Robby Gordon took the win at the SCORE Terrible's Primm 300.

After SCORE's Baja 500 shake-up of black box penalties that dramatically changed the outcome of  Robby Gordon's race, this time it worked in his favor.

The 14th running of SCORE's Primm 300 was, as always, set at the Nevada/California state line area. The temperatures were soaring into the upper levels of tolerance, but that didn't keep the field of over 100 off-road racers from descending into the Primm Valley area. Race day would have two events take place, as SCORE would group the slower classes in the morning and then the unlimited classes in the afternoon.

This particular race had a lot riding on it for Robby Gordon, who's points lead shrank considerably after the IRC tracker review of the Baja 500, which led Gordon to opt out of racing his NASCAR Sprint Cup car and instead hop into his #77 Chevy Silverado Trophy Truck in the Nevada desert.

Robby Gordon finished physically first on course on Saturday's 276-mile race, but on adjusted time he knew he hadn't won the overall. “I know he's got us on time,” Gordon said before he even took off his helmet in reference to Rockstar Energy's Rob MacCachren who was ahead on corrected time by 11 minutes 28 seconds. But after a review of the IRC trackers, MacCachren lost his overall position and Gordon was declared the winner.

When later asked about his race Gordon said, “It was rough. Every time I would G-out hard, I would hurt my neck, so I kind of cruised all day. I’m sure we’re going to get beat here but the big picture is I think the SCORE Overall point championship is about done. When it was all said and done, though, we got the win and added to our overall and SCORE Trophy Truck season point lead.

“We made one fuel stop and (changed) two tires but no flat tires – never got out of the car. We just changed the tires because we were in the pit and those are our most vulnerable (tires). I couldn’t afford to hurt myself so I had to cruise all day. We ran about 75 percent. We just didn’t G-out – anytime there were bumps we just slowed down to almost crawl speed. We tested a lot faster than we raced here. It didn’t hurt my vision any; it was all my left top shoulder and neck.”

Gordon started sixth in the SCORE Trophy Truck field but quickly moved up to second by lap two and eventually took the lead as first vehicle on the road.

Rob MacCachren finished ahead of Gordon on corrected time but was assessed penalties and took 2nd.

MacCachren (second in class and second overall), who made his debut in the Rockstar Energy MasterCraft  #20 Jimco only after a few miles of testing in the truck before launching into his desert run, had an outstanding first outing that almost ended in victory.

 “We started way in the back and we just had to be real cautious the first lap,” MacCachren said. “We stayed behind the guy who started in front of us (Jesse Ashcraft) for three-quarters of a lap but we just couldn’t get by him. At the end of the first lap, we got ahead of him and the second lap we tried to wick it up and catch back up and see where we were. We knew we were in pretty good position then and we ended up coming in the end of the second lap and I hit a big rock and we got a flat tire. John (Vance, co-rider) got out and changed it really, really quickly and we got going again, and other than that, no problems.

MacCachren was happy that his new truck performed well, and since Primm can be more about smart racing and not all-out speed, it meant he didn’t have to push the new truck to the limit on its first race out.

Armin Schwarz took the win in Class 1 and finished third overall at Primm.

“This whole deal came together so quickly and it was great,” he said. “We took it easy. We knew that most of the Primm races have been won from people being reliable and consistent and keeping moving on the track and that’s what we did, but unfortunately we were accessed time penalties like many others and that cost us the win and pushed us back to second. Robby obviously kept the lead on the road all day but we knew we had him on time so, especially the last lap, we just cruised and made sure that we didn’t have any flat tires or any issues.

Though the race was mostly smooth sailing for MacCachren, he did have a close call at one of the pits.

“When we were coming in the pit at the end of the third lap, (Brian Collins) pulled out of his pit right as I’m coming to him and we both slid into the corner and we hit door to door and we both spun out. It just so happened I recovered quicker.”

Rob was penalized with 14 speeding penalties putting him just out of reach of the overall win.

Leading the Class 1 buggies (third overall) to the finish line was the #105 All-German Motorsports Jimco/BMW of Armin Schwarz.

“It was a perfect day except for my cold,” Schwartz said. “The car was perfect. I did not plan to get out, but I saw that I could not do it even the first two laps.”

Martin Christensen took over driving duties for Armin, and despite having mechanical problems was able to bring it in for the win.

“My clutch didn’t work when I came into the stop sign at the first lap (third race lap, his first),” he said. “I stepped on the clutch and the car kept going. It was wild. It was just one time. We don’t use the clutch when we shift and I hadn’t used it all lap. I had to step on it one more time before it worked. No flats; absolutely unbelievable BFGoodrich tires. Unbelievable that they can even do that, the stuff that we hit out there at speed. The suspension was great. We drove the heck out of this thing.”

Dan Chamlee took the Class 7 win at Primm.

