PRIMM, NV- As the sun set on the Roach dry lake bed in the Primm valley, ‘the best bad guys in the west’ rose above the dust and the rest of the field as Tim Herbst drove the red Ford F-150 to the overall victory Saturday afternoon.  This is the second Trophy Truck class victory in a row for the Herbsts’ who edged out the competition in July’s Henderson Terrible’s ‘250’.  “We had no flats and the truck ran perfect the entire day”, said Tim Herbst, one of three brothers who race off-road.  “My brother Ed, drove the first two and a half laps, and I took it to the end.”  This is the second race that the team has ran the 39” tires on their truck, the first race they used them on was in Henderson.  This is also a key victory for team Herbst as they overtake Gus Vildosola for the top position in the Trophy Truck points championship.

Ed Herbst talks about his victory before the crowd at the main spectator area.

Tim Herbst powering those 39's into the setting sun on his way to victory.

First place finisher in class 1 was Charles Hovey of Escondido, CA.  Hovey’s shift knob broke off late in the race, and was rolling around under the pedals, making it difficult to power up and slow down the Chevy powered Jimco.  “I could barely shift gears with the little shifter I had left.”  Despite the glitch, Chuck had no other problems and no flats the entire race.  “When I heard that Ebberts was climbing, I picked up the pace in the last two laps.”  Hovey beat out second place finisher Dale Ebberts by just over 8 minutes.  “There were no real problems with the car,” stated Dale Ebberts, who drove the last half of the race while teammate Ernie Castro led the charge in the first half.  “The thing that held us back was slow traffic and dust,” said Ebberts.  Not wanting to risk the possibility of not finishing and losing valuable points, the Inland Truss team cruised to a strong second place finish, and still retains their lead in the class 1 points championship.

Chuck Hovey takes a much needed drink of water, then raises his hands in triumph to his teammates after his class 1 victory.

Dale Ebberts and Ernie Castro drove steady all day as the Inland Truss class 1 car kept its top position in the class 1 points race.

Hector Salazar drove his class 7 Ford Ranger to his class’s victory.   “The truck ran great, no real problems, only one flat the entire race,” said Salazar, who drove the entire race with Best in the Desert director Casey Folks in the passenger seat.  “I kept asking him[Salazar] if he wanted me to get out, he said no, so I stayed the entire race,” commented Folks.

Undoing their harnesses, Hector Salazar (right) and Casey Folks, are glad to be done.

Salazar talking about the race as he stands next to his ESPN sponsored Ford Ranger.

The Trophy Truck team of Gary Dircks and Mark Porter fought overheating problems early in the race to finish second in their class.  “We stopped at pit b on lap one to get fluids and take the hood off, after that, the truck cooled down and we pushed it all the way to the finish,” said Gary Dircks who drove the entire race.  “Sal Fish and SCORE did a great job of marking the course, we always knew where the course went,” commented Mark Porter.

Gary Dircks (right) and Mark Porter come to a stop after a long day in Primm.

The Dircks and Porter team suffered early overheating problems but fought back to a second place finish in the Trophy Truck class.

The TSCO class 1 team of brothers Mark and Gary Weyhrich came in third place, 12 minutes behind Hovey.  “We had fuel injection problems right off the start,” said a disgusted Mark Weyhrich, “we have had problems with the fuel injection all year, and thought we had it right this time.”  The brothers both seemed disappointed as they are trailing Dale Ebberts in the class 1 points, and needed a win to gain ground as the final race of the year is only 2 months away.

A peeved Mark Weyhrich shakes his head after a disappointing third place finish in class 1.

The TSCO backed class 1 had fuel injection problems that set them back early in the race.

PCI Race Radios Trophy Truck had a little déjà vu Saturday as they suffered a flat and the tire managed to wrap around the brake caliper.  They had no tools to pry it off with, so they had to use a bottle jack to get leverage and jack it onto where the tire was lodged to free it.  The same incident happened at the SCORE race in Henderson just tow months ago, the only difference was in Henderson it happened at a pit so they had access to a crow bar to break loose the tire.

Jesse Jones removes his radio headset to talk about his journey.

The PCI Trophy Truck was driven by owner Scott Steinberger for the first lap, but had to let Jones take over because of ankle problems.

Riviera Racing battled problems all day with their Ford F-150 Trophy Truck.  Jerry Whelchel, driving the first half of the race, went through a barbed wire fence on the first lap before pit b and lost the front brakes. Not long after repairing the brakes, the truck would not get out of gear because of the massive amounts of dust in the air filters. Once those were cleaned out, they started to lose a ring and pinion, and also had 4 flats during the span of the race. However, they finished just in time, over 30 minutes behind the winner.

Mark Post getting the dust out of his hair, and hopefully will get the problems out of the truck by the Baja '1000'.

The Riviera Trophy Truck was plagued with problems all day, from the brakes, to the air filter, to the rear axle.

DNF Details: (Please feel free to submit your story, only if it is true!)

TT# 6 Steve Sourapas blew the torque converter at race mile 20, they seem to not be able to shake their transmission problems that have been surrounding them all season.

TT # 11 Dale and Mike Dondel had a short race as the 4wd independent rear suspension beast tried to clear a giant ditch at race mile 7 but came up short. Reports say their shocks were not charged before starting.

TT# 12 Brian Collins was leading overall after 3 laps with Larry Ragland at the wheel, on lap 3 at race mile 55 Larry hit a ditch at 100mph that cracked a disk in his back, crew chief Billy Goerke drove back into main pit where Brian Collins took over. On lap 4 at race mile 43 a wheel hub came apart. Pitting with the Collins crew was Dave Sykes in their class 8 Chevy, the Collins team loaded them up with a hub and repair tools at pit c. Sykes dropped them off to them, once repaired they ran out of gas at race mile 45. Also pitting with Collins was B.J. Baldwin, at pit c Baldwin took on a gas can to take out to them. Once Collins fueled up they hit the dry lake bed with 4 min before the time limit set in, only 200 yards from the finish and the driveline broke, ending their day.

TT# 97 B.J. Baldwin lost the trucks v-drive on the last lap.

Class 1# 105 Andy McMillin came through race mile 9 hot but hit the infamous silt double a little too fast, led to a snap roll and broke the rear CV joint.

Class 1# 111 Albert McMullen blown engine at Jean dry lake bed on first lap.

Class 1# 118 Buddy Feldkamp's rear CV boot tore open on the third lap releasing all the grease from the joint causing it to melt.

Class 10# 1003 John Vance roll over at race mile 3, broken drive shaft on last lap.

Class 10# 1015 Eli Yee blown engine at race mile 45 on second lap.

Sportsman Buggy# 1402 Arthur Basile ran out of gas at race mile 58 on second lap.

Out of 134 starters only 63 finished within the allotted 8 hour time limit.  Most racers commented that there was a huge difference in course conditions between the prerun on Friday, and in the afternoon on race day. They all seemed to only complain about one thing, and that was the dust, especially when they were driving into the setting sun in the late afternoon.  The Bureau of Land Management really enforced the media pass requirement, constantly patrolling access roads and sending those who did not have them back to the designated spectator area.  They were also checking pit passes to get onto Knight Ranch Road, and into the main pit area.  This was yet another great race put on by SCORE, with over 125 entries the race was a success.  The next race for SCORE is the legendary Baja '1000' November 20-23, visit http://www.score-international.com for more details.