SCORE-San-Felipe-250-2-7-2017ENSENADA, Mexico – As the number of entries continue to escalate reflecting the lasting popularity of the event, 11 defending class winners will be looking to repeat in next week’s season-opening 31st annual SCORE San Felipe 250 desert race in Baja California, Mexico.

Entries to date from 25 U.S. States, host Mexico, Australia, Austria, Canada, Egypt, Germany and Guatemala are preparing for the popular season-opener of the four-race internationally-televised 2017 SCORE World Desert Championship. The event will be held next Wednesday to Sunday in San Felipe, the quaint fishing village on the Sea of Cortez, 125 miles south of the U.S. Border at Calexico, Calif.

Classes are offered in Pro and Sportsman divisions for cars, trucks, UTVs, motorcycles and quads.

SEASON CHAMPS
Leading the group of returning SCORE San Felipe 250 class winners are three racers who used their San Felipe wins to launch seasons that ended in recording 2016 SCORE World Desert Championship season class point championships.

Chad Broughton, Scotts Valley, Calif., won Trophy Truck Spec last year in San Felipe and went on to win the season point championship in his class as well as being voted 2016 SCORE Rookie of the Year. Mark Winkelman, Cedar Hill, Texas, won Pro Moto 50 (riders over 50 years old) in San Felipe last year enroute to leading teams that won double season point championships (Pro Moto 50 and Pro Moto Limited). Winkelman and his team of riders in Pro Moto 50 were undefeated with four race wins in 2016.

Mark Samuels, Yucca Valley, Calif., was co-rider for the now-injured Colton Udall who went undefeated in 2016 in Pro Moto Unlimited.

MORE: Rob MacCachren, Jason Voss Win SCORE Baja 1000

RACE REGISTRATION
While online racer registration continues until Sunday through the SCORE website, pre-running opened last Saturday on the magnificent 271.9-mile race course. Late, on-site registration will be held next Wednesday through Friday in San Felipe.

GOLDEN SCORE 2017
The 2017 season also marks the golden 50th anniversary celebration of the legendary season-ending SCORE Baja 1000, the iconic Granddaddy of all Desert Races to be held in mid-November. The SCORE Baja 1000 is the oldest and longest continuously held desert race in the world.

30-PLUS YEARS
Celebrating the 31st anniversary of the youngest of the three legendary SCORE Baja races, sometimes referred to as the SCORE ‘baby Baja’, entries continue to be accepted on the SCORE website for Pro and Sportsman entries for cars, trucks, UTVs, motorcycles and quads.

Pre-race festivities for this popular ‘Spring Break’ race will be held in San Felipe next Wednesday, Thursday and Friday with race day next Saturday concluding with the post-race awards fiesta next Sunday morning on the Malecon.

The Monster Energy SCORE Kickoff Welcome Party will be held from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. PDT next Thursday (March 30) at the Hotel El Cortez.

THE DEFENDERS
Besides Broughton, Winkelman and Samuels, other 2016 San Felipe class wins who have entered to date along with the class they won last year in this race are Billy Wilson, Corpus Christi, Texas (SCORE Trophy Truck), Ronny Wilson, Long Beach, Calif. (Class 1), Jorge Sampietro, Ensenada, Mexico (Class 1/2-1600), Pete Sohren, Glendale, Ariz. (Class 7), Todd Winslow, Clovis, Calif. (Class 10), Marc Burnett, Lakeside, Calif. (Pro UTV FI), Garret Poucher, Valencia, Calif. (Pro Moto Limited) and Tony Gera, Santa Cruz, Calif. (Pro Moto Ironman).

QUALIFYING FIRST
For the first time in the history of this race, SCORE will hold a qualifying session on Thursday, March 30 to determine the starting positions within each class for the SCORE Trophy Truck, Class 1 and Trophy Truck Spec classes.

