Local SCORE race postponed

Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2003 | 9:46 a.m.

Desert Series

SCORE International is postponing next year's Henderson's Terrible 250 off-road race until 2005 but an official with the Henderson Convention Center and Visitors Bureau said that group is hopeful it would stage a replacement race next year.

Bud Pico, manager of tourism and sales for the HCCVB, said the group was looking at running a non-points race that would attract many of the SCORE participants. One idea being considered, Pico said, was a "stadium-style event" for the off-road vehicles.

SCORE elected to postpone the 2004 Henderson race when a suitable date could not be found, SCORE president Sal Fish said. Scorching heat plagued each of the first two Henderson races, which were in mid-July.

The sanctioning body reportedly wanted to move the race to late March or early April, but doing so would have conflicted with a Best in the Desert Racing Association race that Herbst Gaming sponsors. Herbst Gaming also sponsored each of the first two Henderson SCORE races.

"Despite some terrific ancillary events, great Henderson and Terrible's hotel-casino hospitality and Terrible's big bonus purse, the heat is unbearable -- reaching over 120 degrees both years," Fish said through a series spokesman. "The heat definitely reduced the number of participants both years and we had to consider the safety issues inherent to that brutal heat.

"There wasn't a suitable date in 2004 but as soon as we can find an acceptable one on the busy desert racing calendar, the SCORE Henderson's Terrible 250 will return bigger and better than ever."

Pico, who was instrumental in developing the SCORE Las Vegas Primm 300 and bringing the SCORE Desert Series to Henderson, said he has not given up hope of staging a race in Henderson this summer.

"It is unfortunate that the (Henderson) event is not conducive to the SCORE schedule, but a race is not completely out of the picture yet," he said. "There is a good possibility that the race will take place outside of the (SCORE) points series. There is a possibility that it could be a stadium-style event if we could make it work."

Although Pico declined to elaborate on a possible site for such a race, Sam Boyd Stadium is the only venue near Henderson that could accommodate the off-road cars and trucks.

The 2004 SCORE schedule will consist of five races, beginning with the 10th annual SCORE Laughlin Desert Challenge Jan. 15-18 and concluding with the 37th annual Tecate SCORE Baja 1000 in November.

According to SCORE, Herbst Gaming is putting the bonus money it has contributed to the Henderson race into the overall purse for the Baja 1000.

Unlike this year's Baja 1000, which was contested on an 808-mile loop that started and finished in Ensenada, next year's event will start in Ensenada and run down the Baja California Peninsula and finish in La Paz.