of us at Best In The Desert had a great time putting this event on, and it was a great feeling to go all out for the motorcycle racing community again. Motorcycles are the nucleus of off-road racing, and motorcycles are the nucleus in the creation of Best In The Desert. As the checkered flag fell later that day, after roughly two and a half hours of racing, it was Joe Wasson on the Factory Beta that became the new World Hare and Hound Champion. And for the first time, we crowned a Women’s World Hare and Hound Champion, Rachel Stout. Congratulations to Joe and Rachel for putting in such fantastic rides, and for joining a very short list of past World Champions who paved the way for them and others starting 35 years ago.
A special Thank You to all of our sponsors, especially our title sponsor Rocky Mountain ATV/ MC and our presenting sponsor, GPR. And of course, thank you to all of you motorcycle racers, along with all the Youth Racers, for making the trek to Tonopah, NV, for an epic event and a new chapter in the history of desert motorcycle racing. “BOOYAH”
