SCORE Journal - The Official Publication of SCORE Off-Road Racing
Issue link: https://read.uberflip.com/i/1526915
JASON DUNCAN Luke McMillin’s co-driver has all the right moves by Stuart Bourdon Photos by Get Some Photo Jason Duncan knows off-road racing inside and out. He’s one of the guys behind Suspension Development Group (SDG), so when he is not in the right-hand seat for Luke McMillin, he’s out in the desert working with teams to get their suspension systems dialed in. “I’m in a truck two or three times a week with our customers,” says Duncan. “We work with all the top drivers, and most of the Mason AWD trucks running today. We also work with 20 to 30 SCORE TT Spec truck teams and 15 or 20 Class 10 car teams.” Along with tuning and navigating, Duncan has driving experience as well. “In 2009, I built a 1450-style Ford Ranger and won the class championship but realized racing costs a lot of money. I loved it, but I didn’t enjoy breaking things or paying for it,” he said. “The next year, I started navigating for Jason McNeil. I love driving but I couldn’t do what the top guys can do with the consistency and precision they have with these trucks. But after all these years, I can usually tell when something’s about to go wrong with a suspension setup before it goes wrong.” It’s Just Like Dancing When it comes to navigating for Luke McMillin, Duncan spends a lot of time pre-running. “Luke and I usually do our pre-running about two weeks before most of the races,” says Duncan. “For the SCORE Baja 1000, it can depend upon where it’s going and how much we have already run in the past. If there’s a lot of new stuff, we’ll spend about a month. But we’ll see everything six to seven times before race day. And that’s a lot of taking and confirming notes. It’s repetitive, going through the motions over and over again, but for the co-driver and driver, it’s kind of like dancing.” “You practice before you dance, and you keep practicing until the show starts. On race day, it’s all about hitting your marks, keeping your driver level-headed, and giving them the right information. But you have to adjust to each driver. I’ve ridden with a lot of different drivers, and Luke is a quiet driver. He doesn’t talk unless it gets to a point where we’re in the hunt and I’m talking back and forth on the radio with our crews too much. He can tell I’m distracted and needs me to focus.” For GPS and note-taking, Duncan says he’s old school. I use a Lowrance and type on the Lowrance. However, Rob MacCachren likes to use a LeadNav system. I was co-driver for the last two SCORE Baja 1000s with Rob, and then Luke when he took the wheel for the last half of the race. Rob takes his own notes, and the LeadNav system talks to him. For the first half of the race, I was just sitting there while Rob listened to the system giving him basic GPS directions like Google Maps.” Seconds Between Winning And Not Vehicles and speeds have improved all across various classes and to win, Duncan believes it requires new tactics. “The trucks have become so fast and so competitive in the last few years that races are won or lost by a matter of seconds,” says Duncan. “With the introduction of so many speed zones – we call it ‘speed zone racing’ – it’s become even more stressful for drivers and navigators.” “We have a speed indicator in the truck, like a dial that I can set in two mph increments up or down. In the speed zones, we’re trying to stay within that 37-mph limit, as close as we can. At the last (2023) SCORE Baja 1000 one of the speed zones was 60 miles long, and that can get frustrating, but It’s not worth pushing it so far that you get a speed-zone penalty because that can cost you the race.” Duncan rode the entire 2023 Baja 1000 race with Rob and Luke, and the win would have been Luke’s fourth SCORE Baja 1000 in a row. “We had no speed zone penalties, and we had a near-perfect race, but in the end, it came down to a difference of just 78 seconds in elapsed time. With split times that close, the driver and co-driver have to be well-connected and communicate on almost a telepathic level. There have been times when I think Luke said something to me, and he thought he said it too, but Luke never actually said it out loud.” SJ