Bringing in the second-place honors (fourth overall) in Class 1 was Harley Letner, who drove his Tatum/Chevy this race and looked good all day after only having a few minor issues.

“I drove all the way, unfortunately. I haven’t driven this car in like two years,” Letner said. “I’m used to the heavy cars now; these light ones beat you up. But now that we’re here, it’s fine. At mile 7 (on lap 1) it started overheating, I was pushing it a little too hard, but I just backed off the rest of the way, and as it started cooling down they started giving me splits and I started pushing it harder and harder. One plug wire popped off and that was it.”

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Rick St. John scored a second-place finish in SCORE Lites.

The morning race had some great action as well with heated battles in classes 10, 12, and 1600. These classes are considered the “driver” classes in the eyes of the off-road world. With intense competition of evenly powered machines, gone are the high-dollar sponsors with big budgets that are replaced with good know-how and all-out talent for driving.

Mikey Lawrence of Banning, California, who has had a stellar year so far in his Lothringer/VW, was Saturday’s Class 10 winner.

“I rolled it all the way over on the last lap,” Lawrance said. “I don’t know what happened and I lost a minute when I rolled it over. I landed on my wheels but it took a minute to start it and then I kept going. We stopped once for fuel and that was it. I basically just have to show up to the Tecate SCORE Baja 1000 (to win the championship). We won the Tecate SCORE San Felipe 250 and the Tecate SCORE Baja 500, so we’ll be going for the (Mexico) sweep in November.”

Class 12 winner was the entry of Ronny Wilson and LJ Kennedy in their Jimco/VW.  “It was a great course,” Kennedy said. “It’s got rough parts and it’s got fast parts – a little bit of everything. I like it.”

Justin "Bean" Smith took the win in 1-2 1600 at the final SCORE race before the Baja 1000.

Class 1600 was the most intense race of the morning, with the team of David Caspino/Steven Eugenio/ Mike Malloy in their Lothringer/VW out with an early lead and the rest of the field closely stacked up but were three minutes behind. Eugenio had problems on lap two leading him to give up his top spot to #1602 Mario Gastelum and #1606 Cody Robinson, but coming hard from the last starting position was #1649 of Justin “Bean” Smith.

Smith drove his Fraley/VW to the front of the pack in the allotted time and beat the competition by over 12 minutes.

“Had a real good time,” Smith stated after the race. “We had an awesome run. We knew today was going to be really rough. We knew it was going to be a little bit of an endurance sprint race. We knew we had to be there at the end. I took a rear start and we just started picking our way through, and the next thing you know we were the first car on the road. I knew then we had it on corrected time so we just watched it, kept it easy and played it smart. It was a flawless day -- not one issue or one hiccup.”

SCORE’s next event will be the 42nd running of the Tecate SCORE Baja 1000 taking place November 18-22 in Baja California, Mexico, which will start and finish in the seaport town of Ensenada.

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Randy Wilson finished sixth in class at the SCORE Terrible's 300.

SCORE Terrible's Primm 300 Results

Trophy Truck
1. Robby Gordon
2. Rob MacCachren
3. Roger Norman
4. Jesse Ashcraft
5. Mark McMillin
6. Kory Scheeler
7. Mark Ewing
8. Cameron Steele
9. Brian Collins
10. Ed Stout

Class 1
1. Armin Schwarz
2. Harley Letner
3. Pat Dean
4. Shawn Croll
5. Brian Parkhouse
6. Randy Wilson
7. Jerry Penhall

Class 1/2 1600
1. Justin Smith
2. Cody Robinson
3. Brad Wilson
4. Brian Wilson
5. Arturo Velazco
6. Eric Duran
7. Daniel McMillin
8. Luke McMillin
9. Mario Gastelum
10. Steve Dodd

Class 3
1. Darren Skilton
2. Daniel Wright
3. Donald Moss

Class 5
1. Carlos Albanez

Class 5/1600
1. Alonso Angulo

Class 7
1. Dan Chamlee
2. Igor Galvan
3. Aaron Celiceo

Class 7SX
1. Norman Turley

Class 8
1. Clyde Stacy

Class 10
1.  Mike Lawrence
2. Corey Keysar
3.  Scott Gailey
4. Bekki Wik
5. Jose Lynch
6. Lonny Hart
7. Jesus Gonzalez

SCORE Lite
1. Ronny Wilson
2. Rick St. John
3. Brent Parkhouse
4. Bill Hernquist
5. John Padgett
6. Jerry Longo
7. John Langley

Stock Full
1. Justin Matney
2. Joe Bacal

Stock Mini
1. Gavin Skilton

Pro Truck
1. Rob Reinertson

Class 17
1. Mike Shaffer

Sportsman Car
1. Peter Lang

Sportsman Truck
1. Joe Aguayo