SCORE Journal - The Official Publication of SCORE Off-Road Racing
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/1332112
2020 SCORE Pro Stock UTV Champion Randy Emberton Goes Solo In His Racing Debut And Nabs A Class Championship By Larry Saavedra Photos By Get Some Photo With natural skills and the good sense to set his own pace, SCORE rookie driver Randy Emberton took the 2020 SCORE Pro UTV Stock Class Championship in his desert racing debut. “All I wanted to do is finish the races I entered,” said a surprised Emberton, after being told he won the class championship. Driving solo, Emberton finished third in both the 52nd BFGoodrich Tires SCORE Baja 500 Presented by 4 Wheel Parts, and the 53rd BFGoodrich Tires SCORE Baja 1000 Presented by 4 Wheel Parts, winning enough points to put him on top and into the record books. Emberton’s reaction when he first heard the news was that he was “blown away.” Emberton said all he wanted to do was to say he had raced Baja, and that would be enough to fulfill his off-road dream. “There were the rumors that I had won the class championship,” he said. “This is the first real race series I’ve ever participated in. I’ve never really raced my UTV. I drove it on weekends in places like Glamis, but never in an official race. It was on my bucket list to enter, and I guess I can check that one-off.” SCORE BaJa 500 “We had a lot of little problems at the SCORE Baja 500,” said Emberton. “We had a spare tire rack that came loose near the start of the race and then a voltage issue.” Nevertheless, Emberton persevered even as his voltage issues made steering challenging. “The power steering unit would flicker on and off,” he said. But after several hasty pit stops for repairs, Emberton got back in the race no worse for wear. “At one point I was 70 miles behind the third-place team, but I just kept going,” he said. “The next time I talked to my daughter Tiffany, who manages the chase team, I was 40 miles behind and then, as I was getting close to the finish line, I was seven miles behind. That’s when one competitor broke down and I passed them.” Before he knew it Emberton was now in third place, and he handled the last few miles like a seasoned pro, thanking his crew for such a spectacular finish. SCORE BaJa 1000 On Wednesday before the start of the race, Emberton decided to pre-run a portion of the SCORE Baja 1000 course. Everything seemed fine until his transmission suddenly grenaded, leaving him stranded for five hours, before a new transmission could be located in Ensenada and brought to him out in the middle of the desert. “Because of that incident, I didn’t have time to pre-run the course,” he said. “I got in the race and depended on the LeadNav software. Thanks to my navigator Mark Liening, we only missed two virtual checkpoints.” Emberton did, however, break several axles in his pursuit of the finish line. “Had we broken another rear axle we would have been out of the race because we simply didn’t have a spare,” he said. Fortunately, he managed to cross the finish line to take third-place in class. With his first experience racing and in the SCORE Pro Stock UTV class, Emberton enjoyed the experience and the ease of which it took to compete. “It’s a great class when people learn how affordable it can be. You can take a stock UTV and install a roll cage and go out and race it,” he said. It will be interesting to see if Emberton can carry his momentum into the 2021 SCORE season. But if his enthusiasm doesn’t waver, chances are good that he’ll be a tough defender of his newly claimed title. SJ