The California 300 Desert Clean-Up

 

In January of this year we had a great conversation with our longtime friends over at the Mint 400. As we were talking, they mentioned bringing a HUGE race back to Barstow and asked if we would be interested. The excitement ran through us as we loved the thought of Trophy Trucks smashing through Barstow once again and being a part of something so big. We’re also a big fan of the clean-ups that they’ve been putting on outside of Las Vegas (just before the Mint400 each year) so naturally we jumped at the opportunity to join this event with them, just as they’ve been joining ours for the last few years.

Fast forward a few months and our crew here at Clean-Dezert was coming off our last clean-up held south of Barstow ( https://www.clean-dezert.org/2022hodgecleanup ) in July, and we only had 2 months to make the next event happen. This one was going to be especially hard as our really close friends and Clean-Dezert crew members, Corey and his wife Kristina, were expecting their first child (super excited for you guys) and weren’t going to be able to make this event. Apparently, their new bundle of joy was due right around when the clean-up was scheduled and for some reason they didn’t want to chance the baby being born in Barstow (great timing guys, we see what’s really important to you!). After some calls to our great sponsors and a handful of friends, we managed to get things set in motion.

The event started early for us on Thursday morning as we headed out towards Barstow. A quick stop at Costco for some last minute supplies followed by a quintessential Barstow Del Taco lunch and it was time for set up. Our goal was to get the staging area marked out on Thursday and get the fencing up so that we could focus on the remainder of what we needed to get done on Friday (aka the easier stuff). We knew the middle of the day was going to be warm so we really only had the morning and late afternoon to finish setting up before the desert would start filling up with hundreds of people streaming in on Friday evening. It was great to see so many of our friends come in early and help with set up to make sure we were ready to go!

Saturday morning started with our staff making some last-minute set up starting at 6am. We had to have everything perfected and in position by 8am when sign-ups started so that we maintained the illusion that we knew what we were doing. The vendors started to roll in by 7am and we quickly got them set up while the volunteers began to get in line up for sign-ups. At sign-ups we were able to give out 400 event shirts and 150 hats to the volunteers, all provided courtesy of the Gravel Kings. For us, its important to show our gratitude to the volunteers that take the time out of their lives to come out to pick up trash. Being able to provide them with shirts and hats at the start of the day is just one of the small ways we try to say ‘thank you’. In the end, if it weren’t for all of the volunteers and sponsors, then these clean-ups wouldn’t happen or be as large as they are.

Over 400 volunteers came out to scour the Barstow desert in search of the best trash. This year we had a secret weapon: The Sons of Smokey app. A few weeks prior to the clean-up, the Badlinesgoodtimes folks and a few of us from here at Clean-Dezert made it out to Barstow to do a little “trash prerun” using the SOS app. This is a great tool for people who are unfamiliar with the area. Having marked various spots/areas of trash on the app, the volunteers were able to find the illegally dumped trash and made quick work filling about 9 dumpsters in just a few hours. As the dumpsters filled up, our volunteers started getting pretty hungry. Once again the fine folks at Badlinesgoodtimes (if you haven’t checked out their forum you should head over to Badlinesgoodtimes.com ASAP) started cooking up the impending feast that was provided by Camburg Racing. These guys are amazing as they volunteered to handle the entire cooking portion of our event (something about the food we cooked a few yrs ago made them demand to replace our amateur chefs). They picked up the food, made a game plan, and got a crew together to cook some of the best tacos we’ve ever had. They ended up feeding over 400 people in just over an hour, and with the 1000+ waters Dexluxe Window Tint and Liquid Death provided, our volunteers stayed hydrated.

While the cooking was being handled by the BLGT team, the rest of our staff transitioned to the raffle. This year saw over 40 sponsors who donated products and funds to make this event happen. We work hard to provide items for everyone at the event, so we had a small raffle set up just for the kids and made sure every kid walked away with a toy – they’re the next generation of off roaders and its important to bring them up respecting our land. One of the other neat features for our raffle is that we take the “top” prizes and set them up with their own raffle box. This allows individuals to put their tickets in those boxes to have a chance at winning that/those particular prize(s).  Once we pull the winners for those boxes we then dump all the tickets into a general raffle. This provides each volunteer the opportunity to win twice with each ticket. This year we raffled off somewhere around $25,000 worth of donations!

As the raffle ended we could all settle down and reflect on what we just accomplished. Roughly 400 volunteers, 9 dumpsters filled, and a totally successful event. While we’re just a small cog in this whole equation, we want to thank all of the volunteers who donated their day, and all of the sponsors who believe in our mission and support us. Without this community, the deserts wouldnt be as clean as they are. Thank you all again for helping to keep our public lands open and clean.

 And another thank you to the The California 300 for allowing us to be a part off your inaugural race in California. We enjoyed being a part of it and look forward to it for years to come!