The Kings of Protruck

When Rich Voss (left) and Jason Voss (right) finished first and third at the final Baja Protruck round of 2008, the Glen Helen Baja Cup Challenge, they effectively shot out the back of the net of a season in which they had already scored goal after goal.

At the start of the year, their Cupertino, California-based Voss Motorsports racing team laid out an ambitious plan to win not one but all three available Baja Protruck titles in SCORE, Best In The Desert and Baja Protruck. Some 11 months later, that plan has come to fruition. Voss Motorsports is the undisputed “King of Baja Protruck.”   

“It has certainly been an exciting 2008 for us,” says Voss Motorsports owner Rich Voss, who co-drove the team’s Ford F-150 Baja Protruck with his 22-year-old son, Jason Voss, to no less than four major off-road victories in 2008. That win list includes the granddaddy of them all, the Tecate SCORE Baja 1000, as well as the SCORE season-opening Laughlin Desert Challenge and the BITD season-opening Bluewater Casino Parker 425. And when the pair wasn’t winning as a pair, they split up and individually found the victory podium at events such as the Pike’s Peak Hillclimb and the Glen Helen Baja Cup Challenge. For the incredibly ambitious Jason Voss, however, that kind of domination was all part of the plan.

“We wanted to do this last year, but we just fell short of what we wanted to do because we had some motor problems,” Jason says of a 2007 season in which Voss Motorsports “only” managed to win the SCORE Protruck title. “This year we said that we wanted to win all three championships – SCORE, Best In The Desert and Baja Protruck – and we accomplished that. I don’t want to say that we did it fairly easily, but we were able to kind of wrap it up by the end of the season because we started off so well.”

The Wonder Years

This 2008 Protruck trifecta was the culmination of a team-building process that actually began in the middle of 2004 when, with well over a decade of sprint car racing and motorcycle racing under his belt, Rich Voss and his motorcycle racer son, Jason, purchased their first Baja Protruck. Their first race, the Terrible’s Town 250, was quite an eye opener.

“We completely underestimated what it took to race in the desert,” Rich says. “We had done a lot of racing in our lifetime but never off-road racing. The first off-road race we did was the second one we ever saw in our lives. It was actually kind of comical. We had five flat tires, and we knew nothing about 18-volt impacts, so we changed every one of them with a lug wrench. We weren’t prepared.”

Even so, Voss Motorsports finished fourth in its Baja Protruck debut after running as high as second during the race.

“We’ve grown up a lot since then,” Rich says. “We’ve watched what the successful people in off-road racing are doing, and we have met a lot of people and figured it out. We’ve put a team together where we have a great group of guys.”

“Our guys in the shop have learned almost every trick there is,” Jason adds. “They’ve learned a lot about how to prep the truck.”

As a driver, Jason feels that he hasn’t stopped learning since the day he first slid behind the wheel. One of the things he has learned is that each type of Protruck race requires a different driving style.

“There is a difference between racing at Glen Helen [Baja Cup Challenge] vs. racing a Primm race vs. the Baja 1000,” Jason says. “Primm is 200-300 miles, so there is a difference between racing that and racing the Baja 1000 or Vegas-to-Reno. There’s a whole different game plan and attack plan for the races. On the short-course races, you have to charge. That’s where my motorcycle racing background comes into play.”

Conquering such races as the Baja 1000 is an entirely different challenge, however.

“You have to get halfway to three quarters of the way through it before you can even start racing,” Jason says. “You have to be fast, but you have to be smooth and not push too hard and tear up the truck. Racing like that, it is hard not to charge too much, to sit back and relax and not be too aggressive.”

Running Down A Dream

Fortunately for young Jason, that job was made easier by Rich at this year’s Tecate SCORE Baja 1000. By the time Jason took over from Rich at Race Mile 290, Rich had built up a two-hour lead on the next Protruck.

“It was probably the slowest pace I’ve ever raced, but I knew that I had to do that just to keep the truck together,” Jason says. “The other guys started having trouble around Race Mile 300, and our lead just kept getting bigger and bigger, so there was no reason to push. It was a weird way to race, but that’s just how you have to do it in the longer races.”

This year’s Baja 1000 win assuaged a heartbreaking loss in 2007, Jason recalls. The team was in the lead with just 200 miles to go in the 40th Anniversary event, which ran 1600 miles down the Baja peninsula, but a broken transmission would rob them of what appeared to be a sure victory.

“We went through everything in the truck, really had everything perfect, and then it comes down to the output shaft in the transmission,” Jason remembers. “It’s such a cheap part compared to everything else we went through, and we had never broken one before. So that just kills you. But we got the truck back together, and we finished the race. We were happy just to finish, and it made us that much more determined to go back the next year and win it.”

