SCORE MEDIA CONTACT: Dominic Clark, 702.735.7123
January 21, 2007
SCORE Laughlin Desert Challenge
January 18-21, 2007
Laughlin, Nevada
Post Race Quotes (Sunday, Jan. 21)
SCORE Trophy-Truck
1 B.J. Baldwin
(1st place)
We did a different ring gear and made a few suspension changes, we thought it would be rougher today, obviously. I think we did just the right ingredients to get the win here today. You never get used to winning. I love it, I can’t get enough of it. I’ve been racing for 10 years. Last year was actually my first real competitive win. I won a race with my dad four or five years ago, but we were the only car entered. And then I won a short-course race, there were three other cars and I got protested, that was six years ago. (On winning this race again) It has absolutely nothing to do with me, it has to do with my team. Collins Motorsports and all my chase guys with Baldwin Motorsports, they are directly responsible for this victory. I am just doing the same thing I have been doing for years. We took fourth place on Saturday and were 19 seconds out of the lead. We came back today and I think we’re quite a ways ahead to win it. So we did really good. The vehicle will barely be able to pull on the trailer. Converter went to the moon last lap so we had to take it real easy. (The course) is really bad; I feel sorry for the Class 1 guys. They’re going to have fun though. It’s rough but it’s kind of technical because you’ve got to know where to go every lap. New things open up every lap and you have to be careful out there. We won it two years in a row, I’m pretty happy.
38 Garron Cadiente
(2nd Place)
Today was a real good run. The truck worked beautiful and nothing went wrong. We started in the fourth row and those guys in front of me were really fast. There was just a ton of dust and that made it really difficult to know where you’re going. And to hold it wide open like we had to today, it just takes a special vehicle to be able to do that with, and to have the confidence in your team to know you can go out there and perform like you want to. Yesterday, we started way back in the pack. We just fought dust all day. We just wanted to play it safe and not have a DNF like we did last year, to get through the weekend clean and have a top five. My father-in law’s truck won the Leap and we came in second, so we’ve had a great weekend.
28 Alan Pflueger
(3rd place)
Today was a little rough, it was pretty brutal on the second day. We got it going really good and had a lot of momentum and unfortunately got a flat and it set us back. But we were able to catch a bunch of guys back up and show them what we’re about. The vehicle is really good, it’s good to go now.
3 Mark Post (Rob MacCachren was driver in Saturday’s result)
(4th Place)
We ran the shorter tires. It got really deep today. We should have run the 39s and we were like a plow out there. We were nosing through the big stuff. A lot of these guys ran really fast today; I’ll give them credit. We’re happy to get out of here with a strong finish. We haven’t been able to finish both days in the last four years, so we’ve been behind in the points. We’re happy to get out of here with a top four finish and got on to San Felipe, where we do very well. We ran 37s (tires) and we should have run 39s. We wanted to get a little more gear on the short course, but today would have been better with the taller tire. We were just digging the whole time.
51 Kory Scheeler
(5th place)
It was crazy, it was almost unreal. This is the real 24-hour train wreck or plane crash that they talk about. There are no lines, you have to go through them (the big holes on the course). They’ve blocked it with big sand burms so that you can’t go out in the fields. I think (my vehicle) is a little tired today. I don’t think it’s the type of course that’s best for this type of truck. It’s a converted truggy. But we held our own.
51 Kory Sheeler
(5th Place)
This is the toughest track I’ve ever been on, by far.The suspension’s a little tired. This truck’s a little tired. It’s about six years old. It’s probably a better Mexico truck than it is for something like this.
12 Brian Collins
(7th Place)
Quotes from Larry Ragland, driver in Sunday’s race
It was fun. It’s a great race course. It turned out to be nice. We got behind in the beginning (Saturday), the throttle linkage fell off, so then he was the last car in the field and he had a lot of cars to pass to get caught up. We salvaged a good weekend with all the problems that we had. Today, we were losing the tranny. We had problems; everybody has problems.
19 Tim Herbst
(8th Place)
We stuffed it and had to take our hood off. We couldn’t see; it blew up over the top. No mechnical problems. We actually cured a lot of stuff that we had wrong with it yesterday and we’re happy with it. The course changed every lap on us. It was interesting. It was a lot tougher than I think most people thought (it would be). It really surprised a lot of people.
39 Ron Whitton
(9th place)
Quotes from Jeff Geiser, driver in Sunday’s race
It was pretty good. It definitely got rougher. It was terrible. It was very enjoyable racing, though. We lost second gear right off the start, so we had to abuse it a little harder in first and third and made it around.
