PRO CARS & TRUCKS
SCORE TROPHY-TRUCK
28 Alan Pflueger (class winner, 1st place overall four-wheeled vehicle)
It was a good race – tires ran good no flats all day. It was a little wild running with no brakes but we finished. We’ll get them next time. I’m just happy to be here Sal. I thought I was going off the cliff. The brakes started going into Trinidad - and had no pedal and halfway through the beach I was trying to run the Herbst down and it went to the floor. I said “oh boy, we’re in a different race no; we’re going for the finish. No one passed us. We had a great day and unfortunately things happen in racing in Baja, this is for tough guys in a tough sport and we lost the brakes; luckily we didn’t go off of some cliff. We’re here and thank you for all the fans in Baja for cheering us on.

19 Tim Herbst (2nd place in class, 2nd place overall four-wheeled vehicle)
It went great - fortunately we were that first car off the road, the first car of the race, that really is an advantage. We didn’t have to drive real hard, that could have been the downfall of the race. Hopefully we had enough time to run, if not we were a little too cautious at the beginning and in the second half we picked it up and finished. We had plenty of time (with the switch from San Felipe to Ensenada) and were able to pre-run.

1 B.J. Baldwin (3rd place in class, 3rd place overall four-wheeled vehicle)
It went alright. There were a couple of mistakes but we recovered from them. I really don’t know what position we’re in - I hope we’re doing good because we started in 29th and it looks like we’re the fifth car here. I had a hard time dealing with the dust but I think it worked out alright. I got stuck in the beach for a little bit. I passed a couple of cars on the road and I passed one over Cajun Flats. I think everybody was over-ambitious. I was trying to catch (Mike) Julson going up the beach and I went around the line that goes straight up and out and took a shortcut that looked like it was for buggies and I don’t know how I didn’t go over - it scared the hell out of me. I got stuck and then backed up, turned around and went down the mountain.

86 Josh Baldwin (4th in class, 4th place overall four-wheeled vehicle)
It was a perfect day. Our goal was just to make the inversion so we could make the top 10 and get a good spot in the 500. Just kind of cruising around and no problems, no flats, no nothing – good day, a lot of dust. We passed a lot of people - tried to pass my brother-in-law over there (Carl Renezeder)! We called him on the radio but he wouldn’t move over.

4 Gus Vildosola (5th in class, 5th place overall four-wheeled vehicle)
We had a great day. Last year was a terrible year, what we wanted to do this year was start finishing races. We’re here, physically looks like the third truck and hopefully in the top five, so we’re happy. We had a flat tire early on in the race and then they had a pretty bad wreck with a couple of guys in front of us who were stopped and hooked up together and could not move. We were held up for about two minutes and lastly at about three miles out from the finish line, at the last 90 degree turn I rolled it a few times but landed on its wheels, put it in first gear, and got here. San Felipe is home to us almost - we’re from Mexacali; it’s kind of our home town. We miss it, we’d like to go back next year but this was a great race. It was short notice, we did our pre-running, we were lucky we got our hotel rooms switched, we think we were very lucky to change everything so quickly.

31 Andy McMillin (7th place in class)
We had no problems; lot of dust in the beginning. It was a lot of fun. We started back 18th so we had a lot of dust in the beginning. We just took it easy off the start and kind of let the race come to us. About five miles back we lost a belt on the Chevy motor - had one big serpentine belt - took us about five minutes to change it so I think that took us out of the running.

12 Larry Ragland (8th place in class)
The race was very, very simple. Got the truck a little late - Brian had flat and a spark plug wire fell off so we got behind in the beginning. In Trinidad we did the switch. Pretty uneventful from there, just kind of follow the leader. There’s not a lot of room for passing. I passed one car, not counting the ones broken or parked. So I have no idea how we did, hopefully top 10. I thought there’d be more trucks here.

38 Garron Cadiente (10th place in class)
It’s not our best day - obviously, we were pre-running with our car yesterday, just seeing how it would start and got T-boned by a dump truck. That hurt the truck and me real bad yesterday and considering that we were able to get in gear and finish, we’re real pleased with that, so it’s just a testament to how tough my truck is. It kept me alive and the crew getting it back together was amazing.

16 Cameron Steele (11th place in class)
Good day but had a little bit of a problem. We actually caught on fire there for a little bit, I’m not sure why. We lost the brake caliber and there was a little bit of fire going on and, Josh Baldwin’s guys came up and told us we were on fire. It’s a long day with a lot of things going on out there. I think we’re doing pretty good but just some problems there at the last 50 miles - that’s racing. Good job for the Desert Assassins, our team did a good job and I’m pretty exited about it. I started on the bike but couldn’t have the Tecate I was offered because I went back out on the course. My brother was on the bike - I’m not sure if he finished - I think he broke his leg out there today.

