Las Vegas desert racing brothers Tim and Ed Herbst returned to the winner's circle for the first time this year, capturing the 15th Annual Tecate SCORE San Felipe 250. In winning this popular Baja California race for the third straight year, the Herbst brothers powered their four-wheel-drive Ford F-150 to victory in the featured SCORE Trophy-Truck division in Round 2 of the 2001 Duralast SCORE Desert Series. With a time of 3 hours, 39 minutes, 20 seconds, the Herbst brothers averaged an impressive 57.12 mph over the rugged, rocky, and dusty 208.8-mile course.
Splitting the driving time in their 750hp SCORE trophy truck, the Herbst brothers battled from behind to overcome the Chevy C1500 trophy truck of Las Vegas' Brian Collins, the Duralast Ford F-150 of Dave Ashley/Dan Smith, Riverside, California, along with the unlimited Class 1 Chevy-powered Jimco of Doug Fortin, Jr. of La Mesa, California, as well as their younger brother Troy Herbst's Class 1 Ford-powered Smithbuilt to post a time just 4 seconds slower than their winning time over the same course last year.
Under picturesque sunny skies, slight breezes, and temperatures that climbed into the mid-80s, the Herbst brothers paced a large field of 215 entries from 10 U.S. states, Japan, and Mexico, which competed in 23 classes for cars, trucks, motorcycles, and ATVs. The race was run over one large loop on sun-baked desert terrain on the east side of the Baja, California, the peninsula, starting and finishing under the landmark arches in the tiny fishing village of San Felipe.
Surviving intense wheel-to-wheel racing through four treacherous Baja washes to finish Second overall and win Class 1 was Doug Fortin, Jr. of La Mesa, California, in a Chevy-powered Jimco open-wheel desert race car. Fortin finished in 3:40:20, exactly 1 minute behind the Herbst brothers.
"Troy really should have won this race - he was just smokin' from the start, but were happy to keep it all in the Terrible Herbst Motorsports family," said Ed Herbst, 39, who drove the second half of the race, taking over for his brother Tim, 37, who drove the first 95 miles of the race.
"You couldn't run consistently hard because the course was so full of rocks and silt. We had two flat tires and lost the power steering after Troy had his problem, but our Ford F-150 was tougher than Baja once again."
Troy Herbst led on adjusted time for more than 170 miles until he lost the right rear wheel when the stud bolts broke off, sending the entire wheel flying down the road. "We were really fortunate we didn't roll, but there was an embankment on our right side that the car fell into and we were able to make the repairs in about 15 minutes and get going again," said Troy Herbst, 34, who still managed to finish Fifth in Class 1 and Seventh overall.