SCORE Journal - The Official Publication of SCORE Off-Road Racing
Issue link: https://read.uberflip.com/i/1540550
RJ STIDHAM WINS IN TT 2WD There Was Highly Competitive Action In The TT 2WD Division By Stuart Bourdon Photography by Get Some Photo RJ Stidham racked up a significant win at the 6th SCORE Baja 400 in the No. 78T truck. In his first SCORE off-road race as a driver of record, Stidham not only took first place in the Trophy Truck 2WD class, but he crossed the finish line 10th Overall among four-wheel vehicles. In this race, Stidham finished ahead of all but six of the most potent Unlimited SCORE Trophy Truck drivers, two top SCORE Trophy Truck Spec drivers, and the leading SCORE Legends Trophy Truck class-points driver. Although he’s not highly recognized in SCORE, this was not Stidham’s first off-road race win or his first time in Baja. He was the co-driver for Todd Wyllie in 2006 and 2007. “We ran all the SCORE series races in a Trophy Truck, then decided to race in state-side races after that,” said Stidham. Last year, Tracy Poole asked him to help drive his truck for part of the SCORE Baja 1000 and this is the same truck Stidham ran in this SCORE Baja 400. Before and in between those Baja stints, Stidham has experienced many successful seasons racing trucks in stadium off-road and desert events, including two class championships in desert off-road racing. “I’ve driven a lot of Trophy Trucks, but they weren’t mine, so I’ll drive anything,” said Stidham. But I grew up driving two-wheel-drive trucks and love that class because they’re still something that’s affordable. I think the SCORE 2WD TT class is going to bring some of the older trucks back out to race again, and even new racers and trucks because they feel like they can be competitive.” Although it seemed like an easy win for Stidham, he had to come up from a fifth-place start in class, and 15th behind other qualifying vehicles ahead of him. “I made some mistakes during qualifying for the 400, but coming up from the back made it a lot easier to keep track of where I was in relation to the others,” he said. “My competitor Mikey Lawrence qualified first in class, right behind the all-wheel-drive trucks. He had a good lead on us, but had some trouble, and was pulled off the course when we passed him.” Stidham and co-driver Brady Kelley experienced some of their own problems. “Our GPS went out around mile 45, so we were basically driving freestyle, going on memory from pre-running. We had a really good battle going with Cameron Steele all day, but at Mile 150, we heard from our crew that we were ahead of him by two minutes in corrected time. Soon after that, we had to stop because of a hub seal leak. We added fluid, but it was still leaking a little. That cost us some time. At our last fuel stop around Mile 305, the crew told us we were about even with Steele.” Stidham told his co-driver, “Without our GPS, we’re not going to know where Steele is, and nobody is going to be able to tell us our position ahead or behind him. We’re racing for first!” A couple of miles in from Uruapan, there was a split in the course. “I went left. It turned out Steele had broken down in the right lane, but I didn’t see him. In my head, I was still racing him all the way back to the finish.” “As we were heading toward the highway crossing, just before you get back to Rancho Nelson on the way to the finish line, our crew told us they wanted me to stop in the field before the highway crossing so they could remove the grille because it was blocking the lights. It was starting to get dark, and we might finish at night. I told them, I’m not stopping until I know where Steele is. They had assumed I knew Steele was out, and then told us we were leading Tim Herbst by 11 minutes. At that point, I wasn’t worried about Herbst, so I pulled over so they could uncover the lights.” Stidham was enthusiastic about adding SCORE off-road racing into the mix again. “SCORE is the elite series, and it was great to be back racing in Baja,” he said. “We will be back for the 2025 SCORE Baja 1000.” SJ