SCORE Journal - The Official Publication of SCORE Off-Road Racing
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/1482081
ROUGHED UP Class 1 And Class 10 Teams Face Brutal Conditions By Dan Sanchez, Guilherme Torres, Paul Hanson, Isaac Flores, and Cindy Clark Photos by Get Some Photo The rough, tight, and technical course of the 3rd SCORE Baja 400 Presented by VP Racing fuels was especially hard on the Class 1 buggies. Six of the best teams competed and all had to drive slower than their usual pace to complete the course, but not without additional vehicle problems along the way. Since the Class 1 competitors decided among themselves not to participate in qualifying, they agreed the starting order for their class would be in the order in which they entered the race. This put 2021 Class Champion Cody Parkhouse in the No. 100 Jimco buggy off the starting line first, followed by the No. 121 Jefferies Buggy of Damen Jefferies, and the No 138. Jimco Buggy of Kyle Quinn. Brad Wilson in the No. 153 Jimco Buggy would start fourth, followed by Brendan Gaughan in the No. 162 HMS Buggy and Cody Reid in the No. 168 Alumi Craft Buggy. For Cody Parkhouse, driving solo and for his dad Brian (DOR), he managed to get through some flat tires and slow technical sections, but still finished ahead of his competitors. “This was an awesome course,” said Parkhouse. “Jose (Grijalva, SCORE’s President and Race Director) did a great job laying this course out. It was very technical. There was a lot of new stuff. It was cool how much new stuff there was. The course dried out a lot from last week. It is time to go celebrate.” Jefferies had the help of co-driver Stephen Jangaard and kept their second-place start all the way to the finish line. “We came into this race second in points and there’s a good chance we’ll close the gap to the team that’s first or maybe even take over first place,” said Jangaard at the finish line. “Damen had a pretty good start and he had a battle in his hands. He’s a veteran driver and he knew what he was doing.” In third place was Kyle Quinn with Ronny Wilson who still maintain a slight points lead (five points) over Jefferies. This sets up a SCORE Baja 1000 in which the class championship is up for grabs between these three top finishers in this race. For Cody Reid, he had engine problems that put him out of the race, as did Brendan Gaughan and Brad Wilson. CLASS 10 For everyone except Jose David Ruvalcaba in the No. 1009 buggy, the race had its tough and technical parts. Ruvalcaba and co-driver Estaban Cruz are a home-town team in Ensenada and started at the rear of 18 competitors. They sailed through the competition to get into the first place position by halfway through the course and held on to it to cross the finish line for their first SCORE victory this season. “We had a rear start in our class, but David got a really good pace going on,” said Cruz. “He handed me the car in first place on time around race mile 223. He did his homework and I knew I had to do mine. I tried to be really consistent and not make any mistakes. We knew that as long as we did that, we had it in the bag. SCORE has put on a really good course again. They’ve been doing a great job in putting on really diverse courses over the last few years. That’s really fun for us racers.” Ruvalcaba now has a good lead toward the class championship pending if he and Cruz can place on the podium at the 55th BFGoodrich Tires SCORE Baja 1000 Presented by 4 Wheel Parts in November. Stan Potter in the No. 1006 car has both a DNF and a first-place record this season but managed to pull through in this race to earn a second-place finish in class. Driving solo, Potter toughed it through the entire 392.83 miles for a well-deserved finish. “The course was brutal but fun. They put some new stuff that we have never done before. Some really good stuff that you couldn’t take your focus off of for a second.” Third in class was Ivan Tagle in the No. 1087 car who also drove solo and with a podium finish, maintains his class points lead towards a championship. “It was a tough course, and there was a lot of mud,” said Tagle. “The car didn’t have any problems at all. We were fighting for first place, but we got hit by Trophy Truck Specs twice and that just costed us a lot of time.” Only one SCORE Season Championship point separates Tagle (325) and Ruvalcaba (326) for the class championship. It will definitely be a tough race at the SCORE Baja 1000 between the two who will not only try to win, but also conserve their vehicles to finish in the top three to snag the championship. SJ