Brian Collins
When I get into the No. 12 Mopar® Dodge Ram 1500, it’s like someone going to their office. I don’t get butterflies or nervous at all anymore. You go to your office, you know what you have to do for the day; I go to the races and I know what I have to do for the day. It’s relaxing, a lot of fun, but it’s also a lot of work. It’s my office on race day. It’s just another day in the office for me.
The biggest decision we had to make at our most recent race, the SCORE Terrible’s Primm 300, was about whether I and my navigator Billy Goerke would stay in the truck for the whole race. We actually spent a lot of time talking about that on the second lap of the four lap race, because we had planned to get out on the third lap and let co-driver Chuck Hovey and navigator Erik Dickinson take over. This is what we talk about, the race and also about what’s going on in front of us. We talk about the future of every lap, and how we’re running, and also where we are going to refuel and change tires.
We had two flat tires less than 10 miles from the finish line on the final lap. A flat tire is an interruption in a day of work. Everybody plans for it, but I don’t like to have them, and Billy really doesn’t like ‘em, because he has to change ‘em. We talked to Troy Herbst a little bit, because he was in the support helicopter giving us split times. We were going along and got the first flat on the last lap when we were running neck and neck with the leader. My plan was not to get another flat tire, but we did. It’s a disruption in the office, but you deal with it. You lick your wounds and move on.
Before the Primm 300, and before every race I compete in, I really watch that I get more water and more carbohydrates. I also cut my training back a week before the race. I usually train twice a day, but the week before a race I just train once a day. I try to stay really hydrated, especially for the Nevada races. Hydration and nutrition are really important to me. Other than that I just belt up and have fun.
These races test your endurance. At the Primm 300, I lost 15 pounds. And that’s just an estimate, because I drank a lot of water after the race. By eating a lot of carbohydrates, I usually put on somewhere between 5 to 10 pounds before a race. When I got in the truck, I was probably around 215, which is high for me before a race. When I got home after the race, I was less than 200 lbs.—and that was after I had already drunk four or five bottles of water! So there was probably a spread between 15 to 20 pounds in weight difference between the time I got in the truck to the time I got out. We drove about five hours straight, though—in about 105 degree weather! I try not to ask about the exact temperatures. What you don’t know …
Troy Herbst really helped me out in the helicopter. Every time we came up on a truck he kept pushing me to go harder and harder. We picked up 15 minutes and at one time we were leading on the last lap before finishing second. It was nice to have a coach you could talk to the whole time from the helicopter.
Now, we’ll go on to try to win the Baja 1000 in November. We’re getting the truck ready. We drove the Mopar Dodge Ram 1500 so hard at the Primm 300, it’s amazing she lived through the race. We were so aggressive the last few laps. We’re really excited about it. We have a really good chance of winning the Trophy Truck championship, but first we have to go down and win the 1000. If we win the race everything falls into place. It’s a lot of homework for Chuck and me, but we’re really happy where we are right now. The truck is performing flawlessly. We just have to make sure the boys do their work back at Collins Motorsports, and we do our pre-running. If everything falls together hopefully we can win the race and win the championship. It would be stellar.