This year’s SCORE Primm 300 started off with a fast course, as many of the rough sections had been bladed over and smoothed out. But that didn’t last long, as the morning races quickly churned up the course and turned it into the traditional rough, rocky Primm course for which the are is known.

With SCORE breaking up the Terrible’s Primm 300 into a morning and evening race as it has in the past few years, the Class 12s started behind Class 10s but that didn’t stop Steven Eugenio in his single-seat 12 car from getting through the 10s and taking an early lead by race mile 17.5 followed by fellow Class 12 racer Perry McNeil.
Eugenio had more than a 5-minute lead until he found a huge rock in the middle of the course on lap two.

“I was all out in 5th gear around mile 15,” Eugenio said. “I came around a slight corner and there was a huge boulder in the course that wasn’t there before. The choice was to either hit the rock or go off course into bigger rocks that would’ve destroyed the car. The hit bent the left rear arm that later caused the CV to go just 30 miles from the finish on the last lap.  It’s too bad because we had a really good day going.”

The overall winner for the a.m. race was McNeil in Class 12.

“We had a good race,” he said. “We had one flat and we were held up by dust really bad. But other than that, it was flawless. The car really worked well all day. We came into the pit to put gas in and they said, ‘Hey, you’ve got a tire going down.’ It was lucky it happened when it did. Other than that, it was a very good day.”

Kevin Smith took the class 1600 win. “Everything went perfectly,” he said. “We started ninth and I think by the third lap, I was the first car on the road. We stopped twice, once for fuel and once to change an air cleaner. Other than that, it was a flawless run. No flat tires, no problems with anything. I drove the whole way and I got a little tired at the end but I kind of got a big enough of a cushion there and then the last lap I kind of cruised it on in.”

Winner of Class 8 (Heavy Metal) was Juan C. Lopez in the #802 truck. “On the last lap, the lead car (Noah Ostanik in No. 801) had a flat,” Lopez said. “We got around them and that’s why we’re sitting here, the first vehicle at the finish line. We had two flat tires on the first lap but no other problems.”

Joe Bacal was the winner of Stock Truck and secured the class championship early on the season. Bacal is a cancer survivor who uses races as an extra platform for cancer awareness (see more about his story here).

“It was fun – it was an awesome race and the truck was phenomenal,” Bacal said. “I couldn’t test last week because I hurt my knee and I’ve got 25 stitches in my knee. It’s been a good year and I think we’re pretty close to wrapping up the championship. At this point, I think we just have to show up at the Tecate SCORE Baja 1000, if I’m not mistaken. That’ll be the first for Lexus, which is a pretty darn cool thing. We’re pretty excited. I didn’t have any problems out there. All I had to do was run a good pace to keep out of trouble.”

Later in the day, the rest of the field took to the track for the p.m. race. Missing from the afternoon race was the legendary and iconic Rob MacCachren because of an ambiguous BLM disqualification for allegedly “pre-running”; his violations of broken laws are vague and debatable and hardly warrant a disqualification.

The afternoon race was filled with incidents right from the start, with Cameron Steele’s truck catching fire at race mile 7. Both he and his co driver were unharmed. Then soon after was Marc Ewing who rolled his #68 Trophy Truck around race mile 14-15. Ewing was reported to be flown to a near by hospital but in good condition with cracked ribs.

All that action split up the racers, and a pack of 10 trucks separated themselves from the rest. Out front was Dave Crinklaw in his debut run in a Trophy Truck. Although Crinklaw is new to Trophy Truck, he is no stranger to off-road heavy metal and has run many years in Class 8.

“This truck was flawless all day,” Crinklaw said after scoring his first podium in the class with a third-place finish. “We never had a flat. My whole team is awesome. This (SCORE Trophy-Truck) is so much different than (the Class 8 truck), it took me a little while to learn what I could get away with, and you can get away with a lot. We developed a vibration on the third lap at high speed so we had to back off a bunch. First time in this truck – first time on this course – and we were flawless. SCORE puts on a good race, as usual, so it was a good day for us.”

The overall and Trophy Truck winner of the day was Jesse Jones.

“This is great. We had a really great day,” he said. “We had a flat on lap two and we lost a driveline. It was just dusty and we were fighting our way through the slower traffic. You’re so anxious to go but you know you better not do that because three guys will go by you when you’re changing your tire. But you just want to go. The truck ran well. We passed 12 trucks physically so we started 15th and finished third on the road. Andy (McMillin, No. 31) had me by one (minute) on the last lap, so I stepped it up. Andy was down to me by four minutes at the last pit when he pulled in. Oh, man, maybe we’ll get some points out of this thing!”

Robbie Peirce finished second overall and second in class.

“The goal was for me just to get two laps in,” Peirce said. “After my accident in Glen Helen [at the Lucas Oil race], I’ve been a little sore so Mike offered to drive the last two laps for me and my goal was to just bring in a clean, good, healthy truck and then let it come to us. I had a bad crash four weeks ago and broke two collarbones, banged up a lung and fractured some ribs. I still don’t have my energy level back so that’s why I wanted to have Mike in the truck. This is the best thing we can do after what happened to Rob MacCachren (who drives for Pierce and who was disqualified before the race by Bureau of Land Management officials). This one is for him.”

Taking the third spot overall and denying the Trophy Trucks from dominating the podium was Germany’s Armin Schwarz, third time winner of this race in Class 1.

“I’m glad to have all this support here from BFGoodrich and from Germany – they came out here with many guests and they enjoyed the day very much,” Schwarz said. “It’s always very, very nice to win a race ... but for me, this is something sensational and it is all down to the pit crew, to the team. I can only give this victory to the team because we have the best team out there. We had no issues with the car at all.”

Co- driver Martin Christensen said, “There was no fade in the car – it was the same as when we started. Not one flat all day and we hit so many rocks. Going into this race, I almost think we were jinxed because, that I know of, nobody has won (Class 1) three years in a row at Primm. And then to just have a flawless day like this ... they told me at the last pit that I was 11 minutes ahead of the next car in class and so we said we would let off and drive it home nice and easy.”

Next up in the SCORE series is the granddaddy of all races, as the series returns south of the border for a run down the Baja peninsula. This year, the Tecate SCORE Baja 1000 will be part of the celebrations to commemorate the Bicentennial of the Independence and the Centennial of the Revolution of Mexico in Baja, California. The La Paz finish and fiesta are sure to be epic!