SCORE Desert Series to open with Laughlin event

Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2001 | 10:53 a.m.

LAUGHLIN -- Still relishing their major desert-racing win last November in the Baja 2000, Enduro Racing teammates Dave Ashley and Dan Smith will get a major head start on the new year in motor sports this weekend.

Along with 200 other entries, the Ashley/Smith team will be part of the increasingly popular seventh annual SCORE Laughlin Desert Challenge, which begins Thursday with a pair of companion events.

The first major motor sports race of the year will be the opening round of the five-race 2001 SCORE Desert Series. Racers from across the U.S., Mexico and Japan will launch the new racing season during the four-day event, which kicks off Thursday with the $25,000 Laughlin Leap and Pit Crew Showdown.

Ashley and Smith, of Riverside, Calif., won the once-in-a-lifetime Tecate SCORE Baja 2000 in November. They return to the SCORE Desert Series in their Duralast Ford F150 to race in the marquee SCORE Trophy-Truck division. The team won Class 8 in the 1997 and the Trophy-Truck in 1998 before racing only a part-time SCORE schedule the past two seasons.

The Laughlin Desert Challenge is split into two days of action (Saturday and Sunday) with the 16 classes for desert race cars and exotic race trucks divided into six groups for seven separate races each day.

From sunrise to sunset, SCORE desert racers will heat up the abbreviated 13-mile loop desert course in multiple-lap races with time limits of 75 or 85 minutes each. The event finishing order, by class, will be based on the combined two-day elapsed time of each racer.

A total of 21 racers from the Southern Nevada area and 10 class champions from the 2000 SCORE Desert Series already have entered along with eight class winners from last year's SCORE Laughlin Desert Challenge.

The start/finish line area will be at the Laughlin Events Venue at Big Bend Drive and Bruce Woodbury Way. In front of the grandstand, the stadium-style course will include the Laughlin Leap, switchback turns, mini-jumps and moguls, helping to give spectators the rare opportunity to view the action up close.

Race weekend festivities once again will start with the $25,000 Laughlin Leap and Pit Crew showdown at 5 p.m. Thursday at the Laughlin Events Venue Stadium.

Participants will attempt to beat the existing records, both set last year. The crew of Dale Ebberts, Canyon Lake, Calif., recorded the fastest pit stop in a record 44.96 seconds. Tim Herbst set the record for the longest Laughlin Leap with a distance of 103 feet.

On Friday from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., fans can meet and greet racers and check out their high-tech racing machines throughout the day at the manufacturer's midway and technical inspection held in the start/finish line area.

Besides the Ashley/Smith tandem, leading the stars of desert racing set to compete in the SCORE Laughlin Desert Challenge is the Terrible Herbst Motorsports team of Las Vegas brothers Ed, Tim and Troy Herbst. Tim and Ed Herbst's second consecutive victory in a Ford F-150 last year in Laughlin began what was to be a second straight season championship in the featured Trophy-Truck division.

Troy Herbst, who drives a Ford-powered Smithbuilt open-wheel desert race car, was second in the unlimited Class 1 in Laughlin last year to start his march to an unprecedented fourth consecutive Class 1 season championship and second overall season championship in the last three years.

The other defending Laughlin class champions include Las Vegas residents Brian Collins (Class 8) and Danny Anderson (Class 10). Collins has since moved from Class 8 to the featured Trophy-Truck division.

General admission tickets for grandstand seats in the Laughlin Special Events Site will be $10 each for Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. By mandate of the Bureau of Land Management, the start/finish line area is the only designated spectator area on the course.