CLASS 1

100 Larry Roeseler (1st place in class)
Even though it was only 250 miles it was one of the best races - we got a couple of lucky breaks in the beginning and got by some slower cars, so we had some gaps between the next cars. Got by Tres Hermanos - all in all we were able to move pretty good. Had a couple of SCORE Trophy-Trucks hold me up and we had one flat going over from the cross over road from Valle de Trinidad to San Vicente. We changed it really quick and got back going. Lost some fuel pressure coming in from the beach end and pulled some switches with the down shift and just sort of nursed it in the last 30 miles for the last three or four minutes coming in. We could smell the finish line so we just wanted to get her in. I drove the whole thing. Even if I caught the car in front of me I don’t think I’d even be able to pass him, so I figured let’s just sit here and cruise. We had both fuel pumps on to keep the fuel pressure up. Troy’s (Herbst) Achilles Tendon is still bothering him but he’ll drive with me at the 500 and 1000 for sure. I know he’s looking forward to that; he just took a little bit of a break. Normally we would have teamed up - it was a good race for me to drive solo. I love the first half which is technical and the last little bit is like you are pretty much in position at this point so you just have to keep truckin’. Our radio wasn’t working all day so we had no idea where we were but it was great. So now we can get ready for the SCORE Baja 500.

135 Pat Dean (3rd place in class)
The traffic was the worst part, we definitely couldn’t run 100%. We ran probably 70% and didn’t make any mistakes - it’s all we could do today. We’re further up than I thought. I thought maybe we finished around 15th or so but I was very surprised to see we were around fifth to finish so we’re very happy. I ran it the whole way. With our bad numbers in San Felipe we weren’t too worried about our bad (draw) number because it is so rough and so wide, but when we switched over here we knew we were in trouble because there’s a lot of single track racing. We just had to go to patience instead of so off the ground.

134 B.J. Richardson (4th place in class)
It went really well. We didn’t have any problems all day long. Turned out we blew one corner but we went nice and steady all day long and we should be first or second. We started way in the back.

114 Bill Gasper (5th place in class)
Had a little problem with the throttle sticking and almost had a really bad mishap. Guys were telling me to push over to the right and I flew right off the embankment and there was tow truck up there - it was pulling out an Expedition - people just scattered. I stopped and looked around and they waved me on so hopefully there was no one injured. It didn’t look like it. Other than that it was pretty much a perfect day - no problems whatsoever.

138 Danny Ebberts (6th place in class)
We’re hoping to be first or second. At Laughlin we were third the first day and first the second day - he might have beat us. I feel we did good - we lost the brakes with about 15 miles to go and lost the GPS about 10 miles into our section. We went the rest of the way without any GPS but the car worked awesome. I’m happy to make it to the finish. This is my first race driving in Mexico and I’m just happy to make it to the finish and we’re definitely fortunate starting this far back. It’s hard to make up time. Yeah, I think we have a good shot at this. My brother, Dale, he’s always got a shot at winning - I’ m a little bit newer at this. I normally run sprint cars and midgets. This is my first time driving in Mexico. Dale started just before the Meadows and I got in after there. They had some problems with the brakes and lost the GPS. We lost the brakes in the most treacherous section coming down the fill and tried to get by with the brakes. We rear end quite a bit and spent all that time marking everything. We definitely could have gone a lot faster but we lost the GPS and had to try and do it by the seat of our pants.

CLASS 1-2/1600
1622 Blaise Jackson (2nd place in class)
It was pretty good. A little scary with the brakes, had to pump them four times to get anything. Finally, it came back. I drove the whole way. It was a good course but man, when you get that pace you kind of have to wing it. I liked it - it was fun. I didn’t pass that much traffic - a lot of them were broken down somewhere, physically I didn’t pass that many. I was passing them when they were at a fuel stop and I was wondering. No problems other than with the brakes.

1617 David Caspino (3rd place in class)
I rolled off a 200 foot cliff. Luckily, there were 20 Mexicans there that flip me back over. A guy had a road block that kept me for 10 minutes. There were a lot of problems today.

1609 Arnoldo Ramirez (5th place in class)
Everything was good except for the finish because there’s traffic everywhere. We were sitting on the street, waiting. The course is extremely fast. There ’s a lot of dust, a lot of traffic. It was too difficult to pass somebody.

