SCORE Journal - The Official Publication of SCORE Off-Road Racing
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/470914
of the competition and were never able to get it quite right. Eugenio drives an ID Designs truck named Zeus, which is larger and heavier than the former AGM TT. SJ: Coming from a smaller lightweight Trophy Truck with the Jimco, how do you feel about driving Steven's ID truck, Zeus? Schwarz: I can tell you after the race. I don't know yet. I have only one experience with a larger heavy truck, when I drove with Roger Norman in Vegas to Reno. I think what we tried to prove with the light truck, it didn't go very well. SJ: The first time Schwarz drove the new truck was after technical inspection the day before the 250. Are you still going to race with fully Rally style notes? Schwarz: Here I won't use that many rally notes because there are not so many rally roads. Here I am using GPS notes but of course I have many more notes than Steven or most drivers. What will be interesting is that I am racing with Steve Covey (Steven Eugenio's co-driver instead of Armin's regular co-driver, Bryan Lyttle) because he can tell me more about the truck (Steve Covey also preps the truck). Bryan came up with the idea, I can learn more and anything I need to look after on the truck Steve will know, and I don't know the truck yet. SJ: Will you be a stronger team together? Steven Eugenio: I think so. I feel like this year we have a better budget. I have a lot to learn in the team department, sponsor wise and the driver department. I am going to go to Armin's rally school in Finland soon. Honestly I think Armin is going to kill it with the quality of our truck. I have a feeling he will get in tomorrow and just run away with it. Schwarz: Tomorrow will be my first time driving the truck. SJ: Any new changes for the 2015 season other than adding Armin as a driver? Eugenio: I want to try to better the team. I want to work on the teamwork aspect of it, and Armin bringing in new sponsors and I also want to incorporate his ideas and equipment so we can do better. Schwarz: They are a winning team, so if there is no point to change anything we will not change it. So far just little things like we are changing to a Recaro seat which will make it safer and you sit better. We can obtain bearings and things from our sponsor Schaeffler. If we can't make it better there is no point to change. We have some new things we want to test also. I don't have to fly over for every test. Steven can test the new parts and give feedback about what that part does performance wise. SJ: The 250 course does not have a lot of areas to win the race but there are a lot of areas to lose the race. What is your strategy for race day? Eugenio: For San Felipe, I'd like to win it. More than anything I just want to get through it. It's always been a race for me that's been bad luck. I know if you can finish well here you are set up. I always try to run the race that is given to me and make decisions on the fly. However my game plan is to take advantage of our truck and its strong points and it will run them all down in the whoops. Protecting tires and diff are going to be the number one thing. I think our brand new beautiful body is going to get wrecked too. My section is so tight that I am clipping every bush and tree. Schwarz: For me the race is a little different than for Steven. He knows the truck and I need to learn it. I know the race course but I want to learn the truck fast, but without going too fast. I don't need to push too hard. It is important for us to get a result to start the season, not get a DNF like I had the past two years. I think if we get through the race without any problems we should at minimum have a top five. Eugenio: A top five would be great. San Felipe is one of the toughest races of the year on equipment and this year there are so many rocks and chances to tear the truck apart, if you make it out clean you're set. I honestly don't think San Felipe is the race you should go out and say I'm going to win this race and go 100 percent because you will probably break. Obviously we will lose a little time with the driver change but I would like to see the truck in and out of the pits in 90 seconds. We normally do tires and fuel in 40 seconds so it's doable. SJ: What would mean more to you, to win another championship, or to win the Baja 1000? Eugenio: The 1000! I have already won the championship and I don't have a 1000 win in Trophy Truck yet. 033 SCORE JOURNAL