54 Jesse James
(DNF)
We rolled it a little bit, I think lap four or five. It landed on its wheels and it was still running. We had to change a flat, though. Slow and steady wins the race; don’t try to drive over your head. We caught a little bit of an edge and that was it, man, we were rolling. Yesterday, we cooked the tranny. The vehicle was awesome; it flipped like four times and still ran. The course was a lot rougher today.
Class 1
115 John Herder
(1st place)
It (the new car) started out the year all right, it started out the year pretty good. We’re so excited to do this in a new car, it’s unbelievable. It was a fun two days, we’re just happy to be here with a new car. Joe Weining who rides with me preps the car, and he did a fantastic job. He’s been working his tail off for six months trying to get this right. Looks like we’re there, and we’ll see at all the rest of them. Something went wrong with my steering the last two laps. I had a lot of feedback, my arms went numb. But we knew if we pulled over to check anything it would just be over with. So my arms hurt and we have a steering problem. It didn’t go away completely but I had to hang on to the wheel for dear life. (after team member says something to him) Something went wrong with the motor too; I just found out. But you know what, we’ll take it. It’s been too long. Definitely fun and all of our sponsors were just fantastic.
108 B.J. Richardson
(2nd Place)
That was rough. That was a tough deal. It was a good race. I didn’t have any problems. It just got rougher and rougher as the day went on. They changed the format this year to let the Trophy-Trucks go before us and it made it a lot tougher for the buggies.
102 Ronny Wilson
(3rd place)
We had no problems at all today. The car just ran great. Anytime you can run as close as we did with (John) Herder and B.J. (Baldwin), you know that the day is going good. I think Herder is the class of the field. It was great; a lot of fun. We’re on for the whole SCORE season. We had a flawless weekend. It was a lot rougher today. I mean the holes are three feet deep out there. It’s just incredible, but I tell you the car worked great, a lot of fun. Now we’re going to get ready for San Felipe.
144 Josh Baldwin
(4th Place)
We were pulling double duty today, running the Trophy-Truck and Class 1. I miss this class. I learned a lot in this class when I raced it and it’s good to be back with these guys. The car ran real good. This is actually the first race on this car and we probably could have won or got at least second but we got a flat tire towards the end. We ran about half a lap on the flat, so we lost a lot of time. We were two seconds out of second and seven seconds out of first and I think we could have easily made that time up. We were cooking. The big success story is this car. We started 44th yesterday.
127 Steve Sourapas
(6th Place)
Quotes from Brian Ickler, driver in Sunday’s race
Steve hurt his back yesterday. I’ve raced a couple of times with Steve so I jumped in for him and we did all right. We had some motor issues, it was missing a little bit, but other than that it’s a great car.
Class 1-2/1600
1648 Rob MacCachren
(1st place)
Matt Gumz beat me in here at the finish line but we got him on time because of yesterday. Yesterday I had him by 20 seconds, so I just had to stay within that to take the win. But Matt did a heck of a job. This class is so competitive, they’re a lot slower than the Trophy-Trucks and the Class 1 cars but they’re very difficult to get around the track. It’s mind-blowing. When we came here on Friday, this track was completely flat. Right now the whoops are five, six feet deep. There’s some stuff out there you’re in first gear just going five miles an hour going through them, it’s amazing how rough it is. That’s why the attrition that’s happening at this race is because it’s so rough. The soft sand, there’s an area out there I nicknamed the sand dune area, its very rough and rutted out, the corners are two lane. But it’s really good, it’s a lot of fun, great racing.
1621 Matt Gumz
(2nd place)
I started first today, it’s a little easier when you don’t have anyone in front of you, you hit your lines. My clutch actually started going out on the end of the second lap. The last three laps it was all I could do to keep running. It sounded like a two-stroke engine. Aaron Hawley (1601) and I started together and we diced till about half the track and then I got in front of him and pulled away. I knew I had to makeup 20 seconds and I was feeling good about it until the clutch went out and it started slipping real bad. I knew I wasn’t going to get away from him then. I was trying, I had 19 seconds at one time, up at the top of the corner. I was giving it to him, but the clutch started going away.
1601 Aaron Hawley
(3rd Place)
It was terrible. It was rough; probably too rough for me. I made a lot of bad moves at the start and fell back. It was just too damn rough for me. I had a little better run yesterday. Today I was all over the place. I wasn’t very fluid today. No rhythm at all. It was a tough day.