CLASS 3
302 Dylan Evans (1st place in class)
quote by co-driver Steve Kreiger
This is the Class 3 new Toyota FJ. It’s the first race, and great to get a win on the first race. Perfect day! Dylan Evans drove the first half and I don ’t think he had any problems, and I got in at Valle de Trinidad and we just had a clean run. I raced with Craig Donahoe in the past - world Class 8 truck and we could have turned on the air conditioning or the radio, the heater, used our windshield wipers to clean the windows. It’s all stock except for the suspension. The interior is all stock items. The engine, the transmission, and 4-wheel drive is all stock. Everything worked perfect. It was a lot of fun. I drove Class 8 for a while from round up days and the first Pro Truck with Bud Feldkamp. We won in 1995 in the Baja 1000 the first Pro Truck race. I’m just doing a little part-time racing and Craig asked me to drive in this with this year - great time. I ran it pretty hard and also this is Nitto’s first class win for their tire company I think in SCORE ever - it might be in anything. I don’t think Nitto has ever won a class win - which was our biggest goal today - to get their first class win. We were about 45 minutes faster than I thought. The car works better than I expected - faster than I expected. That ’s the best part - I didn’t think we’d be done until about 7:30 so it’s a nice surprise.

CLASS 5
518 Luivan Voelker (1st place in class)
quote by co-driver Carlos Albanez s a matter of fact when I picked it up at about mile 120 or so, it looked like we were running last, so I was able to catch up with those guys so it made me really happy. We had a flawless run up until we did a driver change. When we did the driver change, we realized we had an alternator going out and one of our 3-rods, the nut came off. So we were fighting an emission problem all the way. And then back around mile 180 the nut came off the 3-rod again so we had to stop and fix that. And then our batteries went completely dead. So we’ ve been fighting emission the last 30 miles.

503 Chris Bowman (2nd place in class)
I couldn’t drive the car the way I normally would want to. I had a car fall on me Thursday, and I separated my shoulder when we were at pre-run. We had an issue with the suspension. One of the guys wanted to help us by helping us move the jack and it fell on me while I was underneath the car.

CLASS 7
701 Shannon Dierkop (3rd place in class)
We got stuck in the sail for about 30 minutes. That was the only problem we had. We’re hoping we finished third.

CLASS 7S
720 Mike Horner (1st place in class)
Quote by co-driver Chuck Foreman
Ran it between first and third, first and third, 30, 40, 50 miles ago - but we did okay. We ran with Mike Horner. Switching from San Felipe was not a problem, we’re closer to home so we didn’t mind it - we’re from Rancho Cucamonga, California (Orange County). We won San Felipe last year and Laughlin, the first race of this year. We’re on a roll.

CLASS 7SX
744 Jim Hinesley (2nd place in class) Igor Galvan drove the first half. We had a great day - no breakdowns. BF Goodrich all the way. No flats. Great course, we loved it.

CLASS 8
800 Nick Vanderwey (1st place in class)
We were ready to race in San Felipe. We love it there, but this was great too. A lot of cars got by us and we’ve just been playing catch-up the whole time. I think we might have won it, but it’s kind of hard (to tell).

CLASS 9
900 Eric Fisher (1st place in class)
I started and we changed at Valle de Trinidad. The course started too fast - in the beginning too fast.

CLASS 10
1010 Chris Harrold (2nd place in class)
I lost my brakes right after I dropped over the hill - pressed like three times and didn’t have any brakes at all. He (Lobsam Yee) caught me right out of Trinidad in that little rough section which I’ve only been through once. I was having some problems shifting from first back into second so I was just leaving it in second. So I let him go by and then I just stayed on it. But we both got held up by a SCORE Trophy-Truck on the Vineyard Road. I stopped to get gas and John Marking must have stopped also because he was at the pit and I must have got out before him (he had a flat) and then he popped back up. Then when I lost my brakes I tried to stay with him. I was using both brakes and trying to keep it in second because of the trouble from first to second - right out of Trinidad - I’m not sure if it was something I was doing because it was just a temporary thing for a part of the track.

1023 Matt Cullen (3rd place in class)
Quote by co-driver Greg Blakeman
This is John Cooley’s old car. We just fixed it up a week or so ago. No, it’ s not like an untested car. (Is this as much fun as you thought it would be?) No, it was MORE fun. Third one in? - not bad! About six miles out – our front wheel was hanging off. The course was so grippy before that, almost like asphalt in the beginning and then got real loose on the downhill. Caught our breath - no problems for Matt at the beginning.

