Columnist Brian Hilderbrand: No ambulance for Laughlin winners this year

Monday, Jan. 20, 2003 | 9:24 a.m.

Brian Hilderbrand covers motor sports for the Las Vegas Sun. His motor sports notebook appears Friday. He can be reached at bh@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4089.

LAUGHLIN -- Dale Ebberts exacted a measure of revenge in capturing the overall and Class 1 victories Sunday in the ninth annual SCORE Laughlin Desert Challenge.

At this race a year ago, Ebberts and his co-driver, Ernie Castro, Jr., left the 11.7-mile desert course in ambulances following a nasty wreck that left Ebberts with a concussion.

"So this year was much better," Ebberts said after completing the two-day race in an elapsed 1 hour, 33 minutes and 31 seconds.

Ebberts trailed the team of Mark and Gary Weyhrich by one second after Saturday's four-lap race but quickly overcame the deficit on Sunday and beat the Weyhrich tandem to the finish line by nearly 2 1/2 minutes in the series' season opener.

"Today was absolutely perfect -- no dust," Ebberts said. "It was nice; I could pick better lines because I was dust-free so I got to go out and experiment a little and I really got some good lines. Because of that, I could start stretching out the lead."

Mark Post and Jerry Whelchel won the featured Trophy Truck class and took second overall with a two-day time of 1:35:20. Whelchel had staked the team to a nine-second lead over Las Vegas' Brian Collins after Saturday's leg and Post drove the Ford F-150 to a one-minute victory over the team of Gustavo Vildosola Sr. and Las Vegas' Rob MacCachren.

Post overcame a nervous start Sunday as he and Collins tangled several times in the opening seconds before Post pulled away from his closest challenger.

"The start got a little squirrelly," Post said. "We knew whoever got the start had a good chance of winning so we went for it there. It was a fun race, though -- 50 miles at full blast.

"Today, the course was a lot rougher than yesterday because it got torn up pretty good but the truck ran beautifully and we had a good day."

Collins, who won the Trophy Truck class in Laughlin in 2001, encountered problems on the opening lap Sunday and fell off the pace and eventually finished third in class and sixth overall.

"The front brakes got real hot and the truck just wanted to just spin around on the backside," Collins said. "We didn't know if we had a flat tire but something was dragging the whole truck down. We finally got the brakes to free up a little bit so we could start running again.

"We had a really good day (Saturday), a really clean race with no problems, and we were hoping to have a really good day (Sunday) but it just wasn't our day."

Tim and Ed Herbst of Las Vegas, who struggled through steering problems on Saturday, took fourth in Trophy Truck and seventh overall.

Las Vegas' Troy Herbst, the six-time SCORE Class 1 champion and four-time overall champion, led his class after three laps Saturday before experiencing clutch problems and a flat tire on the final lap. Herbst, who was 11th out of 18 starters after Saturday's four-lap race, rebounded on Sunday and finished fifth in class and ninth overall.

Among the other class winners were: Jeff Dickerson and Jimmy Knuckles (Protruck); Shawn Wanzek (Class 7); Eric Allen and Adam Pfankuch (Class 1-2/ 1600); Robby Fallers (Class 8); Ken Tapert of Henderson (Class 9); Brian Ickler (SCORE Lite); Brent Shermak (Class 5/1600); and Eli Yee (Class 10).

The 17th annual Tecate SCORE San Felipe 250, round 2 of the 2003 SCORE Desert Series, will be held March 14-15 in San Felipe, Mexico.