1606 Adam Pfankuch
(4th Place)
I had some problems today. The first lap I came into the hole (before the long straightaway) and hit kind of hard, but nothing unusual for this class, and the motor cut out on me and would not start back up. I sat there and cranked and cranked and cranked, didn’t know what it was. I was about to unbuckle my belts and tried to start it one more time and it started back up. It lost me about 20 or 30 seconds, and out here 20 or 30 seconds is a whole lot of time. Every time I would hit a big hole or something hard it would cut out on me and not run. I don’t know what the problem is, but we need to figure it out for the next race.
1618 L.J. Kennedy
(5th place)
It went pretty good. The last lap I put it over but luckily it landed back on the wheels so I didn’t lose too much time. Other than that it was great. We were fifth yesterday so we’ll see how it played out today, how we ended up. (on the biggest challenge) Just trying to negotiate the real rough stuff, making sure not to make big mistakes. Just following other cars, watching what they do and trying not to duplicate what they’re doing. Other than that, we just drove our own race and ended up hopefully pretty well. Just drive as hard as you can and try not to make any mistakes. I’m hoping the roll didn’t cost us too much time.
1625 Sammy Ehrenberg
(6th Place)
I had a great run today, but on the last lap I got a right front flat I had to finish on, and it’s so deep out there, it was kind of sluggish. But me and my teammate, L.J. Kennedy, came out here with two cars and we’re both in the top 10. We couldn’t be happier. We just teamed up last year and good things have happened so far. It was a great weekend. We won the jump contest. Today was a great run. I just couldn’t miss the one big rock that had my name on it. Other than that, it ran great all day.
Class 3
303 Ken Leavitt
(1st place)
We could take it a little easy today. Yesterday was flawless, we have a brand new motor. My dad has been killing himself working on the truck. It’s actually our first win, so we’re real excited. The motor just completely died though, an intermittent electrical problem today – I don’t know what happened. It would fire back up then go, it did it a couple times the first lap and a couple times the third lap. It was just very weird. I drove both days. The course (today) is a disaster, just an absolute disaster. It was so fast in pre-running everybody had me scared it was going to be a fast course, but it’s not going to be a problem, they have chewed that course to hell. It was really fun (to win), it’s been since 2001, so we’ve earned it.
Class 5
500 George Seeley
(1st Place)
It went pretty good, way better than expected. We had a second place yesterday, we had a little heat issue so we ran the middle three laps yesterday kind of cool just to get a good finish. Today, I was staying behind the leader on the first lap and I was getting kind of loose and I realized my seat belts weren’t done – they must have come loose. So on the back straightaway I just put my lap belts on and ran the rest of the race and tried to keep up with everybody. It’s pretty chewed up out there. But with the King Shocks and the Fat Motor and the BF Goodrich Tires we didn’t need to worry about that. The SCORE Series being a premiere event and this almost being exactly like a NASCAR surroundings – so many people and off-roading growing so fast, it’s just spectacular.
503 Michelle Bruckmann
(DNF Overall; 1st on Sunday)
Today the car was great, just excellent. Yesterday we had a problem. The tire rod bolt broke as we were going fourth gear, so we rolled because of that. We rolled four times. We tried to push it to the finish because it was the last lap but we just couldn’t, so we DNF’d yesterday.
Class 5/1600
554 Raul Solano
(1st Place)
On the second lap I hit a big groove and rolled.
551 Mike Simpson
(2nd Place)
Quotes from Gerardo Iribe, driver in Sunday’s race
Mike Simpson drove yesterday and gave me the car in second place. I believe the course was a lot better today than yesterday. There were a lot more lines; better and straighter. They did a really good job on the course. They watered it down really good. Everything they said they were going to do, they did it, and we love it. We had a flat at the end of the third (lap). We went on a flat the whole fourth lap.
Class 7
710 Jason Jernigan
(1st place)
Two very good days, I drove both days. Larry (Roeseler, 703) passed me on about the third lap, halfway through, and I let him go by because he still had a good chunk of time to make up. When we first started, it (the course) wasn’t too bad. but it got chewed up real quick, nothing but huge, huge holes that swallowed up the truck. With eight minutes on Larry we knew that he would have to lap us. I was concerned, just trying not to have a flat tire or anything like that, no down time. We let him by us so that we didn’t have to push the truck too hard, just try to keep him in our sights.