Winning the Baja 1000 was the highlight of the team’s season even though it didn’t really have the time to “party hearty” after the accomplishment.

“No, we finished in the morning, so we got two hours’ sleep and then headed home,” Jason recalls. “But we sure partied after Glen Helen this year.”

The Glen Helen Baja Cup Challenge, held just two weeks before Christmas, was simply another example of the kind of domination that Voss Motorsports has displayed in Baja Protruck in 2008. Jason led most of the race, only to be slowed by a flat tire. But Rich was right there in the team’s second Protruck to keep the Voss Motorsports name in the winner’s circle. And Jason still finished third.

“I’ve had the same luck at that event the last two years,” Jason says. “This year, I was leading and then I had to go and get a flat. Last year, I was leading and broke an axle, so my dad has won the last two years there. Two years in a row I gave it up to him in the last couple laps.”

What Dreams May Come

In racing, the thrill of victory and the glory of a championship bring intense emotional highs that far outperform any narcotic, and yet the Voss Motorsports team also knows that those feelings are short-lived.

“We only get to enjoy this for a month and then it starts over right away at Laughlin, and it’s anyone’s game from there,” Jason says. “We’ve already started on our truck prep for Laughlin, and we are going to go into the next year with the same game plan that we had this year.”

Well, not exactly. Even if the team wanted to retain all three Protruck titles, it is not immune to the harsh economic realities that have slowed several of its competitors already. Going after a second triple crown in 2009 might not be in the cards.

“It’s kind of hard to say what we’re going to do right now,” Rich says. “What happens in 2009 is going to be driven a lot by the economy. If the dollars and cents weren’t an issue, we would race every race that we can drive to. But they are an issue. I run a family business, Stevens Creek Quarry, in the bay area, and we have a construction division as well. Things are down, and we wonder what it will be like in the spring. We’re looking at things being slow, but we are certainly going to run one truck. We are going to pick and choose our races, and we would certainly like to contend for another Baja Protruck Championship.”

But if and when the economy does turn around, Voss Motorsports already has its sights set on even loftier goals in 2010, such as campaigning in the ultimate off-road class, Trophy Truck.

“After getting all three championships this year, we’ve been talking to some people, and that’s one of the reasons that we’re looking at Trophy Truck,” Voss says. “We would really like to be able to bring some sponsors with us and get them more exposure in the bigger class.”

For now, however, Voss Motorsports is proud and happy to represent as Baja Protruck champion in 2009.

“It’s such a great class,” Jason says. “You have one race vehicle that you can race in all different kinds of races. You can race the desert and then race a short course, and then you can lower it down and go race someplace like Pike’s Peak. It’s a great class if you want a variety of racing. I don’t know what else is out there to where you’re going to race everything like that. And it’s really competitive. It’s a driver’s class. We’re going to stick with Protruck for now and see what happens.”

But a new dream, one with Trophy Truck written all over it, is on the horizon, and a new goal has been set: to someday win the Baja 1000 overall.

“That’s what we want to go for,” Jason says. “It’s one thing to win it in our class, but we want the big trophy. That’s the dream. That’s next on the list.”

And, after having scored every goal that Voss Motorsports shot for in 2008, why not?  

Voss Motorsports 2008 Baja Protruck Results

Winner, SCORE Laughlin Desert Challenge, Laughlin, NV Jan. 24-27
Winner, BITD Parker 425, Parker, AZ, Feb. 29-Mar. 2
DNS    SCORE San Felipe 250, San Felipe, Mexico, Mar. 14-15
2nd Place, BITD Terrible’s Town 250, Primm, NV, Apr. 17-20
4th Place, SCORE Baja 500, Ensenada, Mexico,
*Winner (Jason Voss), Pike’s Peak Hillclimb, Pike’s Peak, CO, July 14-20
*3rd Place (Rich Voss), Pike’s Peak Hillclimb, Pike’s Peak, CO, July 14-20
5th Place, BITD Vegas-to-Reno, Dayton, NV, Aug. 21-23
Winner, SCORE Primm 300, Primm, NV, Sept. 5-6
6th Place, BITD Silver State 300, Mesquite, NV, Sept. 26-28
Winner, SCORE Baja 1000, Ensenada, Mexico, Nov. 19-23
2nd Place, BITD Henderson Classic, Henderson, NV, December 5-6
*Winner (Rich Voss), PRO Glen Helen Baja Cup Challenge, Glen Helen, CA, Dec. 13
*3rd Place (Jason Voss), PRO Glen Helen Baja Cup Challenge, Glen Helen, CA, Dec. 13

*Team fielded two Protrucks at event.