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345 Official Starters
NASCAR’s R. Gordon takes Overall 4-Wheel and SCORE
Trophy-Truck at Saturday’s 37th Tecate SCORE Baja 500
Childress/McCoy claim Overall Motorcycle as over 150,000
watch desert duel in Baja California, Mexico
BULLETIN (Early Results Story, 9 p.m. PDT)
ENSENADA,
Mexico (June 4, 2005) -- Returning to his racing roots, NASCAR Team Owner/Driver
Robby
Gordon began
his double-duty
weekend with a stunning overall 4-wheel
and SCORE Trophy-Truck victory in the 37th Tecate SCORE Baja 500 desert race
in Ensenada, Mexico. Leaving shortly after finishing the race to return to
Dover, Del., to drive in Sunday’s NASCAR Nextel Cup race, Gordon charged
to the front early in his No. 83 Red Bull Chevy CK1500 and stayed there,
covering the brutally-tough 419-mile course in 9 hours, 10 minutes, 32 seconds,
averaging
45.66 miles per hour.
Gordon, 36, who
lives in Mooresville, N.C. and races out of his Robby Gordon desert race
team shop in Anaheim, CA, captured
the 4-wheel vehicle win
with a flawless, flat-free race over a boulder-strewn, silt-grabbing desert
course in front of a massive crowd estimated at over 150,000 spread out
along the course by Mexican tourism officials.
The race featured
a near-record 345 starters, from 20 U.S. States, Mexico, Canada and Japan,
for round 3 of the
six-race 2005 SCORE Desert Series, the
World’s Foremost Desert Racing Series. The large field, competing in
24 Pro and 5 Sportsman classes for cars, trucks, motorcycles and ATVs, was
the fourth-largest in the storied history of the summer desert classic and
the most since the event record was set and then tied in 1976 and 1977. With
a 17-hour time limit, the race course will remain open until 4 a.m. Sunday
morning.
Beating an impressive
race-record field of 29 SCORE Trophy-Trucks for his first Tecate SCORE Baja
500 win in the marquee SCORE racing division
for
800-horsepower,
high-tech, unlimited production trucks, Gordon claimed his third overall
4-Wheel crown in the event and his fourth class win. His previous class
wins were in
1988, 1989 and 1990 and his other two overall crowns were the last two
years of that string. Spending most of the last nine years as a part-time
SCORE
desert racer, Gordon won his first SCORE race since winning four races
on the way
to the 1996 SCORE Trophy-Truck season point champion.
Looking much like
an inverted deflating balloon on a string, the 419-mile race course started
in
downtown Ensenada adjacent to the Riviera del Pacifico
Cultural
Center and finished inside the Deportivo Antonio Palacios baseball stadium
in the heart of Ensenada.
“We earned
this one,” said Gordon. “The race was tough, it
was a pretty slow average and a lot of rocks. It’s nice to win one – we’ve
come so close so many times. It was a good run for us. I just drove an easy
pace. I am sick so my ears kept popping. We were tight was Jason (Baldwin,
No. 1) but then he had a problem – I think he got a flat. We had a
great race today. We race in Dover, Delaware tomorrow. The only bad news
today was
the private
plane we were going to use is broken. I’ve got some good friends, so
I have to see what I can do.”
Ironically, the
third and fourth-place finishers in SCORE Trophy-Truck were Ford F-150s originally
built and driven by Gordon.
Running second to Gordon
all day in SCORE Trophy-Truck was defending season point champion Jason
Baldwin, Laguna Beach, CA, who started 30-seconds after Gordon in the
elapsed-time
race. Baldwin, who placed third overall, finished in 9:17:07 in his No.
1 Baldwin Racing Ford F-150.
Third in SCORE
Trophy-Truck and fourth overall in a Gordon-built truck was the team of Mark
Post, San Juan Capistrano, CA/Curt
LeDuc, Cherry Valley,
CA, in 9:24:44 in the No. 3 Riviera Racing Ford F-150.
Finishing 23 seconds
behind Post in another rebuilt Gordon truck was the father/son team of Marty
and Travis Coyne in the No. 5 Coyne Motorsports
Ford F-150.
Second overall
among 4-wheel vehicles and winning the unlimited Class 1 for the second straight
race was Andy McMillin and his father Scott
McMillin,
Poway, CA, in a time of 9:15:12, four minutes, 40 seconds behind the
winning Gordon.
The three vehicles
that covered the course the fastest Saturday were motorcycles. The privateer
team of Mike Childress, Wrightwood, CA/Mike ‘Mouse’ McCoy,
Santa Monica, CA, beat three factory teams, riding a Honda XR650R to
a time of 8:40:25, averaging 48.31mph. All four top finishing motorcycle
teams
were in Class 22.
Second among the
motorcycles was the American Honda A team of Steve Hengeveld, Oak Hills,
CA/Johnny Campbell, San Clemente, CA,
with a 8:49:45 time
on a Honda XR650R while third was the Honda B team of Robby Bell, Murrieta,
CA/Kendall Norman, Santa Barbara, CA, completing the course in
9:08:16 on another Honda XR650R.
The fourth motorcycle
finisher was the Factory KTM team of Chris Blais, Apple Valley, CA/Andy
Grider, Los Olivos, CA,
running the route in 9:10:48
on a KTM 660 Rally motorcycle.
For information contact:
SCORE International at its Los Angeles headquarters
(818) 225-8402 or visit
the official 2005 SCORE Desert Series website at:
www.score-international.com
For
Sponsorship Information, contact:
Mark Handley
(760) 750-1905
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