Mojave Desert Racing

Slash-X hosts dedication for 2010 desert race victims

LUCERNE VALLEY • Eight spectators killed in an off-roading race last year will be honored Saturday through a permanent memorial.

A ribbon-shaped statue will be placed at Slash-X Ranch Cafe in Stoddard Valley and a dedication ceremony will take place at 6 p.m. Saturday. The memorial bears the names of the eight people killed at Mojave Desert Racing’s annual California 200 night race last August. A pick-up truck in the race in Johnson Valley lost control and drove into spectators, killing eight and injuring 22 more. There will also be 22 shrubs planted in the spot to honor those injured.

The memorial and ceremony is organized by Fast Aid, a non-profit that gives financial assistance to off-roading victims and families. Lucas Hand, a Fast Aid vice president, said members of the off-road community came to together immediately after the accident to help pay for the victims’ funerals and find a way to memorialize them.

“The racing community is like a family,” Hand said. The statue was built after the accident by volunteers and publicly unveiled in October at the Lucas Oil Off-Road Expo in Pomona. But the statue needed a permanent spot. Hand has visited the Slash-X Ranch Cafe for years, and approached owner Brian Lynn about putting a memorial on-site.

“We’re kind of the race headquarters in the area,” Lynn said. “This would be a nice place for it.”

Hand said some of the victims’ families will be at the ceremony Saturday. The victims had come to the 2010 race from Riverside, Las Vegas, Escondido, and Fillmore.

“They are part of racing and off-road racing,” Lynn said. “And they should be remembered.

Press Action ::: Middle of the Road: Developers View Desert ...

Wednesday, June 15, 2011 Middle of the Road: Developers View Desert Tortoise as Speed Bump to Greener Pastures

By Press Action

Humans are killing off plant and animal species at an alarming rate . It’s no mystery how they’re doing it. And it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out a way to end the killing. In fact, as author Derrick Jensen says, it takes anybody but a rocket scientist to figure that out.

Take the case of the desert tortoise in the Mojave and Sonoran deserts in southern California, Nevada and Utah. They can live to be 50 to 80-years-old. They have well established home ranges where they know where their food, water and mineral resources are, and who their neighbors are. Such lifestyles are in stark contrast to most humans who have no idea where their food and water originates and who choose to exist inside their own self-created shells unaware of their neighbors.

Human activities have led to desert tortoise populations in some areas declining by as much as 90% since the 1950s, and the desert tortoise of the Mojave Desert in eastern California and southern Nevada is listed by the federal government as threatened.

“The desert tortoise is very sensitive to human disturbances, and this has led to the decimation of many of its populations throughout the desert southwest,” Defenders of Wildlife writes on its website . “Increased urban development in the deserts of California and other states have fragmented and reduced suitable habitat. Certain fatal diseases appear to be spreading among tortoise populations. Poaching, the use of off-highway vehicles within tortoise habitat and crushing by automobiles have also continued to threaten tortoise populations.”

The Ivanpah Valley of California, near the Nevada border, is one of the primary habitats of the desert tortoise. But urban development in the towns of Nipton, Calif., and Primm, Nev., and industrial and recreational activities in the area, much of it on federal lands, are imperiling the existence of the desert tortoise.

Let’s review some of the ways that humans are killing desert tortoises in the Ivanpah Valley. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management plays a role in the deaths by regularly issuing special use permits to “organized high-speed racing events” in this area of eastern San Bernardino, Calif. Each event often draws hundreds of racing and spectator vehicles, according to a report released June 10 by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

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