Desert silt is one of the toughest surfaces to race on. There’s no grip, and wheels just spin in the deep, fine sand. “It has the consistency of baby powder, but it’s feet deep,” explained desert racer and OppositeLock moderator Dusty Ventures. Sounds like a bad time!
Strategies for dealing with silt include going around it to just pinning the throttle and crossing your fingers. As with any loose pit of despair, heavier vehicles like these trucks often have a worse time navigating through it. If you don’t go around the silt pits, sometimes you just get stuck. Getting stuck isn’t the best place to be if there’s oncoming race traffic, either.
Case in point: these unlucky trucks that got flipped, wrecked and beached around a silt bed on the Vegas to Reno Off-Road Race. Ouch!