SCORE Journal - The Official Publication of SCORE Off-Road Racing
Issue link: https://read.uberflip.com/i/1531575
12 STRAIGHT WINS MAKE IT A THREE-PEAT Gus Vildosola Sr. is the 2024 SCORE Trophy Truck Legends Class Champ Story by Stuart Bourdon Photography by Get Some Photo gus Vildosola Sr. is a legend. His first off-road race was in 1968, driving a Baja bug. He has driven a Class 9 car, a 1/2 1600 car, a Class 1 car, a Pro Truck built by Ivan Stewart, and a SCORE Trophy Truck. Lately, Vildosola has been racing in the SCORE Trophy Truck Legends class with regular driving teammate Ricky Johnson and occasional driver Mike Coleman as a third driver for the SCORE Baja 1000 and winning races in the SCORE International Off-Road Racing series. Vildosola and his team have won the last dozen consecutive SCORE desert races, making the 2024 SCORE Trophy Truck Legends Class Championship their third in a row. He and his crew were first in the Legends Class at every race this year, finishing in the top 10 Overall at the first three races of the season, and third Overall at the end of the long and treacherous 2024 BFGoodrich Tires 57th SCORE Baja 1000. When we spoke with Vildosola, he told us that the toughest of this season’s four races was the SCORE Baja 400. “Our trucks are big, wide, and long. They are not designed for narrow and twisty up-and-down rocky terrain,” he said. “Some of the trails were very difficult. You needed to be perfect because running just inches outside the trail would get you a flat.” Surprisingly, the least troublesome race of the year was the SCORE Baja 1000. “The truck was perfect when I got in for the last section of the race,” said Vildosola. “The only problem for us was an intermittent fresh-air system. We had to lift our face shields, the water, and mud splashed in our faces, and sometimes we had trouble seeing what was ahead of us.” As always, Vildosola was generous and praised others. “Our regular crew members and the volunteers did so much to help us win this year, but our two navigators, Nico Ambriz (who rides with Gus) and Victor Valenzuela (who rides with Ricky), deserve special mention because these guys are the ones who made sure we were on the right track and kept us out of trouble during the races.” SJ