Our own Robin Stover rides to Victory with team KORE at The Mint 400 Race
Class 8 took an unprecedented thrashing when KORE’s Stock Full class race truck beat all nine competitors in the legendary Mint 400.
"It’s one thing to win in your own class, but when you can stomp an entire class of theoretically faster vehicles, nothing could be better," said Kent Kroeker, President and CEO of KORE. "We spend a lot of time and energy tuning this truck. Now, after five races, it’s finally paying off."
KORE’s Dodge Ram race truck is powered by Mopar’s 5.7 liter Hemi® motor built by Sean Hyland. A custom South Bend ceramic clutch connects the motor to a Blumenthal’s blueprinted NV4500 5 speed manual transmission. Eight huge Fox bypass shocks control General Tires new Grabber™ competition tires.
Strong winds and cool temperatures made the grueling 95 mile course perfect for racing. Kent Kroeker and Rodolfo Iribe shared the driving duties, alternating every lap. Feature Editor Robin Stover co-drove for Iribe during the first leg.
Robin said, "That truck just wants to run hard. I felt like we could have gone a lot faster, but Rudy was playing it safe. The course is pretty gnarly and it gets worse every lap."
Lap two was a little harder on the truck, but some minor welding at the Mopar/Collins pit put the Hemi® back in the fight.
"Stock Production is a tough class to race because rules don’t allow changing the basic design. We’ve added some sophisticated parts that allow us to go very fast in the desert - but it’s still essentially a stock truck that wasn’t designed to hit giant bumps at 70 mph. So, you end up laying in the dirt a lot, frankensteining everything back in place," said Keg Parker, KORE Engineer.
In addition to wining in the Stock Full class the KORE Dodge ram was the first vehicle to ever win an off-road race on the all-new General Grabber tire.