I headed up a day early to Spring Mountain and felt I should give everyone an update on road conditions. This evening (Thursday) on CA-127 approximately 15 miles north of Baker there was road construction underway. It effectively was being run as a 1 lane road for approximately 5 miles from that point. I had to stop and wait for the southbound traffic to clear (~20 minutes), then was escorted by a pace truck for the 5 or so mile journey at an average of about 25 mph. There were warning signs about loose gravel. There was some serious rock noise the entire time as my tires kicked stuff up. When I arrived in Pahrump I was surprised to see small, slightly sticky black rocks all over the front and rear of my trailer (see pictures below). I left a huge distance between me and the vehicle in front of me, so what you see was caused by my own setup. After the construction ended, there appeared to be some more gravel that had been dragged and dropped, so speeds were still relatively slow, though there was no pace truck.
I lost about 40 minutes due to the construction. Note that if you don't take 127, but instead take I-15 to Blue Diamond Road it's 40 extra miles, so roughly break even, and no rocks. If you are driving your shiny street car to the track (or just want to avoid the type of rock collecting I ended up doing) you might want to consider it. Note that another driver I know who was 2 hours ahead of me had the delay but no rock issues. There's no telling what it will be like on Friday, but forewarned is forearmed.
Reminder that on-site registration and tech is scheduled from 5:15-6:15. If you are planning to make that window you might want to leave 30-60 minutes earlier than you originally had planned, just in case.
See you at the track.
