Lewiston race team is Baja-bound

The top class in this week’s Baja 1000 off-road race in Mexico will include teams with million-dollar trucks aided by professional pit crews and support staff.

And then there’s Total Mayhem Racing of Lewiston. Its truck was more or less willed into existence over the last decade by the passion and dedication of team owner Tyler Bolland and his friends.

Their rig is expected to be in the trophy truck field, along with the well-heeled big boys, when the Baja 1000 gets started Thursday at Ensenada, Mexico.

The race, which is marking its 54th year, is the longest nonstop, point-to-point race in the world. Teams have 50 hours to complete the mostly desert course on the rugged Baja Peninsula, and more than half probably won’t make it to the finish line.

“Guys spend a million dollars on a trophy truck and have chase helicopters and NASCAR pit crews and full, orchestrated, monster deals. And they’re in our class,” Bolland said last week before departing Lewiston for Mexico. “We are the lowest-budget team in the world.”

Bolland and his crew appear to be the only top-level team that has designed and built its own truck. Bolland has a photo on his phone of a seemingly random collection of metal tubes sitting on the floor of his small shop in June 2018 that eventually became the 600-horsepower beast the team is taking to Mexico.

It’s actually the second consecutive year Total Mayhem has entered this truck in the Baja 1000. The team had just barely completed the vehicle before last year’s race — and then its transmission blew 20 miles beyond the start line.

That’s how it goes in this event.

“Even those guys with endless budgets still break down, because you’re still fighting Mother Nature and you’re still fighting a piece of mechanical,” Bolland said. “My goal isn’t to win — my goal is to finish. If you get a finish in the Baja 1000, to me that would be greater than winning the Super Bowl.”

Bolland, 39, grew up riding dirt bikes and watching monster trucks and short-course off-road racing. He later enlisted in the Army for six years, and was in special forces during most of that time.

“So after I got out, you go from being insanely challenged and pushed, and I needed another place to put that drive — a healthy habit,” he said.

He eventually found off-road racing, starting out with a stock vehicle that he modified. He then became fixated on building a trophy truck, and spent much of his leisure time searching the internet for how-to videos and hot deals on parts.

He also had lots of help from his friends, including Ricky Silber, Shawn Bake, Kyle Hummel, Alex Barkley and Josh Hahn, some of whom grew up together in the Lewiston-Clarkston Valley.

The Total Mayhem truck probably cost less than $100,000, Bolland said, though it did require perhaps 3,500 total hours to construct. And Bolland, who works at Clearwater Paper, had to scrimp and save, even going as far as selling a 1969 Firebird he had restored in order to fund the project.

Team members will take turns driving in the race, with Bolland and Hummel slated for the first leg, followed by Barkley and Hahn. The team has also brought on board two out-of-the-area drivers, Jason Davis and Kevin Crocker, who will be part of the relay.

Driving in the Baja 1000 is a grueling task, Bolland said, with every rock or turn a potential disaster. The locals have been known to set booby traps for the racers, he said, and spectators can sometimes become obstacles.

“For the driver, their eyes are just laser focused, and it consumes so much energy,” Bolland said.

Beyond this race, Bolland hopes to attract the sort of sponsorship other teams in the trophy truck division enjoy. And now that he and his crew know how to build one of these vehicles, he wonders if there might be a market for selling them.

“I wanted a truck for myself, and now I have one,” he said. “If I race once a year or once every two years for mental appeasement as a healthy hobby, I’d be happy.”

Baney may be contacted at mbaney@lmtribune.com or (208) 848-2262. Follow him on Twitter @MattBaney_Trib.