SCORE Journal - The Official Publication of SCORE Off-Road Racing
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/1300777
Coming up quickly from behind, however, was Alan Ampudia who started sixth and began passing the pack and made his way up to third on the course. The Ampudias pitted for a driver change with brother Aaron Ampudia getting in behind the wheel when they had issues with their pressurized fuel system that didn't allow them to fill up their truck. "We had called it off already, and I had my helmet out and everything, but then Team Jimco with Robbie Pierce (No. 20L) helped us out and gave us their gas because they were out of contention already. We lost a bunch of time there, so we just ran and cruised to the finish." Justin Lofton who started third was pushing strong along the first couple hundred miles on the course but ran into some problems early on. "We had a wheel coming loose on us and were still on the hunt until we pit around mile 245 and we had to stop and fix it," said Lofton. "We just rethreaded the wheel studs when we should have taken them out because not much after that, it came loose again and ended up breaking. Luckily we had some with us and we were able to get them knocked out. but we lost about one hour and a half there and we couldn't get them all out. When we got to pit three at mile 360 we stopped, got out, and completely fixed it." Larry Roeseler started ninth and with his legendary talents behind the wheel, moved up the pack and began closing in on the leaders. Halfway through the race, Roeseler had the engine shut off and lost a jack. "We lost a lot of time with the ignition shutting off," said Roeseler. "The jack had flown off the vehicle at some point and when we pitted, the team told me not to get a flat. Well, guess what, I got one and had to back the truck up onto a rock to change it. Baja never disappoints the challenge of man and machine." 52ND SCORE BA JA 500 - SCORE TROPHY TRUCK SCORE JOURNAL 20 THE ALAN AMPUDIA STARTED OFF SIXTH AND FINISHED FOURTH DUE TO ISSUES WITH THEIR FUEL SYSTEM.