RENO, Nev. — Mexico’s Gustavo Vildosola Jr. has drawn the first starting positions for the upcoming 19th annual Rigid Industries SCORE Desert Challenge, presented by the City of Imperial, Calif. A live drawing was broadcast Tuesday night on the SCORE DirtLive HD Internet Show.

Round 4 of the 2014 five-race SCORE World Desert Championship will have the event split into multiple days with classes divided into groups as is typical with a SCORE Desert Challenge. Each class will run two, eight-lap segments over an eight-mile course at the Coyne Powersports Motorplex near Plaster City, Calif. in Imperial Valley. The race festivities will be held Sept. 25-28 with racing on Friday night, all day and into Saturday evening and Sunday morning and afternoon. The race venue is located approximately 100 miles east of San Diego.

With late entries accepted up to 1 p.m. Friday (Sept. 26), the final field is expected to include nearly a dozen racers from the Imperial Valley area including Imperial, El Centro, Holtville and Calexico. In Tuesday’s drawing, SCORE Trophy Truck, SCORE’s marquee racing division for 850 horsepower, high-tech, unlimited production trucks had the most entries with 15 vehicles.

Vildosola Jr., of Mexicali, drives the No. 21 Vildosola Racing Branix Mexicana Logistics Ford Raptor. Known as Tavo by family and friends, Vildosola Jr. won this year’s Tecate SCORE San Felipe 250 in March, finished seventh in the SCORE Imperial Valley 250 in April and 14th at the Tecate SCORE Baja 500 in June. He currently is second in season points, just 13 behind SCORE Trophy Truck and SCORE Overall point leader Rob MacCachren, of Las Vegas. Vildosola Jr. has three career SCORE Trophy Truck race wins.

MacCachren, who drives the No. 11 MacCachren Motorsports Rockstar Energy Ford F-150, drew the 14th starting position.

Two-time defending SCORE Trophy Truck season point champion B.J. Baldwin, also of Las Vegas, is currently tied for fifth in season points in the No. 1 Baldwin Motorsports Monster Energy Chevy Silverado and drew the 13th starting slot for the Rigid Industries SCORE Desert Challenge.

The Motorplex is owned by El Centro, Calif., businessman Marty Coyne, a former SCORE Trophy Truck racer who won the SCORE Las Vegas Terrible’s Cup.  The one-square mile land area is inside of the massive 41,000-acre Superstition Mountain/Plaster City OHV area.

Coyne’s private land has an eight-mile course already developed that was part of the 82-mile loop used by SCORE on April 26, for which racers were required to cover three laps, for the Inaugural SCORE Imperial Valley 250 desert race.

Held from 1995 through 2012 in Laughlin, Nev., the Rigid Industries SCORE Desert Challenge, presented by the City of Imperial, Calif. will be held for the first time in the Imperial Valley with the same format as the original SCORE Desert Challenge events from past years. The SCORE World Desert Championship, the world’s foremost desert racing organization, features competition in 25 Pro and 5 Sportsman classes for cars, trucks, UTVs, motorcycles and ATVs.

IMPERIAL STREET FAIR SEPT. 25-26
Pre-race festivities will be held in downtown Imperial Calif. On Thursday (Sept. 25), from noon to 7 p.m. will be the Imperial Off-Road Showcase and Street Fair. At 7 p.m. on Thursday (Sept. 25) will be an escorted vehicle procession from downtown Imperial to the California Midwinter Fairgrounds.  The Imperial Street Fair will include live music, food and beverage vendors, merchandise vendors, interactive games, vehicle displays and autograph sessions with many of the world’s top desert racers.

SCORE CONTINGENCY ROW SEPT. 26
The colorful SCORE Contingency Row and Manufacturer’s Midway will be held on Friday (Sept. 26) from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., joining the Imperial Off-Road Showcase and Street Fair on Imperial Avenue in downtown Imperial. All race entries are pushed through contingency row and tech inspection offering fans up close views of the exotic desert racing machines along with their drivers and riders.

IMPERIAL BIG AIR SHOOTOUT
With a purse of nearly $9,000 sponsored by Rogers & Rogers automotive group, the Imperial Big Air Shootout, presented by the City of Imperial, Calif. will start at 8 p.m. on Thursday (Sept. 25) at the California Midwinter Fairgrounds. Patterned after its popular predecessor the Laughlin Leap, this jump competition will have the various classes divided into different groups with the long jump with cash payouts in all six groups. In Group 1 (SCORE Trophy Truck, Trophy Truck Spec) will have a prize of $2,000 for the longest jump and a top prize of $1,500 for Group 2 (Class 1, Class 10).

