PRO CARS & TRUCKS - SCORE TROPHY TRUCK

NICK VANDERWEY, No. 84 (Second in class and second overall four-wheel vehicle. Vanderwey shared driving duties with Curt LeDuc.) – What a race – holy moly. We started sixth and Curt (LeDuc) set an easy pace, wanted to take it easy and got over the summit and then he threw on the boosters and took off. I'm still catching my breath. This was something else. Thank goodness we got some fog in San Matias and at the Mike's turnoff, we practically had all of our lights off and saw McMillin's yellow light and made a beeline for it and by a miracle we got by him. It was all I could do to keep him behind me the rest of the way. It was ‘be careful what you wish for’ next time. It was intense racing. We hit so many rocks it was just unbelievable what these tires will take. This win goes to my brother John, the crew chief, the only one that doesn't get in the truck, but he put a great pitting plan together and that's what got us in front.

CO-DRIVER CURT LeDUC said: It started off muddy. These guys charged and everybody ran great up front. It was really a lot of fun to be part of this team and help these guys come from Class 8 all the way up to SCORE Trophy Truck and become a contender here.

BRYCE MENZIES, No. 70 (Third in class and third overall four-wheel vehicle. Menzies drove until mile 540 and Ricky Johnson drove from RM 540 to the finish.) – Everybody kept asking me if we were going to take it easy and go for the championship. Our game plan this whole year was if you win races, you come away with a championship. We started fourth and I just didn't feel it off the start so I was kind of cruising and we got to Borrego and one of our chase crews said Andy (McMillin) was six seconds behind us. He came up and was hitting me so we moved out of the way and let him go. I think we passed him back when they were changing drivers. We led from there on and at our fuel stop our jack broke and the tire didn't go on all the way and we lost some lug nuts. It was an awesome day. San Felipe was rough like no other. I was getting beaten up so badly it was horrible – that's why it is off-road racing. I want to thank Sal Fish for putting on these great races. I did 450 miles and didn't get a single flat and the tires looked brand new when I took them off. My hat's off to my whole crew and co-driver Pete Mortensen. To get a championship for him and I is just huge. To come away with that number-one plate for next year would be awesome and we'll come back and try and get that victory for the 1000. I've got to give it up to Andy and his dad for winning. That's a huge accomplishment and it's one of my dreams and goals. To see them up there doing that just drives me harder to bring it back next year.

CO-DRIVER RICKY JOHNSON said: Steve Menzies came to me earlier this year and said I have a goal for my son and that's to win the SCORE championship. I really didn't do anything but drive around following these guys (Andy McMillin) and I want to congratulate the McMillin family. It was awesome to be involved in that kind of race and it just says a lot for the guys who put together trucks like that. It is an honor to be back here.



MARK McMILLIN, No. 23 (Fourth in class and fourth overall four-wheel vehicle. Mark McMillin drove to mile 200, Daniel McMillin drove the San Felipe Loop and Hovey drove the final 260 miles to the finish.) – Co-driver Chuck Hovey said: What a great day for McMillin Racing. We had a great day. We had some motor issues with a lot of sputtering in San Felipe. It would clear up and we couldn't really figure out what it was and then I had alternators going bad so we ran four lights for the last 150 miles. It was a great day and we’re happy to be here.

CO-DRIVER DANIEL MCMILLIN said: Driving the SCORE Trophy Truck is a lot different than driving the Class 1. It was up the middle of the track instead of looking for lines like a buggy. The truck just goes through the holes bigger and better. This whole course is huge holes so with the truck, there is no comparison.

CLYDE STACY, No. 18 (Fifth in class and fifth overall four-wheel vehicle. Stacy drove the San Felipe loop and a section to the finish. Juan Carlos Lopez drove the rest of the race.) – We were having a good time with it. We didn't have any real problems and it was a good race overall.

JESSE JAMES, No. 54 (Sixth in class and seventh overall four-wheel vehicle. Jeff Geiser drove the San Felipe loop and James drove the remainder of the race.) – I proved I could run up front. It was a great day. It was an epic day with Tavo (Vildosola). We were back and forth in each other's dust, trading places three times. It was fun just being able to hang with him because he is so fast. We had a couple of little mistakes. We blew some turns and gave up a position. We had a couple of flats but other than that, this thing ran great until I rolled it about one mile from the finish. We hit mud and it was just like ice and spun it around and I tried to avoid hitting a tree and put it on the side. The truck was too pretty looking anyway. This truck does stuff that I'm amazed by. It thunders through and is a pleasure to drive. I've had a top 10 in every race I've run this year.

