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Ensenada: Baja 250 post-event quotes, part 1

PRO CARS & TRUCKS SCORE TROPHY-TRUCK 28 Alan Pflueger (class winner, 1st place overall four-wheeled vehicle) It was a good race -- tires ran good no flats all day. It was a little wild running with no brakes but we ...

PRO CARS & TRUCKS

SCORE TROPHY-TRUCK

28 Alan Pflueger (class winner, 1st place overall four-wheeled vehicle) It was a good race -- tires ran good no flats all day. It was a little wild running with no brakes but we finished. We'll get them next time. I'm just happy to be here Sal. I thought I was going off the cliff. The brakes started going into Trinidad - and had no pedal and halfway through the beach I was trying to run the Herbst down and it went to the floor. I said "oh boy, we're in a different race no; we're going for the finish. No one passed us. We had a great day and unfortunately things happen in racing in Baja, this is for tough guys in a tough sport and we lost the brakes; luckily we didn't go off of some cliff. We're here and thank you for all the fans in Baja for cheering us on.

19 Tim Herbst (2nd place in class, 2nd place overall four-wheeled vehicle) It went great - fortunately we were that first car off the road, the first car of the race, that really is an advantage. We didn't have to drive real hard, that could have been the downfall of the race. Hopefully we had enough time to run, if not we were a little too cautious at the beginning and in the second half we picked it up and finished. We had plenty of time (with the switch from San Felipe to Ensenada) and were able to pre-run.

1 B.J. Baldwin (3rd place in class, 3rd place overall four-wheeled vehicle) It went alright. There were a couple of mistakes but we recovered from them. I really don't know what position we're in - I hope we're doing good because we started in 29th and it looks like we're the fifth car here. I had a hard time dealing with the dust but I think it worked out alright. I got stuck in the beach for a little bit. I passed a couple of cars on the road and I passed one over Cajun Flats. I think everybody was over-ambitious. I was trying to catch (Mike) Julson going up the beach and I went around the line that goes straight up and out and took a shortcut that looked like it was for buggies and I don't know how I didn't go over - it scared the hell out of me. I got stuck and then backed up, turned around and went down the mountain.

86 Josh Baldwin (4th in class, 4th place overall four-wheeled vehicle) It was a perfect day. Our goal was just to make the inversion so we could make the top 10 and get a good spot in the 500. Just kind of cruising around and no problems, no flats, no nothing -- good day, a lot of dust. We passed a lot of people - tried to pass my brother-in-law over there (Carl Renezeder)! We called him on the radio but he wouldn't move over.

4 Gus Vildosola (5th in class, 5th place overall four-wheeled vehicle) We had a great day. Last year was a terrible year, what we wanted to do this year was start finishing races. We're here, physically looks like the third truck and hopefully in the top five, so we're happy. We had a flat tire early on in the race and then they had a pretty bad wreck with a couple of guys in front of us who were stopped and hooked up together and could not move. We were held up for about two minutes and lastly at about three miles out from the finish line, at the last 90 degree turn I rolled it a few times but landed on its wheels, put it in first gear, and got here. San Felipe is home to us almost - we're from Mexacali; it's kind of our home town. We miss it, we'd like to go back next year but this was a great race. It was short notice, we did our pre-running, we were lucky we got our hotel rooms switched, we think we were very lucky to change everything so quickly.

31 Andy McMillin (7th place in class) We had no problems; lot of dust in the beginning. It was a lot of fun. We started back 18th so we had a lot of dust in the beginning. We just took it easy off the start and kind of let the race come to us. About five miles back we lost a belt on the Chevy motor - had one big serpentine belt - took us about five minutes to change it so I think that took us out of the running.

12 Larry Ragland (8th place in class) The race was very, very simple. Got the truck a little late - Brian had flat and a spark plug wire fell off so we got behind in the beginning. In Trinidad we did the switch. Pretty uneventful from there, just kind of follow the leader. There's not a lot of room for passing. I passed one car, not counting the ones broken or parked. So I have no idea how we did, hopefully top 10. I thought there'd be more trucks here.

