MacCachren has a weekend to remember

Monday, Jan. 19, 2004 | 9:03 a.m.

LAUGHLIN -- In what will be remembered as one of the top desert racing performances of all time, Rob MacCachren of Las Vegas won two classes and finished second in another Sunday, helping conclude a memorable 10th Annual SCORE Laughlin Desert Challenge.

While MacCachren, 38, was earning his third and fourth class wins in Laughlin, Gary Dircks of Anthem, Ariz., and Las Vegas' Troy Herbst both won their classes and finished first and second overall out of the 100 finishers in the two-day event.

MacCachren also finished third overall as he and co-driver Gus Vildosola took second in the Trophy Truck class.

MacCachren won both the Class 1-2/1600 and SCORE Lite classes and narrowly missed winning the SCORE Trophy Truck division as Vildosola was unable to hold the lead that MacCachren secured during Saturday's first half of the race.

MacCachren, a seven-time SCORE class point champion, drove Saturday for Mexico's Vildosola in the featured SCORE Trophy Truck division and drove solo in both Class 1-2/1600 and SCORE Lite.

After four laps, MacCachren turned over the No. 4 Ford F-150 to Vildosola for Sunday's race with a 22-second margin over the Ford F-150 of defending race champions Mark Post and Jerry Whelchel.

Driving the same Fraley desert racecar with different VW motors, MacCachren won by nearly four minutes in Class 1-2/1600 and nearly seven minutes in SCORE Lite.

"This was a career event for me," said MacCachren, who earlier in the week won his division in the $16,000 Laughlin Leap competition and then set a new record in winning the $10,000 SCORE Pit Crew Showdown. "The course was really rough today (Sunday). I ran our Fraley car this morning with the smaller motor and it beats you to death. But the bigger motor gets you on top and able to jump stuff.

"The car handled good in the SCORE Lite race. The BFG Tires and the motor done by Kenny Major were awesome. Kenny worked hard over Christmas and bent over backwards. I'm not tired now because of all the adrenaline, but I will be tomorrow. What a wonderful start to a new year and a new racing season. After this race, I almost feel like a rookie again, it's so exciting."

Dircks drove both days in his Ford F-150 and captured the overall and featured Trophy Truck class victory. The win was Dircks' first in just his fourth race in the division. He covered the 94.4 miles in an elapsed time of 1 hour, 37 minutes, 43 seconds, averaging 57.96 miles per hour.

"We weren't sure we had a shot at winning, even though we were in the hunt after Saturday," said Dircks, who was fourth on Saturday, 2 minutes, 54 seconds off of MacCachren's blistering pace.

"The course was about twice as beat up (Sunday) as it was Saturday, so I actually drove a little more cautious and it paid off. Our truck never even sputtered once and we wanted a strong finish and the victory is a huge bonus."

The battle up front was incredibly tight, with only 55 seconds separating the top five overall finishers.

Herbst finished in 1:38:05 -- 22 seconds behind Dircks -- in his Terrible Herbst Motorsports Smithbuilt-Ford.

Last year's SCORE Trophy Truck winners in Laughlin, Post and Whelchel, finished third in Trophy Truck and fourth overall in their Riviera Racing Ford F-150, just 7 seconds behind Vildosola/MacCachren.

Among the other class winners crowned Sunday were: Harley Letner/Kory Halopoff (Class 10); Jason Jernigan (Class 7); Dave Raimonde/Jeff Geiser (Class 8); Gerardo Iribe (Class 5/1600); and Robert Graham (Class7S).

The 180 starters was the third highest in the event's history. A total of 100 entrants finished within the race's time limit.

Round 2 of the 2004 SCORE Desert Series will be the 18th Annual Tecate SCORE San Felipe 250, Feb. 27-28, in Baja California, Mexico.