It may not reach speeds of 188.387mph but at a top speed of 45 mph, it can run over pretty much anything that gets in its way. At almost twice the horsepower of a NASCAR Nextel Cup racecar, the M1 Abrams Main Battle Tank was a whole new beast to tame for Greg Biffle and Doug Richert, driver and crew chief of the #16 National Guard Ford. They got the opportunity to each try their hand at driving the 60-ton machine last weekend at the National Guard training facility in Las Vegas, Nev. “That’s one of the coolest things I’ve ever done,” said Biffle. “It’s amazing how much horsepower those tanks have and how fast such a heavy piece of equipment like that can go. It was a pretty smooth ride but I think I got some air in it coming out of one of those holes out there in the desert.” Biffle and Richert drove the tanks as part of the footage for a National Guard DVD, which will compare the crew of a NASCAR Nextel Cup team with an M1 Abrams Tank crew. The rest of the #16 National Guard team were filmed at the shop in Concord, N.C. as well as at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in order to show the work and preparation that goes into getting the car ready each weekend. Several Guard members also took their turn in front of the camera at the training center in Las Vegas performing the daily tasks required to maintain and operate the M1. “I have a lot of respect for what these Guard members do,” said Richert. “It’s pretty cool to have such a close partnership with them and be able to come out here and experience a little bit of what they do. We always have a few Guard members in our pit every weekend now and they get to see some of what we do on the race team but this is the first time we’ve really gotten to see much of their side of it. These tanks are just amazing and I have a lot of respect for the men and women who both work on them and operate them. The cool thing is that they have the same team concept that we do and it takes everyone involved to make things run smoothly.”(Roush Racing PR)(3-10-2004)