KEN LOSCH, No. 10 (Seventh in class and ninth overall four-wheel vehicle. Losch drove the start to Borrego and Tom Oliveria drove the San Felipe loop.) When you get this thing up to 70 or 80 miles per hour, you are piloting it and not driving it. Losing our reverse gear was a big problem. If we came into a corner and overshot it, we couldn't back up. We had to make sure we didn't overshoot one of those thousands and thousands of corners. We never got a flat. It wasn't a bad run considering we had no reverse and with a new driving style. When you’re pre-running, you see stuff but when you're (racing), you just give it the throttle and there's a thousand whoops and you just nail it, hold it and you're on top of it and across it like a magic carpet ride. I was, quite frankly, pinching myself. It's a great experience.

ROBBY GORDON, No. 77 (Eighth in class and 10th overall four-wheel vehicle.) We missed a turn at the 390-mile mark. We missed a turn on a fast graded road and it spiraled and we crashed it. We were running 130 before that so we probably hit the ground at 100 and it was a big one. I haven't crashed that hard in a long time. Literally two miles from the finish line, the drive shaft broke but I'm sure it broke because of the crash. The back of the truck moved over about three inches because of the crash so the drive shaft probably got jarred pretty hard.

TROY HERBST, No. 49 (Ninth in class. Troy Herbst drove to Ojos Negros and handed it over to Tim Herbst, who drove to Borrego. Arciero drove from Borrego to the finish) – Co-driver Ryan Arciero said: This team never gives up and that's why I love being a part of this program. You never know what is going to happen until you get to the finish line. Anything can happen and this course was so rough. This truck is a throwback to the Truggy because they wanted to commemorate The Shark and all the wins they had in the Truggy. I think we nailed it with the paint scheme. Our goal was to get it up front and get it here first but after the day we had today, we were just happy to get it to the finish line.



CLASS 1

JUSTIN DAVIS, No. 149 (First in class and sixth overall four-wheel vehicle.) – There was lots of water and mud and the car doesn't run when it gets wet. It runs on six cylinders. We steadily moved up as everybody started to break off and then it seemed to work out at the end. We knew we had to finish (to win the championship) but at end when we knew we could win, we went for it. We just took the risk and it turned out well. We won the championship and won the biggest race of the year. It was definitely a challenge and I'm looking forward to doing it next year. Maybe we'll go three in a row.
RONNY WILSON, No. 111 (Second in class and eighth overall four-wheel vehicle.) – We led it early and then we had a flat and throttle issues. We were down in Borrego for 20 minutes which kind of killed us. We chased Justin (Davis) all day. I think this is the seventh podium finish at the 1000 but we've never won it. I don't know what it is going to take to win one of these. We'll keep trying.

BRIAN PARKHOUSE, No. 114 (Third in class. Parkhouse started and drove to Race Mile 330 and Cody Parkhouse drove from RM 330 to the finish.) – I had one flat and it was a pretty clean run. We passed probably a half-dozen cars or more than that. At some point in time we paced it and then cracked a transaxle and started leaking oil. We stopped every 70 miles or so and put oil in it. The course wasn't anything I didn't expect. The San Felipe loop is really beat and I was happy to get out of it. The car worked really well and felt really good but the course was rough. We are pretty happy with a nice strong finish.

CO-DRIVER CODY PARKHOUSE said: We broke a transaxle and had to put gear oil in every 50 miles. We lost a ton of time. There's a lot of mud left over from the rain last weekend.

MARK HUTCHINS, No. 116 (Fourth in class. Mark Hutchins started and Christopher got in at mile 320) – Co-driver Christopher Hutchins said: Gnarly. The roughest 1000 I've seen by far. We lost a power steering pump and my dad had to do the last 60 miles of his section with no power steering. That put us down. It was the only problem we had. I'm looking forward to the peninsula run, that's for sure.

DAMEN JEFFERIES, No. 105 (Fifth in class.) – We lost our brakes and I tried to slow down, hit a rock and exploded a wheel. We had one caliper and we fixed it so we had one rear brake. We stopped at mile 458 and put the other one on. That was really it for down time but it was a killer. With one brake you've got to slow way down and you slide everywhere.

CLASS 1/2-1600

LUKE MCMILLIN, No. 1600 (First in class. Justin Smith drove the first 400 miles and McMillin drove the final 305 miles.) – No problems all day except for the oil cooler, which cost us about 20 minutes. It was just a great day. We started so much later than we thought but we are here first and that's all that matters.

CO-DRIVER JUSTIN SMITH said: A rock took out our oil cooler. We had some minor issues and about 20 minutes of down-time. Luke (McMillin) milked it and I milked it a little farther and we ended up changing out the oil cooler. We lost rear brakes early – around mile 300. We tried to bleed them but they never came back.

