March 1, 2004 - Immediate Release
Arlington Hts., IL

Saturday, February 26, 2004 saw the desert racing community descend upon the fishing village of San Felipe of the east coast of the Baja Peninsula for the 19th annual SCORE Tecate San Felipe 250. Over 280 entries took the green flag hoping to finish under the 10-hour time limit.

Chris Raffo from Arlington Heights, Illinois and his co-driver Jeff Dolan from Attwater, California had the #348 California Tomatoes Class 3, Chevrolet K-5 Blazer ready for the fast paced event. Chris was confident that the Blazer was ready to overtake the dominance of the Ford powered trucks.

A t the start, Chris quickly caught his other Class 3 competitors and found himself fighting for the lead. Unfortunately by mile 25, a fuel starvation problem caused the California Tomatoes #348 to fall off the pace. At mile 45, the chase team was able to meet the truck and quickly re-jet the carburetor. Soon after the fuel problem continued. After several other attempts to diagnose the problem, the team decided to use the transfer pump to replace the primary fuel pump. This finally did the trick. By this time, team found itself battling the 10 hour time limit. With the fuel problem solved, and 70 miles to go to the finish, Chris really pushed the K-5 Blazer to its limits.

In the end the team completed the event in 9hr.54min.34sec. finishing 3rd in Class 3 and was the final competitor across the finish within the time limit.

“We are still working out the gremlins on the truck. After the “1000”, Powermaster, came on board as a product sponsor, to supply the truck with their high-output alternators and starters…. Our chase team really worked for this one. Nobody gave up. Once we solved our fuel issues, the truck ran flawless. The truck really handled the whoops great considering our suspension limitations. I can’t wait for June to tackle the Baja 500.”- Chris Raffo.