All the details are available at this link (http://score-international.com/RISDC-Jump-Contest/) on the SCORE website.

ROLL-BACK ENTRY FEES
As an added incentive for this race, SCORE has reduced the entry fees for participants to the lowest in recent history. For registration information, including the list of classes offered as well as entry fees and only line registration, visit the following link https://www.regonline.com/builder/site/?eventid=1579114.

SCORE’s Norman commented, “SCORE has rolled back entry fees to the lowest in more than a decade because of the ability to race on private property and the significant support from the local community and Imperial Valley.”

2 SPECIAL ‘BUDGET’ UTV CLASSES
SCORE has added two special entry level UTV classes exclusively for the Rigid Industries SCORE Desert Challenge, presented by the city of Imperial Calif. The two special classes for this race are the Pro UTV Single-Seat and Sportsman UTV Stock.

The Pro UTV Single-Seat class is for modified UTVs up to 1000cc engine displacement with stock chassis and stock appearance. The Sportsman UTV Stock class is a stock UTV class for production UTVs, manufactured by registered companies with vehicle VIN numbers.

Detailed information is available under Tech Notes on the SCORE website at http://score-international.com/tech-notes/ or by calling the SCORE Tech Office in El Cajon, Calif., at 619.938.2135.

19th Rigid Industries SCORE Desert Challenge
September 25-28, 2014—Plaster City, Calif.
Total Entries: 70 (as of 9/09/14)
(By starting order within class)

Pro Cars & Trucks
SCORE TROPHY TRUCK (15)
21 Gus Vildosola Jr
63 Adam Bosch
18 Juan C. Lopez
7 Steven Eugenio
38 Eric Hustead
15 Armin Schwarz
56 Brandon Arthur
5 Clyde Stacy
8 Fidel Galindo
34 Ken Losch
16 Cameron Steele
72 Robert Acer
1 B.J. Baldwin
11 Rob MacCachren
59 Craig Potts

CLASS 1 (5)
100 Cody Parkhouse
169 Nick Mills
184 Kent Kroeker
104 Rob Archibald
101 Justin Matney

CLASS 1/2-1600 (8)
1630 Kevin Smith
1606 Ruben Sanudo
1636 Christian Celaya
1639 Alan Ampudia
1607 Mario Gastelum
1615 Jesus Velez
1608 Rob Archibald-2nd RS
1625 Eric Sheetz-1st RS

CLASS 3 (1)
300 Donald Moss

CLASS 5 (1)
509 Jose Lopez

CLASS 5-1600 (2)
569 Donald Harper
595 Stu Hersey

CLASS 7 (1)
700 Dan Chamlee

CLASS 7SX (1)
758 Ricardo Vindiola

CLASS 8 (2)
824 Mike Meeks
807 Noah Ostanik

CLASS 10 (6)
1062 J.J. Schnarr
1085 Justin Davis
1068 Cody Reid
1006 Mike Lawrence
1002 Mark Lawrence
1031 Mike Johnson

TROPHY TRUCK SPEC (6)
842 Taylor Mills
851 Mitch Edgmon
848 Billy Wilson
872 Jonathan Brenthel
871 Larry Connor
844 Eduardo Laguna

HEAVY METAL (1)
8036 Carlos Fonseca

CLASS 19 (5)
1917 Derek Murray
1905 Marc Burnett
1920 John Angal
1944 Scott Estes
1932 Matt Parks

Pro Motorcycles
OPEN M/C (2)
4x Ricky Brabec
1x Colton Udall

LIMITED M/C (2)
110x Thomas Harris
125x Fernando Beltran

CLASS 40 (2)
410x Giovanni Spinali
403x Oscar Fazz

CLASS 50 (1)
510x Earl Roberts

SCORE IRONMAN (1)
702x Tony Gera

Pro ATVs
Pro ATV (1)
14a Gabriel Rascon

Sportsman
SPT BUGGY (1)
1515 Derek Fletcher

SPT UNLIMITED TRUCK (1)
1444 Jim Bunn

SPT LIMITED TRUCK (1)
2014 Todd Richards

RISDC SPT STOCK UTV (1)
1991 Chase Warren

SPT ATV (3)
135 Anthony Frank
112a Oscar Ruiz
140a Don Higbee