2012 SCORE Laughlin Desert Challenge
Hey everyone! The start of the 2012 SCORE season went off with a bang for me! I drove on Saturday because I had to catch a red eye out of Las Vegas so I could get back to Clemson with classes starting on Monday. SCORE Lites was grouped together with class 10 and class 4, our race began at 11:00 AM. With the new 1200 championship number on the car, we started at the front of the SCORE Lites pack and right behind the 10’s. On the first lap I caught and passed two class 10 cars and remained the first SCORE Lite on the road. As the laps started to tally up, I was gaining on the 2nd and 3rd class 10 cars. They were in a heated battle and as I creeped up on them, I decided to push the pressure on the middle car and he mad a mistake. I pounced on it. After passing that car, I was already moving in for the kill on the 2nd place 10 car. We drag raced along the back straight by the Laughlin High School, and after hitting the last jump the wind pushed me over to the left and we collided with the 10 car. My front left BFGoodrich tire hit his right front, the collision launched my Jimco SCORE Lite up in the air. Thankfully we landed on all fours and kept on the gas completing the pass going into the braking zone of the corner at the end of the straight away. From that point on we remained the 2nd car on the road behind the 1st place class 10 car. I ran problem free the rest of the race with a first place in SCORE Lites by an elapsed time gap of 2 seconds, and the fastest lap time of both days (7 minutes and 40 seconds). As I finally rolled into Clemson, I was getting all the updates about my teammate. My co-driver Vic Bruckmann faced a wheel bearing issue and did the best he could with an injured car and brought home a 3rd place for the Sunday race. Overall, the first SCORE event went very well for the Pete’s Camp Racing team. I want to thank all my sponsors; GN, Pete’s Camp, DTA Posse, BFGoodrich, Eibach springs, Method race wheels, Mastercraft safety, Jimco, and Major Performance.
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