DANIEL LOPEZ, No. 1646 (Second in class. Lopez started and drove to Borrego, Adolfo Arambula drove to San Felipe and Ambrosio Gutierrez took it to the end) – Co-driver Ambrosio Gutierrez said: It was pretty rough. My neck is sore but it was fun and we had good weather. We had some problems with the car. We lost power and lost our brakes and the suspension got very soft so we were going all over the place. We didn't stop because we thought we would lose a lot of time.

ELISEO GARCIA, No. 1644 (Third in class. Garcia shared driving duties with Hector Sarabia.) Co-driver Hector Sarabia said: We had electrical problems. The car stopped twice and we lost 30 minutes. We didn't have any flat tires.

ARTURO VELAZCO, No. 1601 (Fourth in class. Velazco and Esteban Cruz split the driving.) – Co-driver Esteban Cruz said: It was a rough course. We had a couple of flats early on in the race and we were back in 10th place and we started picking up positions in the San Felipe loop. We were doing well near the end trying to catch up and we had our fuel pump base break. It was shorting out and the car was stalling. We thought it was a filter and then we thought it was a bunch of other things. We had to go through everything until we found the base was broken and we safety wired it to the chassis. It was a really beautiful course as always. It is always challenging and I'm just glad we are here at the finish line.
CLASS 3
DONALD MOSS, No. 300 (First in class.) We had the steering linkage come loose and we stuffed it into a mound there and ruined a tire and lost the rear brakes, broke the leaf springs in the back. We had to take the calipers completely off to finish so we only had front brakes. This one was by far the toughest one that I've ever done. The summit was not as bad as some of that stuff coming into Borrego. There were cars stuck everywhere. Everything is just whooped out everywhere. Even the sandy washes that were fun and fast are whooped out now. We were in first gear in four-wheel drive in some of those and pulling hard.

CLASS 5

JIM ANDERSON, No. 518 (First in class. Anderson started and drover to Borrego. Rick Boyer drove the San Felipe loop and Mike Belk drove to the finish.) – We had one flat. We actually had a stick go through the tire and it is still holding air; it is sticking out of the sidewall. We had a big lead of almost 25 miles for the whole race so we just cruised it in.

CLASS 5-1600

JEFFREY SMITH, No. 551 (First in class. Smith shared driving duties with Justin Herrmann.) – It was a great race – other than I left the (starting) line and I got stuck in a mud puddle. Two miles into the race and it was a dead stop. We had a whole bunch of people jump in there, knee-deep in mud, and push the car back. We also got stuck in the silt beds probably three times; they just come up on you in the middle of the night. We had a good time.

CO-DRIVER JUSTIN HERRMANN said: It went really well. This is our first time ever racing a vehicle down here. The last five years, we’ve raced motorcycles. Last year, I won the Tecate SCORE Baja 1000 on a motorcycle. This will be my second win, just in a different class. The only reason we’re racing (the car) is my wife is pregnant and she can’t race it so we stole it to race. We figured we might have a shot at winning so we stole her car.

CLASS 6

JOSH QUINTERO, No. 617 (First in class. Quintero started, Chris Taylor drove the San Felipe loop and Quintero drove to the finish.) – We broke a driveline right after check two and four where it heads to San Felipe. We lost about 15 minutes. We got stuck once but got ourselves out using the back-and-forth routine a thousand times. The course was brutal.

DAVE CASPINO, No. 600 (Second in class. Caspino drove the first half and Jason Ruane the other half) – We got a flat at mile 10, got stuck in the silt for 32 minutes, ran out of gas and that was 40 minutes. Jason (Ruane) drove the truck off Walker's corner 70 feet down to the bottom. That took two hours to get out so we had three hours of downtime but still got second. I can't blame anybody but myself and my co-driver for stupid mistakes. We broke two rims but we didn't have any flat tires. Last year I won every single race but they say when you win Driver of the Year, you are followed by a curse for the whole next year. Everybody who has ever won it has this curse and they just can't shake it. Knock on wood this is my last race of the year and I hope it is gone.

GAVIN SKILTON, No. 601 (Third in class. Skilton shared driving duties with Darren Skilton.) You gotta do what you gotta do to get to the finish line at the Tecate SCORE Baja 1000. We had our issues but we overcame them. I got stuck in the silt and all the body tabs broke off so we had to take the body off and do a little bit of welding work. We just ran her into the ground. That was a crazy race for sure.

CLASS 7

DAN CHAMLEE, No. 700 (First in class.) We did all the silt beds and hill climbs and never got stuck but we did have a third member break and cooling fan failure. It was a completely different brand and style of fan and it turned out to be defective. We took a spare with us, kept going and the new one was fine. We just couldn't believe it (after having several fan failures in past races.) I get within 100 miles and I think we are home free and something breaks. The broken third member took about an hour and a half to repair.

