SCORE Journal - The Official Publication of SCORE Off-Road Racing
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/470914
Schwarz: From the European perspective I feel if you win the 1000 it will have a big impact in Europe. In all the years of SCORE the 1000 has only been won by an American or a Mexican. If we win the Baja 1000 we will make history. It would be the first time that a German and someone from outside North America has won it. SJ: Armin you live in Europe and race in Baja, what draws you here? Schwarz: I spend almost 80 percent of my time working on desert racing. Getting here is not easy. It's an 11 hour flight each time but for me it's fun. The main point is that it is what it is here. It's not an FIA sport. With FIA you have so many rules and here you have freedom to create and innovate. If your team has a good idea you can just go out and do it. If you want to pre-run now, you just go do it - this is heaven! I have 20 years of rallying behind me I can tell you that all the rules are killing our spirit. The young guys don't know better, but everyone who I have brought to Baja they talk about it so high. It's so open and they can go look at any car; it's a huge difference. That is my motivation for off- road racing, apart from winning the Baja 1000. I want to show the people in Europe how exciting and open it is in off-road racing. There is an old saying in the military that a plan only survives first contact with the enemy. In SCORE that enemy is the race course, the competition and the X factor. While Steven and Armin had a plan for the 250, that plan was quickly jettisoned out the window net after the start of the race. The team suffered flats, broken belts, bad luck and fire, but they persevered and were able to finish. We spoke to Eugenio again after the race to get the story first hand. SJ: Give us a short summary of how your race went at the 250. Eugenio: In four letters? Shit. Shit upon shit. SJ: Did you have a lot of problems? Eugenio: I'll give you everything. We get to the starting line. We realize that our radio channel doesn't work. We realize we have no notes in the GPS. Then, we take off, we lose a belt at mile 38, get passed by three people. We were seventh on the road at mile 38 and then we're back to third on the road at mile 44. We get a flat at 60, get passed by two people. We're fifth on the road at 60. At mile 100, we're back to second on the road. Second through Borrego and run out of gas at Borrego. So we're sitting on the highway, out of gas. Then, we get the fuel. We actually had a pit just at Borrego so we were going to take a splash there. We came up just a little short. Just bad fuel mileage. We don't really understand what happened. We were topped off at the line, but something that ... I don't know. We ended up losing a few minutes there getting fuel. We were third on the road when we left there. A couple passed us while we were getting fuel then we get to mile 150 for the driver exchange and all hell broke loose. There was a fire. SJ: What was your reaction to the fire, were you scared, angry, disappointed? Eugenio: No, my first reaction was to try to get to the truck, as soon as they hit it with the fire extinguisher. My first thought was to jump in the truck. But somebody else jumped into it first, and put it into neutral to get the it out of the way. That was my first reaction was getting the truck out of the fire. The fuel was on the ground and the spray got to the brakes. It didn't seem to be the whole truck was engulfed in flames so it was just the back end of the truck. My reaction was to get it out of the way. SJ: Once the fire was out did you think your race was over? Eugenio: We were looking at the truck, looked it over, and everything seemed to be fine. Even with the fire, we got passed by only two people. We decided to leave. We left, got on the road. We probably lost 10 minutes in total, maybe not quite that much, but pretty close to there. We were still fifth on the road. We were doing good. After the fire was extinguished, the team looked over the truck and the only real damage was to the passenger side paint and fiberglass. Schwarz got back into the truck to finish the race but the long day was not over yet. Near mile 200 the truck lost a belt and then got stuck. It took two hours for Schwarz and Covey to get unstuck and racing again after some spectators pulled them out. With 50 miles to go they had another belt issue but they were able to get half a belt back on the engine and Schwarz cruised it to the finish. The team ended up with a 14th place finish in Trophy Truck, over two hours behind race winner Vildosola. 034 SCORE JOURNAL 29TH BUD LIGHT SCORE SAN FELIPE 250 RECAP