38 Garron Cadiente (10th place in class) It's not our best day - obviously, we were pre-running with our car yesterday, just seeing how it would start and got T-boned by a dump truck. That hurt the truck and me real bad yesterday and considering that we were able to get in gear and finish, we're real pleased with that, so it's just a testament to how tough my truck is. It kept me alive and the crew getting it back together was amazing.

16 Cameron Steele (11th place in class) Good day but had a little bit of a problem. We actually caught on fire there for a little bit, I'm not sure why. We lost the brake caliber and there was a little bit of fire going on and, Josh Baldwin's guys came up and told us we were on fire. It's a long day with a lot of things going on out there. I think we're doing pretty good but just some problems there at the last 50 miles - that's racing. Good job for the Desert Assassins, our team did a good job and I'm pretty exited about it. I started on the bike but couldn't have the Tecate I was offered because I went back out on the course. My brother was on the bike - I'm not sure if he finished - I think he broke his leg out there today.

CLASS 1

100 Larry Roeseler (1st place in class) Even though it was only 250 miles it was one of the best races - we got a couple of lucky breaks in the beginning and got by some slower cars, so we had some gaps between the next cars. Got by Tres Hermanos - all in all we were able to move pretty good. Had a couple of SCORE Trophy-Trucks hold me up and we had one flat going over from the cross over road from Valle de Trinidad to San Vicente. We changed it really quick and got back going. Lost some fuel pressure coming in from the beach end and pulled some switches with the down shift and just sort of nursed it in the last 30 miles for the last three or four minutes coming in. We could smell the finish line so we just wanted to get her in. I drove the whole thing. Even if I caught the car in front of me I don't think I'd even be able to pass him, so I figured let's just sit here and cruise. We had both fuel pumps on to keep the fuel pressure up. Troy's (Herbst) Achilles Tendon is still bothering him but he'll drive with me at the 500 and 1000 for sure. I know he's looking forward to that; he just took a little bit of a break. Normally we would have teamed up - it was a good race for me to drive solo. I love the first half which is technical and the last little bit is like you are pretty much in position at this point so you just have to keep truckin'. Our radio wasn't working all day so we had no idea where we were but it was great. So now we can get ready for the SCORE Baja 500.

135 Pat Dean (3rd place in class) The traffic was the worst part, we definitely couldn't run 100%. We ran probably 70% and didn't make any mistakes - it's all we could do today. We're further up than I thought. I thought maybe we finished around 15th or so but I was very surprised to see we were around fifth to finish so we're very happy. I ran it the whole way. With our bad numbers in San Felipe we weren't too worried about our bad (draw) number because it is so rough and so wide, but when we switched over here we knew we were in trouble because there's a lot of single track racing. We just had to go to patience instead of so off the ground.

134 B.J. Richardson (4th place in class) It went really well. We didn't have any problems all day long. Turned out we blew one corner but we went nice and steady all day long and we should be first or second. We started way in the back.

114 Bill Gasper (5th place in class) Had a little problem with the throttle sticking and almost had a really bad mishap. Guys were telling me to push over to the right and I flew right off the embankment and there was tow truck up there - it was pulling out an Expedition - people just scattered. I stopped and looked around and they waved me on so hopefully there was no one injured. It didn't look like it. Other than that it was pretty much a perfect day - no problems whatsoever.

138 Danny Ebberts (6th place in class) We're hoping to be first or second. At Laughlin we were third the first day and first the second day - he might have beat us. I feel we did good - we lost the brakes with about 15 miles to go and lost the GPS about 10 miles into our section. We went the rest of the way without any GPS but the car worked awesome. I'm happy to make it to the finish. This is my first race driving in Mexico and I'm just happy to make it to the finish and we're definitely fortunate starting this far back. It's hard to make up time. Yeah, I think we have a good shot at this. My brother, Dale, he's always got a shot at winning - I'm a little bit newer at this. I normally run sprint cars and midgets. This is my first time driving in Mexico. Dale started just before the Meadows and I got in after there. They had some problems with the brakes and lost the GPS. We lost the brakes in the most treacherous section coming down the fill and tried to get by with the brakes. We rear end quite a bit and spent all that time marking everything. We definitely could have gone a lot faster but we lost the GPS and had to try and do it by the seat of our pants.

