Few motorsport disciplines put both car and driver through the wringer quite like off-road racing. Endurance events like the Mint 400 have a tendency to exploit even the smallest of flaws, a reality that Randy Merritt and Mongo Racing know all too well. An equipment operations engineer from Parker, Arizona, Merritt is a life-long racer with a career that dates back to Class 8 competition in the 1990s. After a stint in the 8100 class, he joined forces with the Ford factory team where he would take a podium at the Baja 1000 in the then-unreleased first-generation F-150 Raptor.
These days Merritt and the Mongo Racing team are mixing it up in the Best of the Desert’s 7200 class with an Ecoboost-powered Ford F-150, where they’ve been racking up wins in their hunt for the 2020 title. We recently caught up with Randy to get some insight into the team’s formula for success.