CLASS 8

KENT KROEKER, No. 801 (First in class. Kroeker drove the San Felipe loop and Alan Roach drove the remainder of the race.) – Co-driver Alan Roach said: It was really fun – rough, but it was a blast. We started to consume water out of the radiator but we topped it off in Ojos Negros and we were good to go. We had a little nerfing contest going on with Justin Matney for a while and it was close. I think they also had a radiator problem and lost some time. Our engine got wet in the water crossings and isn't running very well

CLASS 10

CHRISTIAN HALL, No. 1008 (First in class. Jerry Penhall drove the first third, Mark Talla drove the San Felipe loop and Hall drove it to the finish) – We had an amazing night. We had one flat coming off the summit but other than that, we just drove her. We never slowed down to look behind us. In remembrance of my father Hank Hall, we spread his ashes across the course. I wouldn't be able to drive if he was around because he would kick me out of the seat.

EDUARDO MEJIA, No. 1010 (Second in class. Jeff Johnson, John McInnis III, Rick Skelton, Jessi Combs and Patrick McIntyre also drove.) – We were pretty stacked with six drivers and we wanted to make sure that we had everybody in the best position they could be. We had a few issues during the race. We blew a CV gasket on the back of the car and it spews a lot of transmission fluid. We thought we had a tire going down and stopped in another pit to change the tire only to discover that we were leaking power steering fluid. We refilled it and the next crew of drivers ran into the same issue. It was a great day.
JOHN LANGLEY, No. 1002 (Third in class.) Co-driver Morgan Langley said: We were a little impatient coming in and it was messy. It was a tough race and we had fun. We had no rear brakes so we couldn't go as fast as maybe we wanted to. Halfway through our run, the shocks were pretty much cooked. Other than that, we took it easy and had fun.

SCORE LITES

LEE BANNING, No. 1248 (First in class. Lee Banning Sr. started and drove to Race Mile 195. Rick Graf took over and drove to RM 495 and Lee Banning Jr. finished) – Co-driver Lee Banning Jr. said: That was a marathon. My section was fun and I think everybody had a good time. No issues and I think we had one flat all day and did the tire change when I got in. We started late and we planned 15 hours. We had a clean run and we started almost last so as long as the IRC tracking checks out we should be winner, winner, chicken dinner. When they gave me the car it was out front and I kept it there. Rick got the lead and I held it there. It was a good day.

ZAK LANGLEY, No. 1204 (Second in class. Langley shared driving duties with Bernie Carr.) – I'm pretty happy with a second place considering the problems we had out there. We had a pretty good run and I handed the car over to Paul Keller and he lost power steering. He did the whole San Felipe loop with no power steering. We got it back to Borrego, changed the power steering pump, changed the servo and changed the ramp and still nothing so it must be something in the line. Bernie Carr just had to get in and drive with no power steering too. To get second with no power steering for two-thirds of the race, I think we are pretty happy. It was rough out there. We've run some of that same grain a lot but because of the rain a lot of the soft stuff after the big unlimited classes went through it just got deep and nasty. It was a great course though.
STEVEN LISA, No. 1201 (Third in class. Steven Lisa and Davy Jones drove the first half and Anthony Lisa drove the second half.) – Co-driver Anthony Lisa said: Aside from jetting issues and the fact that San Felipe was so rough, we broke a rear spring, it was about as drama free as the Baja 1000 can be.

PROTRUCK

JESSICA MCMILLIN, No. 1331 (First in class.) It was a really long day – a long two days, but it was so much fun. I'm so glad to be at the finish line. For a second there, I didn't think we were going to make it all the way here but here we are. We were going pretty fast in third gear and came over a rise and there was a water hole we didn't have marked on the GPS so I tried to avoid it and there was a tree. I wasn't going to make it around the tree in time so I punched it and straightened myself out before the water. I hit the water and just my side was dipped in the water at first and we were going along it pretty good until we started hydroplaning. We broke something in the rear about 30 miles after we rolled it over. I'm always learning from my brother and my dad. I love racing with my family.

CLASS 4

TONY MIGLINI, No. 402 (First in class. Miglini drove approx 200 miles, then Mike Shatynski drove the San Felipe loop and Jason Hart drove to the finish.) – It was brutal out there. Our whole goal was to finish and we kept having to change our strategy throughout the whole race as different things happened. The other two guys were way faster than us and we just stayed our course and as they started having problems we just started pushing it and going faster. We set a solid pace and maintained our lead for the last 100 miles. We couldn't be happier. It's just insane out there. We got the lead close to Borrego. It got a little dicey at the end but it was good. We had a power steering problem early when we wore a hole in a hose and had to make a field repair that took us a little bit. The car ran great and we finally got it dialed in. Tough race, tons of fun and it was our first 1000 and our first win of the year.