BITD: Lucas Baja Racing Pahrump 250 summary

Lucas Baja Racing At The Front in Terrible's Town "250"

May 4, 2007 - After starting 17th in the Terrible's Town 250 this past weekend, the Castrol Team quickly overtook several competitors moving all of the way up to third place in the field. Unfortunately, past the half way point in the race, a suspension piece on the race truck broke due to fatigue and forced the team to end its day prematurely.

An excellent run by driver Rick Johnson and co-driver Rob Reinertson had the Lucas Baja Racing Team close to the front for much of their second race of the year.

"Everything was going great, we were right there with guys that have been doing this for years," said Reinertson. "Then this problem came up and our day had to come to an end."

The team rightfully felt good about the performance.

"We have confirmed our thoughts that the truck is competitive and can run with the best trucks in the sport," commented co-driver Eric Place.

The large amount of preparation time the team put in certainly paid off.

"The fact that we could run up front consistently throughout the day really validates all of the testing that we did prior to this race," said Place.

There was a tremendous amount of progress since the team's last race February 2-4, the Parker "425."

"This felt like a completely different truck from the last race," said Reinertson. "It handled so much better as a result of a lot of fine tuning we did to it."

Even though it was forced to retire early, the truck is in excellent condition.

"The truck is fine, just some minor issues," said Johnson. "A brand new design is always going to have some issues early on. Each race we get it a little closer to where we want it to be. At this point the truck is "dialed in". Now with some consistency, we believe that we have the capability to deliver good results."

The upcoming race for Lucas Baja Racing is the 39th Annual Tecate SCORE Baja 500, June 1-3 in Baja California, Mexico. Chris Lucas will drive alongside co-driver Eric Place and Rick Johnson will drive with co-driver Brian Sallee. Testing on the actual race course, known as "pre-running", opens up to all competitors on May 19, and the team plans to be there as soon as pre-running begins. The SCORE Baja 500 is a highly anticipated event that has a tremendous level of prestige associated with it. This year, the race already has 409 entries from 30 states and 11 different countries.

"There are huge crowds and many of the most well respected people in the sport will be at this race," said driver Chris Lucas. "The environment is incredible."

The SCORE Baja 500 will be the third of seven races for the Castrol Team this year. Next up on television, will be the Terrible's Town "250" which will air on the outdoor channel on both June 8 and August 31.

-credit: lbr