MasterCraft Racing came to Mexico for the 43rd annual Tecate SCORE Baja 500 with high expectations. After winning the MasterCraft Safety Tecate SCORE San Felipe 250 Rob MacCachren was second in season points and looking to continue his march towards the season championship. Meanwhile teammate, Robbie Pierce, was looking to end his string of bad luck in the desert. Both were successful as MacCachren and co-driver, Cisco Bio, finished second overall in the No. 20 ROCKSTAR Energy Drink / MasterCraft Safety Trophy Truck and Pierce finished 11th of 28 competitors in SCORE’s marquee Trophy Truck class.
Given the results it would be easy to assume that MasterCraft Racing coasted to success, but nothing could be further from the truth. “The traffic was the biggest issue,’ Rob MacCachren commented after the race. “We had some transmission problems that put us behind some of the competition after San Matias and it took me all the way to Ojos Negros to get by them all. We are trying to win a championship for our excellent sponsors like ROCKSTAR Energy Drink and BFGoodrich Tires.” MacCachren finished the 452-mile course in 9:17:25, 12:33 behind the winner. His win in San Felipe, coupled with his second place finish at the Baja 500, have MacCachren well poised for a run at the SCORE season championship with two races remaining.
Robbie Pierce never gave up in his quest to conquer the Baja 500.
Starting twelfth off of the line, Robbie Pierce and co-driver, Reid Nordin, faced their own share of challenges in the No. 30 Impact by MasterCraft Safety / ROCKSTAR Energy Drink Jimco truck. The team battled mechanical issues throughout the race, culminating with the loss of first and second gear in the transmission around Race Mile 70. “With only third gear the transmission was generating a lot of heat, especially in the technical sections of the course, and we had to back off,” Pierce conceded after the race. “We got stuck at the summit because we were limited with our forward gears and that cost us a lot of time unfortunately.”
Getting a firsthand view of what it takes to campaign a Trophy Truck successfully was John Carpenter of Davidson, North Carolina. Carpenter was the lucky winner of Impact by MasterCraft’s photo contest, which earned him a rare behind-the-scenes look at the MasterCraft Racing operation. “I am more accustomed to stock car racing where the car comes into the pits, but here the pits have to go to the vehicle and the logistics involved in campaigning a race truck in Baja is unlike anything I have ever seen,” Carpenter commented after the race. The rugged 452.84-mile course started and ended in the heart of Ensenada on Boulevard Costero across from the historic Riviera del Pacifico Cultural Center. The course, which runs in a clockwise direction, winding east to Ojos Negros, down to near San Felipe, back West to the Pacific Ocean below San Vicente and back north east through Santo Tomas on the way back to Ojos Negros and then Ensenada.
Robbie Pierce pilots the No. 30 ROCKSTAR Energy Drink / MasterCraft Safety TT towards Ensenada
ROCKSTAR Energy Drink and MasterCraft Racing’s Rob MacCachren continues his quest for the SCORE Trophy Truck championship at the Terrible’s Primm 300 on August 26-28 while Robbie is looking to build upon his podium finish in 2010. During last year’s Primm event, Robbie Pierce claimed an astonishing second place overall finish just three weeks after a major racing accident that left him with two broken collarbones, broken ribs, bruised lungs, among other injuries. In the meantime, both Rob MacCachren and Robbie Pierce will be short course racing at Miller Motorsports Park on June 25 and 26 in the Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series. For the latest updates please visit www.mastercraftracing.com
MasterCraft Racing is Sponsored by: ROCKSTAR Energy Drink • BFGoodrich • Jimco • Fox Shox • Walker Evans
Rancho Drivetrain • MSD Ignition • Palomar Communications • Hyperco • KC HiLites
MASTERCRAFT RACING MEDIA CONTACT: Kelli Willmore, 619.449.9455
Photography by Jason Zindroski
High Rev Photography- www.highrevphoto.com