SCORE Journal - The Official Publication of SCORE Off-Road Racing
Issue link: https://read.uberflip.com/i/1546613
WINNING TEAMWORK Robert Lewellyn’s Meticulous Notes Help Smooth Out The Bumps. Story by Stuart Bourdon Photos by Get Some Photo Recent successes have shone a spotlight on the racing efforts of Sam Baldi and his navigator, Robert Lewellyn. They have been racing together for quite a while, but the team’s 2025 SCORE Trophy Truck 2WD Class Championship launched them onto center stage. Lewellyn told us, “I’ve been racing with Baldi for close to 10 years now. Six years in the Trophy Truck and four years in a Class 1 car.” With two second-in-class podiums in the first two contests of the 2026 SCORE Desert Racing Championship, the Baldi/Lewellyn partnership looks like it’s headed toward another winning season. For Lewellyn, the job as navigator began long before the race or pre-running. “Part of the navigator’s job is to keep all your notes from past races. Having those old notes helps us pre-run more efficiently. You’re constantly adding or taking away; the ‘log’ is always evolving. SCORE tends to introduce little changes here and there, and a lot of it can be last-minute.” “We try to prepare ourselves for any changes. We always have backup plans. The weather in Baja is close to unpredictable. You can’t really prepare for that, and I’ve learned over the years that if you’re pre-running early in the week and heavy weather is expected by the end of the week, you have to find alternatives and have those alternate routes already planned out. You have to be ready to roll with the punches, as the weather is sometimes our biggest competition down there.” “If we think there’s going to be an issue somewhere on the course, whether it’s a bottleneck or weather changes, we pay a lot of attention to finding secondary lines through those areas. If there are three or four other lines through, we try to have all of them in the updated notes. For the 2026 Baja 500, I had about 2000 notes logged before the race started. Things can change so easily and so rapidly. You can have done your pre-running the day before the race, and then another 10, 15, or 20 drivers go through that area and tear it up.” Lewellyn was also quick to add that he and Baldi have been friends for many years, and that certainly helps with communication in the cab during the race. “There have been races that we pre-ran the day before the start. Then on race day it was like we are on a different racecourse. Sam’s really good at adapting to the terrain and last-minute course changes. We may be running in thick dust or on a trail that wasn’t there the day before. I’ll just say, ‘Drive what you can see right now, and I’ll get us back to where we’re supposed to be. That sort of teamwork gets us back on track.” SJ