1024 Alex Crosthwaite (4th place in class)
Quote by co-driver Jose Gonzales
Had a lot of fun - everything was the best. We don’t want it to end. It was a good course, an easy course. Alex had a good run. We started in this car when we ran the 500 last year. We used to race ATVs.

SCORE LITE
1219 Mike Williams (1st place in class)
It went pretty well, no major problems. We lost our tool bag and our brakes, it was a little spongy and the throttle was sticking but that’s about it. Other than that, no problems. I drove the whole thing, just stopped once for gas. Some parts were faster than I expected, some parts were really rough. It was pretty toughed up, pretty rough - a lot of whoop-de-do.

1248 Cameron Steele (2nd place in class)
Everything was awesome. Kash Vessels drove this all day long. I just jumped in at the finish line.
Quote by co-driver Kash Vessels
Everything was good. We were in the dust all day long, behind trucks, cars, everything. But we didn’t have a single issue, no flats or anything, so we took our time through the dust and we’re here now.

CLASS 11
1148 Ramon Fernandez (1st place in class)
No, I didn’t drive all the way, my brother also drove - he started and I picked up at Valle de Trinidad. We had a pretty good day but a flat tire and I got stuck two times. It wasn’t for very long, maybe two minutes in the front and back. Coming from San Felipe was not a problem for us because we’re from Ensenada at La Jolla beach.

MOTORCYCLES AND ATVs
Class 22
1x Robby Bell (1st place in class)
quote by co-rider Kendall Norman
Well, you know we were kind of scheduled to come down around the same time and we got a call a week before we were going to leave - everything’s going to change and it kind of threw a wrench to all of our plans but we made the best of it - you know, we’re really excited to race this area and couldn’t ask for more. Robby Bell, my partner, rode from the start to Valle de Trinidad and I just took it home and that was probably about dead even, maybe about 110 miles between the two of us and he did a great job off the start. We were physically in first place when I got it but I was told we were about two minutes behind on time because Mike Childress was really turning it up. No problems at all - our bike was amazing - the 450X - did a great job, couldn’t ask for more.

16x Mike Childress (2nd place in class)
Quote by co-rider Andy Grider
Course was great - no big problems - a lot of traffic on it. Held me up quite a bit, just my body’s not there - not thinking, my head’s not straight. It’ s a totally different thing, you can’t compare the two - San Felipe is sand and whoops, this is fast roads and you just have to be really smooth and precise here and today I wasn’t. I pre-ran all week and I was down here on Sunday and I did my section twice a day and today just wasn’t my day. I got sick yesterday, went to bed around 5:00 last night. I sweated all day and got up at 4:00 this morning to get to Valle de Trinidad, still not feeling good. I felt a little better when Mike gave me the bike but I could tell I’m still sick and not there. Head nut came off, had to stop and get that fixed but other than that it was just me - I didn’t feel good today. It’s a great course. I feel bad for Mike that I was unable to keep the lead.

CLASS 21
104x Cory Evenson (3rd place in class)
Yeah, it was great - a lot of fun, the course is good. I don’t think we had any problems and it was a lot of fun. We missed one weekend up here only because we were over in San Felipe but mostly got it squared away so it was good. We did some pre-running this week and last weekend. I thought coming out of Valle de Trinidad - I thought we were in second place with 16 minutes back but as it turns out it looks like we took over the lead from someone. This is the first pro race I’ve done with SCORE.

CLASS 20
156x Ryan Penhall (1st place in class
Quote from co-rider Brian Bebeck
It was real good but real rocky. It felt good to pass some guys. We put this together probably about two weeks ago. This is my first Baja race. I got about two days of pre-running in. We switched off at Valle de Trinidad.

CLASS 30
308x Jim O’Neal (1st place in class)
Quote from co-rider Steve Garnet
Passed a couple guys down there or back there - other than that it was a good ride and I want to thank Temecula Motor Sports for giving me a chance to ride this and Scott Myers and Jim O’Neal, big help - those guys are awesome. I just wanted to just get out in front of the 30 bikes and you know, stretch the lead and keep the pace on them and just ride, basically, not even try very hard, so just out trail riding, that was about what it was, it was fun. Scott Myers did the first section to mile 78, Jim O’Neal, of course, he did a 10-foot start and Jim did from mile 78 to Trinidad de Valle and I did the rest. I think Jim crashed and I think 309x was ahead, he passed us in the thick. He went by first but I caught him and this guy was the only guy I passed, the only guys I saw. The first part was a little technical - about eight miles of it was kind of like motocross section, basically, bunch of drops and hills that was fun and once you got out that it was pretty wide open - it was cool. I rode over in San Felipe a few times but I’ve never raced over there but I think that was like a freeway compared to over there - yeah, I’ve heard horror stories about whoops and stuff over there - I’m not in that great of shape to be doing that. That actually worked out better, everybody liked it better over here so - everybody on my time anyway.

