SCORE Journal - The Official Publication of SCORE Off-Road Racing
Issue link: https://read.uberflip.com/i/1332112
SCORE 2020 Class 5 Champion Trey Hernquist Overcame A Damaged Car And A DNF To Win SCORE’s Class 5 Points Championship By Mike Vieria Photos by Get Some Photo After participating in the SCORE Baja 1000, Trey Hernquist accumulated enough points to clinch a Class 5 Unlimited championship this year because of his class victory in the SCORE Baja 500 earlier in the year. “It was a surprise to me, but I’m not going to say no to it,” he says. “It was honestly a dream come true for me to have a SCORE championship in my name. It’s something I’ve been chasing after since I was fourteen.” Trey, his dad Bill, and the rest of the team had planned to tackle the 2020 SCORE season with their new GM-powered buggy. However, some suspension issues with the new car caused them to turn to their earlier old school car, which they’ve been campaigning for many years, for the 500. The 500 turned out to be a relatively smooth drive for the team in the older buggy. Trey says, “They took it easy”, in managing to notch the victory in the 500. The new car was prepped and ready for a challenge at the ‘1000’, with the older car relegated to pre-runner status. Unfortunately, the race took its toll on the newer car when teammate Adam Johnston suffered the wrath of Baja racing around mile 357 by sliding off a silt bed and plunging down a 15-foot cliff. Trey says, “The only information we had was that the car was unrecoverable. We were told to bring chainsaws and tools to get all the parts off the car because it’s never leaving. It was a pretty crazy deal, but we were able to get it out about one or two o’clock the next day, and it had only relatively minor damage. It was just in such a remote area and so hard to get to, that they didn’t think we could get it out.” Before the crash, the team was moving along quite well with the design changes and development put into the new car paying off. “We were on pace with the lead Class 10 cars and had about an hour lead on the rest of the class. Everything was going great until it wasn’t,” he says. “That’s just how Baja is. It was gnarly up there.” When we spoke with Trey, the team had just returned the damaged car to their shop and were preparing to get to work on preparing it for next season. “The whole team is focused on winning another SCORE championship next year, and that’s what we’ll be working toward. It’s really taken a lot of years and a lot of hard work to figure out what it takes to win one of these championships, but now that we’ve done it, we know what to do, and just want to go for another one.” “I think because the series was cut short, Roger and Jose made these two races, the SCORE Baja 500 and the SCORE Baja 1000, the gnarliest things I’ve ever seen, and I’ve heard that from multiple people,” he said. SJ