Luck may have allowed Rob MacCachren the top starting position for this past weekend’s 26th annual MasterCraft Safety Tecate SCORE San Felipe 250, but it was Rob’s impressive driving skills and the ROCKSTAR Energy Drink / BFGoodrich Tires / MasterCraft Safety team that put him at the finish line first.  Any advantage that MacCachren was hoping to capitalize on by starting out front was taken away by Race Mile 4 when a spectator constructed booby trap resulted in a flat tire that let six competitors pass while MacCachren’s co-driver, Cisco Bio, was performing the tire swap.  So much for clean air! It took 50 miles for the patient veteran to regain five of those positions in his No. 20 Jimco-built Trophy Truck campaigned under the MasterCraft Racing banner with the support of Rockstar Energy Drink, BFGoodrich Tires and Fox Racing Shox.

“By the time I saw the booby trap I knew it was unavoidable and I just hit it causing the left front to go flat,” remarked MacCachren after the race. “The first 20 or so miles of San Felipe are just brutal on the truck’s suspension, I knew I had to push harder than normal earlier in the race to make up for the downtime during the flat. I couldn’t have done that through the whoops if it wasn’t for the Fox Racing Shox Cactus Coolers.  We tried out the coolers last year here in September and they worked great.  I wish I could say they are my secret weapon, but unfortunately for me anyone can buy them these days!”

Held along the Sea of Cortez in picturesque Baja California, Mexico, the 2012 MasterCraft Safety Tecate SCORE San Felipe 250 was the third of SCORE International’s five race desert series. The course traversed 248 miles of sandy washes, deep silt beds, and incredibly rough rocky terrain that caused the steering on the No. 20 truck to lock up around RM100, but Rob and Cisco kept their cool and were able to recover with minimal downtime.  At that time only one truck, driven by 2011 Baja 1000 winner Andy McMillin, was in front of Rob Mac.  At RM 178 MacCachren took the physical lead back and held it all the way to the finish line, where he beat the next fastest vehicle by over four minutes for a time of 4:25:03 and an average speed of 56.29 miles per hour, besting even the top two-wheeled finisher.

“I guess that good things come in threes,” MacCachren joked after the race, referring to his third straight victory in San Felipe.  Last season he won the MasterCraft Safety Tecate SCORE San Felipe 250 in 4:17:45 and the SCORE San Felipe Challenge of Champions in 4:12:21.  The veteran off-road racer has also previously won three Borg Warner Cup short course races in a row and three straight short course championships from 2008 to 2010, and now three straight desert races in San Felipe.  MacCachren earned his 48th career SCORE class win, his 11th career SCORE Trophy Truck race win along with his eighth class win including fourth SCORE Trophy Truck and overall race victory in the MasterCraft Safety Tecate SCORE San Feli pe 250. MacCachren is now tied with Las Vegas brothers Ed and Tim Herbst with the most race wins in the 18-plus year history of SCORE’s premier class.

MacCachren’s MasterCraft Racing teammate Robbie Pierce finished tenth out of 23 Trophy Trucks in SCORE International’s premier class and 14th overall.  Pierce started 15th off the line and was running strong until his No. 30 Impact by MasterCraft Safety Jimco Trophy Truck lost the rear brakes, costing the team 20 minutes in the main pit at RM 124.  After resolving the brake situation Pierce had to weave his way through race traffic for the second half of the race, but he still had a few issues.  “We saw Andy McMillin in Azufre Wash and waved as we went by, but the off-road gods must not have thought it was very funny… both rear tires got flats in the next mile!” Pierce jokingly recounted at the finish line.

MacCachren is now first in season points heading into the Tecate SCORE International Baja 500 on June 1-3 in Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico. For more information regarding this and other SCORE events visit www.score-international.com. MacCachren also starts the short course season this month with the first Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series (LOORRS) event at Firebird International Raceway in Phoenix on March 31st and April 1st and the TRAXXAS The Off Road Championship (TORC) series on April 20th and 21st at Charlotte Motor Speedway.  Be sure to follow all of the team’s latest developments throughout the 2012 racing season in the desert and short course via social media by “liking” Rob MacCachren at www.facebook.com/21RobMac and sending a friend request to Robbie Pierce at http://www.facebook.com/robbieTT30. For the latest is cutting edge safety products follow Impact and MasterCraft Safety on their Facebook pages at www.facebook.com/impactsafety and
www.facebook.com/mastercraftsafety.