CLASS 1-2/1600

1622 Blaise Jackson (2nd place in class) It was pretty good. A little scary with the brakes, had to pump them four times to get anything. Finally, it came back. I drove the whole way. It was a good course but man, when you get that pace you kind of have to wing it. I liked it - it was fun. I didn't pass that much traffic - a lot of them were broken down somewhere, physically I didn't pass that many. I was passing them when they were at a fuel stop and I was wondering. No problems other than with the brakes.

1617 David Caspino (3rd place in class) I rolled off a 200 foot cliff. Luckily, there were 20 Mexicans there that flip me back over. A guy had a road block that kept me for 10 minutes. There were a lot of problems today.

1609 Arnoldo Ramirez (5th place in class) Everything was good except for the finish because there's traffic everywhere. We were sitting on the street, waiting. The course is extremely fast. There's a lot of dust, a lot of traffic. It was too difficult to pass somebody.

CLASS 3

302 Dylan Evans (1st place in class) quote by co-driver Steve Kreiger This is the Class 3 new Toyota FJ. It's the first race, and great to get a win on the first race. Perfect day! Dylan Evans drove the first half and I don't think he had any problems, and I got in at Valle de Trinidad and we just had a clean run. I raced with Craig Donahoe in the past - world Class 8 truck and we could have turned on the air conditioning or the radio, the heater, used our windshield wipers to clean the windows. It's all stock except for the suspension. The interior is all stock items. The engine, the transmission, and 4-wheel drive is all stock. Everything worked perfect. It was a lot of fun. I drove Class 8 for a while from round up days and the first Pro Truck with Bud Feldkamp. We won in 1995 in the Baja 1000 the first Pro Truck race. I'm just doing a little part-time racing and Craig asked me to drive in this with this year - great time. I ran it pretty hard and also this is Nitto's first class win for their tire company I think in SCORE ever - it might be in anything. I don't think Nitto has ever won a class win - which was our biggest goal today - to get their first class win. We were about 45 minutes faster than I thought. The car works better than I expected - faster than I expected. That's the best part - I didn't think we'd be done until about 7:30 so it's a nice surprise.

CLASS 5

518 Luivan Voelker (1st place in class) quote by co-driver Carlos Albanez s a matter of fact when I picked it up at about mile 120 or so, it looked like we were running last, so I was able to catch up with those guys so it made me really happy. We had a flawless run up until we did a driver change. When we did the driver change, we realized we had an alternator going out and one of our 3-rods, the nut came off. So we were fighting an emission problem all the way. And then back around mile 180 the nut came off the 3-rod again so we had to stop and fix that. And then our batteries went completely dead. So we've been fighting emission the last 30 miles.

503 Chris Bowman (2nd place in class) I couldn't drive the car the way I normally would want to. I had a car fall on me Thursday, and I separated my shoulder when we were at pre-run. We had an issue with the suspension. One of the guys wanted to help us by helping us move the jack and it fell on me while I was underneath the car.

CLASS 7

701 Shannon Dierkop (3rd place in class) We got stuck in the sail for about 30 minutes. That was the only problem we had. We're hoping we finished third.

CLASS 7S

720 Mike Horner (1st place in class) Quote by co-driver Chuck Foreman Ran it between first and third, first and third, 30, 40, 50 miles ago - but we did okay. We ran with Mike Horner. Switching from San Felipe was not a problem, we're closer to home so we didn't mind it - we're from Rancho Cucamonga, California (Orange County). We won San Felipe last year and Laughlin, the first race of this year. We're on a roll.

Continued in part 2

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