SCORE Journal - The Official Publication of SCORE Off-Road Racing
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/1443954
SCORE 2021 TT Spec Champion Jason McNeil Gets the Triple Crown Winning The TT Spec Championship Story by Stuart Bourdon Photography by Get Some Photo You could say that Jason McNeil had a pretty good year. He and his team went big in 2021 with three incredible achievements in the SCORE International Off-Road Racing series. They finished every single mile of racecourse in the extremely challenging four-race 2021 SCORE series that included the SCORE San Felipe 250, the SCORE Baja 500, the SCORE Baja 400, and a full-peninsula-run at the SCORE Baja 1000. McNeil and his team also captured the 2021 SCORE Trophy Truck Spec Class Championship. Crowning an already impressive record, they brought home the 2021 SCORE Truck Overall Points Championship. “This year was a great year for our team because we finished every mile of every race,” said McNeil. “But I certainly wouldn’t say 2021 was easy by any means. We were leading our class in every race until we weren’t.” During the SCORE San Felipe 250, the team had a recurring issue that temporarily stopped their progress numerous times during the race. “Those stops put us out of the running for a win in the class in the SCORE San Felipe 250. If we had that time back, I think we would have won the race.” The #283 Fiberwerks Spec Trophy Truck team came back strong from a disappointing first outing by winning the Spec Trophy Truck class at the 2021 SCORE Baja 500 and the SCORE Baja 400 with no issues at all. McNeil credited much of this year’s success to the truck prep done by Kyle at Ramona Metal Works. Prep-chief Kyle and Jason’s brother, Tyler “TK” McNeil, are co-drivers during the longer races. The team had two wins in a row at that point. However, the 2021 SCORE Baja 1000 was ahead of them. “No matter how much you plan and how well your crew and truck are prepped, there is always luck involved in Baja. Especially the SCORE Baja 1000 race, he said.” At about mile 225 of the 1227-mile 2021 SCORE Baja 1000 racecourse, luck played the team a bad hand. “Very early in the race, our transmission began acting up, and it got so bad we knew that to finish the race we needed to replace it,” McNeil said. “That took about two-and-a-half hours. By the time we got going again, it was dark. Now, we were behind the UTVs and all the slow cars (and trucks). We had to work through all the dust and bottlenecks to get ahead of them again.” Jason eventually brought the Geiser-built spec truck into La Paz for a sixth-place finish in its class. That, however, garnered McNeil the points needed to be the 2021 Spec Trophy Truck champ and SCORE Truck Points Champion. “The SCORE Baja races are so much more challenging than others. A class championship in the SCORE series carries more prestige than others,” Jason said. “But what’s even more satisfying, is that we also racked up more overall championship points than any other team in any other class. We did it in a Spec Trophy Truck that has about half the horsepower of the unlimited Trophy Trucks.” SJ