2011 SCORE Laughlin Desert Challenge

BajaF250 · Post by **BajaF250** » Thu Jan 20, 2011 8:11 pm

The Moss team raced the 2011 Laughlin Desert Challenge again this year. Unfortunately, there were no other class three entries, so there was no class competition for Don. But, there was plenty of good racing as he ate up class 7 and class 8 trucks left and right...

The course was a little different this year; it was only 6½ miles in length, down from 11 miles as in previous years. SCORE decided to keep the race all on private land and cut out the BLM portion. It was still a great course, pretty rough especially since the race vehicles made multiple laps and kept tearing up the course.

The Laughlin leap was not quite as huge as it was in years past. The winner this year was Robbie Gordon with a 125’ jump. Yahoo!

The weather was pretty good this year, it was 50s and 60s, but the wind was pretty strong, both days, although Saturday the wind was just a little higher and Sunday was fairly calm in the morning, but picked up later. Kept the dust out of the pits, but it made spectating up in the lifts a little spooky… we were right on the load limits and danced around and above the wind limits… they swayed around quite a bit up there in the wind! Just ask Philo!

We had a little drama the first day, on lap 5 of 8 for the TT race, BJ Baldwin blew a right rear tire as he passed the pits… and then decided to turn around and run reverse along the side of the course to get back to the pits… this all happened right in front of us and the SCORE course Marshall came by and interviewed us to get our eye witness story of the event. As it happened, I had recorded a video of the event and they copied it for their review. I hope I didn’t get him DQ’d.

All in all, it was a great weekend of racing and camaraderie… See a few of the pics for just a taste of the race…

BajaF250 · Post by **BajaF250** » Thu Jan 20, 2011 8:15 pm

more pics

BajaF250 · Post by **BajaF250** » Thu Jan 20, 2011 8:17 pm

more pics

BajaF250 · Post by **BajaF250** » Thu Jan 20, 2011 8:19 pm

pics... a little TT action

BajaF250 · Post by **BajaF250** » Thu Jan 20, 2011 8:22 pm

more race pics

Broncodawg · Post by **Broncodawg** » Thu Jan 20, 2011 11:02 pm

Good write up and pics. Good times indeed.

philofab · Post by **philofab** » Fri Jan 21, 2011 7:05 am

Those man lifts were sketchy at best in the wind.

flyinbronco · Post by **flyinbronco** » Fri Jan 21, 2011 8:34 am

philofab wrote:Those man lifts were sketchy at best in the wind.

If your not living on the edge your taking up too much space. Ha Ha.

Man what a great weekend. We had so much fun it should be illegal. I finally got to pop the cherry on the Raptor and we did some prerunning on Friday. I took Don's wife and boys for a couple of laps then Don hoped in for a lap. Then when Tom and the girls showed up we did a few more laps in the afternoon. The Raptor is incredible for a stock truck and was such a dream to rip around the course in. I didn't want to push it too hard so we slowed for the jumps but still managed a 10 min. 17 sec. best lap time which turned out to only be a minute off Don's best lap.

Although there were no other class 3's to race with Don managed to find someone to race with each day. The course was way fun on Saturday before the throphy trucks got ahold of it and we had fun power sliding around really making good time with a 41 mph average. Sundays race was like a different course. All chewed up with big holes everywhere there just wasn't any smooth sections left to work with. The battle with Marc Stein in his stock full F-150 was epic. The two of us were nose to tail for a couple of laps on Sunday. Don was really pushing him to make a mistake but he worked well under pressuse and kept us behind him until he had an electricial problem and he pulled to the side on the last lap. We ate a few rocks from the roost, even had one hit Don and ricochet of him and hit me in the collar bone but it was a blast.

Tom hooked us up with his Gopro camera to capture the race action with but I didn't start it correctly on Saturday so no video then on Sunday I know I started it right but for some reason it shut off after a minute or so.

It was great seeing Philo out there. Thanks for letting us use your golf cart. Well at least until the girls broke it. Ha Ha.

BajaF250 · Post by **BajaF250** » Fri Jan 21, 2011 9:01 am

Here's a video of the race with Marc Stein... great stuff!

BajaF250 · Post by **BajaF250** » Fri Jan 21, 2011 9:04 am

I also captured BJ running backwards on the course trying to get back to the pits for shredded left rear tire. Notice the chunks of fiberglass fly off as he heads for the pits... he left the entire left rear fender on the trackside. You can hear Rick's comment right at the end of the vid about a potential DQ.

yikes · Post by **yikes** » Fri Jan 21, 2011 6:32 pm

Who's the old fart in this picture?

BajaF250 · Post by **BajaF250** » Fri Jan 21, 2011 8:00 pm

yikes wrote:Who's the old fart in this picture?

This was an action photo I had to crop, he was putting on his depends!

philofab · Post by **philofab** » Fri Jan 21, 2011 8:00 pm

yikes wrote:Who's the old fart in this picture?

The pre 2011 huck champion.

2011 SCORE Laughlin Desert Challenge

2011 SCORE Laughlin Desert Challenge

Re: 2011 SCORE Laughlin Desert Challenge

Re: 2011 SCORE Laughlin Desert Challenge

Re: 2011 SCORE Laughlin Desert Challenge

Re: 2011 SCORE Laughlin Desert Challenge

Re: 2011 SCORE Laughlin Desert Challenge

Re: 2011 SCORE Laughlin Desert Challenge

Re: 2011 SCORE Laughlin Desert Challenge

Re: 2011 SCORE Laughlin Desert Challenge

Re: 2011 SCORE Laughlin Desert Challenge

Re: 2011 SCORE Laughlin Desert Challenge

Re: 2011 SCORE Laughlin Desert Challenge

Re: 2011 SCORE Laughlin Desert Challenge