703 Larry Roeseler
(2nd Place)
After yesterday the course changed just dramatically. I figured maybe they’d groom it up a little bit for us, but I found out right away that there’s a lot of big bumps still out there. The course is really, really fun. What’s great about it is it’s wide enough that you go inside or outside and pick your lines and there’s bad spots and there’s some better spots. It makes for great racing. Today, Jason (Jernigan) and I had a great battle. He beat me by eight minutes yesterday. We had a flat tire, a rim problem basically, so by the time we changed the wheel we lost that eight minutes. So he knew if I beat him today all he had to do was just follow me. He could lose a little bit of time, but he wasn’t going to lose eight minutes.
Class 7s
720 Mike Horner, driver of record
(1st place)
Quotes from Doug Siewert, driver in Sunday’s race
We had a great day. We ended up putting a junkyard tranny on Thursday night and we came out here with no reverse and here we are with the win, so it was a great day. Mike Horner drove yesterday and I drove today. He told me the course was getting sandy and getting rougher. Our co-driver for both days said it was way, way worse today than it was yesterday. (No reflection of the driver right?) Absolutely, we were faster today than we were yesterday I think.
Class 7SX
740 John Holmes
(1st Place)
Quotes from Mark Landersman, driver in Sunday’s race
We broke a spring yesterday, so we put a spare spring in that’s different and it doesn’t handle right. We were running the whole race on one oxygen sensor because we had an exhaust problem so we had to plug one off. We’ve been a bit down on power, but it wasn’t a power problem; it was mostly suspension. The Goodyear tires made a big difference. They hooked up pretty nicely. I just wish we’d have had our A suspension in the truck so I could caught him. I couldn’t catch him. He (Tim Lawrence, No. 748) drove a great race, very fast. (Landersman said his brother, Marine Col. David Landersman, had been slated to ride with him, but he is in process of shipping out to Iraq. He got called back to duty Saturday night and left early Saturday morning.) I’ve got to congratulate Tim. He just drove so well. I just hoped he’d let up a little bit. I poured it on on the third lap and I know he didn’t put any time on me there, but I think he put his A game on the fourth lap and pulled away from me a little bit. It’s going to be very close. (The Holmes-Landersman entry won the overall by one second.)
748 Tim Lawrence
(2nd Place)
That was fun. The course was pretty junky yesterday, today it’s beyond junk. It’s about the worst six miles you could do, probably. We had absolutely no problems. The last lap I just didn’t jump the big jump, but other than that we ran as hard as we could.
Class 8
800 Nick Vanderwey
(1st Place)
(Saturday) I was trying to slide in with my back end on the back and it just caught and started going over. I was catching it and catching it and it bicycled for a long time and I ended up pointed up the hill and tipped over on the side. It ran real good today.
Class 9
902 Forest Creasy
(1st Place)
Donny Ames drove on Sunday and said: We had a good run. On the third lap we started losing the clutch. It was a lot rougher (than on Saturday). It was a challenge. It made it fun. We almost lost it a few times, but we didn’t, thank God.
Class 10
1021 John Cooley
(4th place)
We had a flat today, had to pull into the hotbed to change it. It was a good run, we were there. It was a good race, but it was rough out there. I don’t see how these cars can make it around the racecourse, but they do. I was third yesterday. We thought we got first but we were suddenly told that we were the second car. Little bit of disappointment there. We had a flat on the fourth lap, and that’s probably a couple minutes there in the hot pit. But I have to thank my crew out there. This is a tough race for me because this is the last race I am going to race in my car this year. I am going to take a year off, and I was really hoping for a win. I’ve been racing for about 23 years, so I just need to take a break every now and then.
1012 Adam Wik
(DNF overall; 1st on Saturday)
I had some little problems today. The shift linkage broke and got it stuck in another gear. That took us out. Part of the welded coupler broke. When that happened it was in neutral and we couldn’t shift, so we had to stop and get out and jam it in fifth gear and get going and make it back to the pit. Once we did that they put it in second and we kept going. That took us out (of contention).
SCORE Lite
1206 Stan Potter
(1st place)
I drove today and my partner Dan Worley drove yesterday. It was good, it was real good. We lost third and fourth gear about halfway through, so that made it really tough to get through. But I saw Cameron (Steele, 1207) closing in on me so I just drove as smooth as I could because I didn’t want to lose the rest of my gears so I just hung in there. I wanted to win and I knew that we were in the lead from yesterday so I just wanted to make sure we held that. Cameron is a great driver but I think our car was a little bit better today. It’s a great venue for SCORE to come into. Just as long as Sal can figure out how to make the bumps smoothed out, it’ll be okay. Those are huge bumps out there. The bumps were huge after practice, so it was really a test of the suspension out there and finding the good lines. I didn’t drive yesterday so it took me almost the whole race to figure out where to go.