Qualifying first in the marquee SCORE Trophy Truck division for high-tech, 850-horsepower, unlimited production trucks will be veteran racer/chassis builder Damen Jefferies, Yucca Valley, Calif.

Drawing the first qualifying position in the unlimited Class 1 was veteran SCORE female champion racer Shelby Reid, Apple Valley, Calif., whose son Cody Reid is a champion racer in Class 10.

First to make a qualifying run in Trophy Truck Spec will be Las Vegas’ Bill McBeath, a prominent casino executive and former SCORE Trophy Truck racer.

While qualifying is optional, 44 of the 58 total entries in the three classes, including 24 of 26 in SCORE Trophy Truck, have committed to qualify for their starting positions. The non-qualifiers in each class will start after all the qualifiers in their respective classes in the order they were drawn in the start drawn held on March 16 for all of the remaining classes.

ENTRY LEADERS
To date, the featured SCORE Trophy Truck division has the most entries with 26 followed by Trophy Truck Spec with 18 entries, Class 10 with 15 entries, unlimited Class 1 and Pro UTV FI with 14 each and SCORE Lites with 13.

Leading the motorcycle entries so far is Pro Moto Unlimited with seven entries.

TROPHY TRUCK LEGEND
SCORE has introduced a new class starting with this race called Trophy Truck Legend. The new class will use the same rules as the marquee SCORE Trophy Truck division with the exception that all drivers in each vehicle in Trophy Truck Legend must be at least 50 years old.

SCORE has long had popular age group motorcycle classes for riders over 30, 40, 50 and 60 years old and over but this is the first class it has developed for four-wheel vehicles.

SCORE Trophy Truck is the featured SCORE racing division for high-tech, 850-horsepower unlimited production trucks. There are 26 official entries in SCORE Trophy Truck to date for next week’s SCORE San Felipe 250.

REGISTRATION/MANUFACTURER’S MIDWAY
Racer registration will be held at the Hotel El Cortez from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. (PDT) on Wednesday (March 29), from Noon to 8 p.m. (PDT) on Thursday (March 30) and from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. (PDT) on Friday (March 31).

Media registration will be held at the Hotel El Cortez from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. (PDT) on Thursday (March 30) and from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.  (PDT) on Friday (March 31).

The pre-race Manufacturer’s Midway, contingency and tech inspection of the vehicles in the race will be held on Friday (March 31). Contingency will run from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. (PT) and tech/transponder check from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on the picturesque Malecon, flanked by the Sea of Cortez on one side and the popular restaurants and night clubs of San Felipe on the other.

A MASTERFUL COURSE
SCORE President Roger Norman and SCORE Race Director Jose A. Grijalva have worked with the government officials and ejidos of the Mexicali and San Felipe areas to develop a memorable SCORE San Felipe 250 race course of 271.9 miles.

This year’s grueling race course will be another beauty to behold but a tough challenge to race on. It runs in a counter clockwise direction running over high-speed dry lake beds, through low-speed winding, rock-strewn, twisting canyons and trails, along quick-paced dirt roads and through three of Baja’s most infamous washes in Chanate, Huatamote and Amarillo.

There will be two full stop checkpoints in addition to the start/finish line which will be located for the first time in the history of this race on the Malecon in the heart of San Felipe. Checkpoint 1 will be located at El Chinero and the second will be at Morelia Junction.

The course will also pass through La Ventana, Saldana and Borrego as well as the Diablo dry lake bed.

There will be two road crossings, both on Highway 3. The first will be going north at km 192 after checkpoint 1 and the second one coming south near Borrego, crossing at km 179 on the highway.

The start line and celebratory finish area will be on the SCORE ramps in front of the Rockodile night club on the Malecon.

SPRING BREAK HAPPENING
For over three decades, the annual motorsports festival that has brought the largest economic impact of any single event held annually in this lightly-populated portion of the ruggedly rough and bountifully beautiful Baja peninsula has been the SCORE San Felipe 250.

For more information, visit www.score-international.com.