DAVID ZIEGLER HAS COME A LONG WAY WITH THE BRENTHEL INDUSTRIES ARRIVE & DRIVE PROGRAM
PERRIS, CA
So who is David Ziegler? His story is like many. He grew up in Vegas, starting riding in the desert. Began racing with his Brother; even held a number one plate. Then got married, had kids, and focused on growing his business, DNA Carpentry in Reno, Nevada. Now that he’s been successful, he missed racing. He went out and bought a UTV from his Brother’s dealership and started racing again. The problem was that he was fixing it more than racing it. He decided to step up, and was interested in Sam Berri’s Class 1; Sam bought a Brenthel 6100 truck.
While in Southern California, David decided to stop in at the Brenthel shop to check it out. “We were down in Southern California and I had a couple of cars I wanted to go look at,” says David. Another guy couldn’t meet with me that day, so I called Jonathan Brenthel. I took a look around at his shop and I was really impressed. This is what a race shop should look like. They had one truck with only 600 miles on it. Normally I always sleep on everything. So I was like, yeah, let me think about it. I only made it around the corner before I was calling Jonathan to lock the deal up. I don’t do that very often. That was very, very not like me. We got the truck right before Christmas time. We went out with Chuck for one day and he showed us how to drive it. Honestly, after we drove it once, it was a blast. We need to have that kind of excitement all the time. We went out to Barstow and took it through the whoops. I was really impressed with it. We only got maybe 100 or so miles in that day and the next weekend, we went to race Parker. Our goal for the year was to do Best in the Desert and SCORE. If we DNF’d in one series we would run the other, but we ended up finishing both series, every single race.”
Not only was David having fun again, but he wasn’t spending all his free time working on the truck. “It was remarkable coming from UTVs where every time we were destroying stuff,” David continued. “We remain really impressed with the Brenthel trucks and the prep. They do all the prep for you. It is a great package. Their guys really know the trucks inside out. We followed their recommendations about how to race the truck and we had a really good season because of it. It’s nice to be part of a team that includes fast guys like Kyle (Jergensen) and Connor (McMullen).”
“We thought we would just be taking it slow and getting seat time this year. Our first race in Parker we really didn’t think much about qualifying. We wanted a rear start because we didn’t know the truck very well. We qualified second to last and the last guy rolled it. We beat the guy who rolled, that was it, but we just kept it on to on all four wheels and just plugged away at it. We did pretty decent in the race (they finished 8th out of 16 trucks). I had my brother co-drive for me quite a bit; then my son co-drive for me; my son in law co-drive for me. It was so much fun a couple of my brother’s friends got to get in the truck. Then my brother got to drive it a little bit; we had a great year all the way up to the SCORE Baja 1000.”
“At the 1000 we used the truck as a prerunner because we were taking delivery of a new Gen 3.5 that they built for us in 2 months. I was a little nervous at the start because we never even drove the truck before the race. There was no shake-down; they didn’t even retighten the bolts on it. That’s pretty amazing that they can do that. Brenthel did some things to lower it a little bit to make it turn better, different shock setups and gearing for a little different power range on the motor. It was sticking the corners and feeling really good. I got to the San Felipe whoops and hit a good one that caused the back end to kick; it made me concerned. There was another truck right with us and the same bump caused them to roll. I was even more impressed with the truck. We stopped to make sure they were OK and then kept going. I felt right at home in the new truck. It felt like everything was better about it and it was clicking in the corners. We were passing trophy trucks and class one cars and nobody was passing us or catching us.”
In one of the toughest Baja 1000’s ever, David and his Brother Paul went on to finish 7th place in the Trophy Truck Spec class and 28th overall. “I think we will go out and do some more training with Chuck before next season,” David says. “Parker is right around the corner. Now that we have two trucks we can always have one prepped and ready to race so we may do even more races. In three years I will be fifty so maybe I’ll enter the Trophy Truck Legends class then. Most of those guys take it real serious.”
Brenthel Industries is the future of off road racing and the future is now. Whether you want to win truck championships like Conner McMullen and Kyle Jergensen, race a buggy, rip in the dunes, prerun in comfort or enhance your daily driver with a suspension kit from Baja Kits, Brenthel has you covered. Their extensive list of top rate services includes Race Support, full Arrive & Drive programs, Prototyping & Engineering, and Machining. Their mentoring program will get you up to speed on and off the race course like it did for David Ziegler. Owned and operated by Brothers Jordan and Jonathan Brenthel, the company applies the latest engineering and manufacturing technology with old world craftsmanship to achieve outstanding results
Photos By: GetSome Photos // Words By: Mike Inglesbee