1202 Scott Wisdom
(3rd Place)
Quotes from Frank Wagner, driver in Sunday’s race
I just wish I could have done a little better. Scott got sick last night, so he gave me a call at 5 this morning and I got an arm band and borrowed a driver’s suit and helmet and came out and had fun. It was great. I wish I could have at least pre-ran the course once, just to know where the turns were. It’s a great car. It was a lot of fun.
1200 Tim Noe
(4th Place)
Quotes from Tom Watson , driver in Sunday’s race
I drove today in the 1200 car and yesterday in the 1249 car. Yesterday I had a flat tire on the second lap that cost me two or three minutes, so we finished 11th. Today we lost third gear on the fifth lap, so the last few laps we slowed up quite a bit and that put us out of the hunt for the lead. We started ninth today and I think we finished fourth. I like it better (coming from behind). It keeps you going and gives you some motivation.
1210 Chuck Sacks
(8th Place)
Quotes from Dale Ebberts, driver in Sunday’s race
It was good, a lot of fun. It was my first time racing a Class 12 car, so it was exciting and different. It’s similar to a 1600 car and I’ve driven those a lot, but Class 12’s got more suspension and a little bit more power. It’s kind of fun to push a limited horsepower car around and try to make it go fast. We didn’t do that well. After the first lap and a half the engine started missing, so we dropped back a little bit.
Class 11
1100 Eric Solorzano
(Four-time champion was a DNF)
We blew a transmission on the second lap (Saturday) and everything went away. We got lucky that we got into the pits and didn’t have to tow the vehicle. We went to Bullhead (City) and bought a transmission from a wrecking yard and put it in. We just came out (Sunday) to have fun and practice a little bit.
Stock Full
861 Josh Hall
(1st place)
You know, these Stock Fulls they suck up those bumps, I’m telling you. Thank goodness for Fox Shocks because what worked on this truck was Fox Shocks and it really needed it today. I’m sure my dad (legendary racer Rod Hall) has never been prouder of his oldest son, never ever. Who knows, he’s probably thinking how much money that’s going to cost him that last race. We’ll make it all happen for the next one though. It was a blast. No problems, not a single problem. We basically did nothing after the 1000, we babied this truck all the way to the finish line at the 1000. We’ve never raced here before under this format, we had heard that it was just brutal on cars. So we didn’t want to do the big prep until after this race. We put a couple new steering parts on the truck and went out and ran as hard as we could without breaking it and here we are. (Did it live up to your expectations?) Yep, definitely. We’ll be back
Stock Mini
779 Gavin Skilton
(2nd place)
Good job to all the American guys over there and that’s a great effort by all involved. Its an excellent race, the Laughlin Desert Challenge was definitely that – a challenge. The course changed throughout the weekend but all the racers on the course ran really clean, it made it really enjoyable to be here. Thanks a lot to all the guys who helped out on the Honda Ridgeline team and all the guys out on the course today and yesterday. The guys behind us got us there on the last lap, and we put it up on no wheels a couple times just to keep in front of them. We really made an effort today and pushed the Ridgeline as hard as we could. They got in front of us for about 10 seconds, then I got a little loose with it and kept in front. It was a great, fun challenge.
PROTRUCK
207 Alan Levinson
(1st place)
I drove both days; no problems. The rear shocks are gone but it was a little rough so you have to expect something. That’s why we couldn’t fly the jump, we were taking it kind of easy. Drive it easy off the jump and drive the course hard. I had a little cushion, not a whole lot. You don’t want to slow down a lot because you can make mistakes; keep it hard but not over your head.
Sportsman Car
1401 Bryan Carr
(1st Place)
Oh it was a lot rougher than yesterday. Everything was way bigger, lot rougher, bigger holes. We just had some problems yesterday just to keep it alive to make it through. This is the first time I have ever raced. It was a blast, I’ll be back again,
Sportsman Truck
1501 Mike Jenkins
(1st Place)
It was rough. The course got really, really nasty today, but it was a good time. We were not even sure we were going to make it here. We blew the motor on Friday (a week ago). We put the motor back together in three days and here we are, first place. We were working on it until midnight Wednesday night and loaded it up on the trailer Thursday morning and brought it up here. There was not one problem.
