Rusty Nail Racing Ambassador Announcement

Rusty Nail Racing and mpower® Conquer Baja!

Rusty Nail Racing is a grassroots race team built with firefighters, first responders and racers backed with brother and sisterhood. Rusty Nail’s passion for racing and serving our communities is why we decided they would be a perfect fit for our mpower® ambassador program. Two of their racers put our silicone lights to the test through the brutal NORRA’s Baja 6-Day Rally and after hundreds of hours, including late night transmission swaps and grueling taco tasting, what they had to say shocked us!  

Pictured: Rusty Nail Racing NORRA Team in Tech and Contingency

Rusty Nail Racing Background

We first reached out to Justin Reece, Rusty Nail Racing’s founder, in 2025 looking for a partnership to further demonstrate the products durability during the most demanding race conditions. During our first team call with Justin, from the very beginning, he said, “I get brands that approach me to run their product for free, but I choose to pay for product that I trust because reliability means more to me than saving money.” We appreciated that honesty and knew that Justin would be a great partner to continue proving the reliability of our lights. From racing Baja at night where the silt and rocks pepper race trucks, to rocky race series like Ultra4, Justin puts his vehicles to the ultimate off-road racing test. 

Justin Reece is well known in the off-road racing community for his legendary 1985 Toyota race truck #4619. Not many people suffer through the hardest off-road races in America in a vehicle that’s not your standard million-dollar trophy truck build with cloud suspension. Needless to say, #4619 is a neck bender during tech and contingency. Justin attended his first off-road race, King of Hammers, in 2008 – and immediately fell in love with the sport. The next year, he begged Dave Cole to let him race because back then, it was invitation only. In 2009, he was invited to race and hasn’t looked back since. 

Justin’s current race truck number, #4619 was chosen to honor the 19 Granite Mountain firefighters who lost their lives in the Yarnel Hill fire in 2013. Justin was a hot shot at the time of the incident, and ever since has ran the #19 on his truck to remember them. Justin’s entire career has been in the fire service, and he will be retiring this year in 2026. His passion for the service and racing crossed paths with others who shared the same passion. Most of the Rusty Nail team is either current or retired first responders. The entire team runs #19 in some fashion on each of their race rigs. 

Today, Rusty Nail Racing has seven race vehicles and about 35 primary support team members. When you think of a small home-grown race team that has a bond like no other, people in the community usually think of Rusty Nail Racing. 

Prep for NORRA’s 6-Day Rally

After meeting Justin, we extended the partnership with a lighting package for race truck #4619. Another one of the Rusty Nail racers, Ben Collier, installed the lights on #4619, and during installation, gave us a ring. Ben asked a few questions about installation and explained how easy the install was and how he appreciated the quality of the wiring harness. “I’ve installed a lot of lights and the oversite on wiring harness quality is often overlooked and these lights are heads above everyone else’s,“ Collier explained. He also let us know how he was prepping his 2024 Polaris Pro R UTV for the same race as Justin, NORRA’s Baja 6-day Rally. It was a no brainer that we needed to upfit Ben’s race car as well. We sent a lighting package out to Ben shortly after. 

Surviving Baja

NORRA’s Baja 6-Day Rally is an off-road race that covers 1,400 miles of the Baja Peninsula in Mexico. Each day, drivers participate in timed special stages making sure that they are back on time for their next day start. This might mean working throughout the night on their vehicle to start on time the next day, resulting in no sleep. If you know off-road racing in Baja, the terrain consists of deep silt bed monsters, sandy rocky washes, technical mountain trails, desert roads and beautiful coastal sections. Both vehicles and racers endure relentless vibration, flying rocks, dust, silt, heat and nighttime racing. Racers also find time to eat plenty of tacos and be fully immersed in the good vibes Baja tends to bring. 

This year’s race was “one of the hardest” says Justin. The Rusty Nail team had to swap out two transmissions during the six days for #4619 and spent most nights without sleep. Justin was in first place in his class for part of the race, but dropped down for a second place win. For having to work on #4619 so much, a second place win by not very much time after first place, is something to be proud of. 

Ben Collier raced in a faster class than Justin, Evolution Pro SXS. Ben’s goal was to just finish the race, and maybe a top 10 in class. After a small rear diff leak, losing all his tools and spare tire on the trail they had a flawless race and accomplished his goal – a 10th in class. 

mpower® Lights Durability Performance  

If there’s one common quote we heard on the team call after the race, it was that “those things were bright!” Both Justin and Ben said that their race rigs had paint chips come off from being sand blasted during the race but after looking at the silicone lights they were unscathed. Ben says, “the protective aspect is pretty awesome.” 

As far as light projection, we were curious how the distance and hybrid spot-flood beam spread worked for these guys at night in Baja. Since Justin did more night racing, his answer was, “the biggest thing I noticed was the lightbar. I’ve ran higher-end lightbars and they spray everywhere including the off the hood. This mpower® lightbar didn’t spray and gave you a solid usable beam of light. This race was the best I’ve ever driven at night, and I think it was due to the lightbar. I just tossed my old lightbars out after NORRA.” 

Ben seconded Justin’s comments, adding “my race car took a beating with paint missing all over the roll cage, and my GoPro® camera lenses have chips from rocks. I took a look at the silicone lights and noticed some chips in the metal housing, but absolutely nothing happened to the silicone lens.”  

Overall, Justin and Ben didn’t outdrive the beam of lights, didn’t break the lights despite Baja’s sand and rock blasting and will continue to use mpower® lights for future races. We are stoked to hear these results for the team. To know that the patented silicone lens of mpower® holds up to Baja, is a first-place win for us. 

What Does the Future Hold? 

We absolutely love the Rusty Nail Racing team and will continue to embrace their partnership. Both Justin Reece and Ben Collier are mpower® ambassadors and enjoy what the lights have to offer. We look forward to the rest of the year’s races the team will run and how the lights will help them have success.  

mpower® Lights, Race Proven! 

We can now say that mpower® silicone lights are Baja proven. They hold up to the beating not only from firetrucks, ambulances and cop cars, but race cars too! We will continue to innovate our lights and put durability first because those who run our lights need them to work when it matters. Whether it’s second place at NORRA or a house fire operation – mpower® lights hold up to the call. 

Race and pit photo credit: Megan Eno