CLASS 40
408x Brett Helm (1st place in class)
Quote from co-rider Jeff Kaplan
It was dusty - really hard to get through. No problems with the bike, the usual perfect - everything’s good. Oh, that’s right, one tire change. Really chewed up - it was almost gone, it was wagging everywhere when I was coming in. I didn’t know how many guys; I didn’t want to domino so I just kept pushing up the dust and I’d get them; there was somebody not too far in front of me, I just caught their dust. Andy (Grider) didn’t feel good - you know he had the flu last night - he couldn’t race, so 16x got about two minutes ahead - up around the goat trail there was five and a half minutes apart ahead of him - and then all of a sudden it was down to two minutes and then it was back up again - I don’t know how he’s picked it up. Kendall (Norman) had a good ride, yea, Kendall did great. Man, that’s tough to get stuck behind 30 guys - oh yeah, that was tough - too many guys to pass at the start of the race - too dusty you know. This is the first time I’ve been back since like ’01. You got a whole lot of hard road and that was a long dusty road - hard to get through guys. We needed 500 more miles to get them - that was the problem - but so did everybody else. I think San Felipe would have been better for us because we would have worked through everybody. We were way further back; we never got out of the dust. We just never got clean air so we just rode it down all the way, it’s all you could do. It’s alright, we won, and that’s what we wanted to do, I just don’t like being this far back overall, but that’s the way it goes.

CLASS 50
503x Craig Adams (1st place in class)
Quote by co-rider Bob Johnson
It feels great! I wasn’t sure we were going to make, we got a big hole in the side case and pumping oil and I had to stop and put some epoxy on it then that came off and I had to stop and put some more on it and I lost about 10 minutes just trying to fix it and put oil in it and then I got a rear flat so we’ re just lucky to be here. I don’t know where the hole in the case came from, I think it came from somewhere off the start, Craig Adams and then Doug Smith, my partner, and myself, Bob Johnson, and probably happened on Craig’s section in the dust probably coming off the start. He gave me the bike first in our class and look where we ended up at. Doug got on at around the 20 mile marker and then I got on at about 150, something like that, right where it meets the highway, and that’s where it ended - just tried to short shift it and nurse it along and make it last and it worked. It started missing and missing shifts, slipping the clutch, but babied it out to here. It was just like I expected it. I knew it was going to be rough and dusty and free running like crazy and didn’t really change the pre-run, so it was a good day. Actually it was a little bit faster than I expected, I don’t know what we came in over but I was hoping it would be in the top 10, but I’m hoping that we are on time wise, you know, so we will just have to wait and see where the time is. Awesome course.

CLASS 60
601X Don Lewis (1st place in class)
Quote from co-rider Gene Dempsey
I had a great ride. The Beach is always a beautiful ride along that ocean. It was a little rougher than normal because of the rain, I guess. It was a great ride. We got here and that’s the main thing. I’ve been over 60 for a while. I think I never stopped. A lot of guys stop racing for 10 years and they try to get back in it and it doesn’t happen. My brother and I we’ve been racing these things in about 38 Baja 1000s. As long as you keep going, you can keep doing it. Mike Harper started and went to mile 77, Don Lewis ran to Valle de Trinidad and my brother Sam rode from Trinidad to the coast and I took from the coast to the finish. We miss San Felipe because it’s always a tough race.

CLASS 25
1A Danny Prather (1st place in class)
I got the bike in Cerro Colorado in first place. We had a 30-second lead. I had to get the bike to Levi. I pulled about six minutes on second place. We just had a great ride. The bike was working flawless. Everybody did their homework on this race. Our pits were like clockwork, gas-and-go at every pit. I rode from Cerro Colorado to San Vicente, which was down at the bottom. We had about a five-minute lead then. Levi brought it home. We won the Baja 500 last year, the Baja 1000 and the championship. We started off with a win and to come out like this is just phenomenal for us. I love Baja. I love SCORE races. It’s just awesome.
Quote from co-rider Levi Marana It was fun; there are people all over the beach cheering you on the whole time. It was one of the best and easiest rides I’ve ever had. It was just like a little bit of a jog. It was wide open the whole way. Not a problem at all, not even one. The bike worked great. The suspension worked great. The motor was just ripping, I couldn’t have asked for a better ride. It was perfect. The bikes were pretty good about letting us by. A lot of nice people out there, it was cool. It was a good ride.