The following release is from SCORE…
SCORE International CEO/President Sal Fish and many of the sports top desert racers will be on hand Saturday during a special ‘viewing party’ at Primm Valley (Nev.) Resort of the NBC Sports telecast of the recent Tecate SCORE Baja 1000 desert race, the legendary granddaddy of all desert races. The party will be held from 11 a.m. until 1 p.m. in the Piano Lounge at Primm Valley Resort and is open to the public free of charge. The actual telecast on NBC TV will be from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. (PST).
Primm Valley Resort will also be the site of Saturday’s annual SCORE Awards Night, honoring the champions of the five-race 2004 SCORE Desert Series. The SCORE Awards Night, which will also honor the 2004 SCORE Off-Roadsman of the Year winners, will start at 6 p.m. in the Conference Center at Primm Valley Resort.
Helping mark the first time in over two decades that desert racing has been televised on network television in the United States, NBC Sports, in association with Aura360, is producing the one-hour special for the NBC Television Network.
“Our sport is often referred to as ‘the best motorsport no one has ever seen’,” said Fish, who has been the head of the world’s foremost desert racing organization since soon after it began in 1973. “Desert racing is, by its nature, very difficult to televise, but NBC Sports will change that in a major way this Saturday. No one does sports television any better than NBC and their coverage of this year’s Tecate SCORE Baja 1000 will raise the bar on the awareness of SCORE International, its amazing racers and its incredible racing machines, to its highest level in history. This telecast is a major milestone in SCORE history and after 31 years, SCORE has some significant history and this telecast will easily be near the top of the list. ”
Anchor for NBC is emmy-award winning sportscaster Al Trautwig. Joining Trautwig as producer was veteran Billy Matthews and working with him was a talented veteran crew that included several of the NBC team that covered this summer’s Olympics in Greece.
Matthews is presenting the Tecate SCORE Baja1000 in a unique way that not only covers the race, but tells the human interest stories of the many people involved in the race. It tells the stories of the racers and members of their crews as well as the impact the Tecate SCORE Baja 1000 has economically and socially on Baja California.
This year’s race, held Nov. 18-20, was a rugged 1,013.57-mile peninsula run down Baja California, Mexico, starting in Ensenada and finishing in La Paz. The popular race featured 284 starters competing in 26 Pro and five Sportsman classes for cars, trucks, motorcycles and ATVs. An event-record 190 vehicles finished within the 40-hour time limit in the elapsed-time race. Entries came from 31 U.S. States and 11 countries.
Winning the overall motorcycle crown on a Honda XR650R was the American Honda team of Steve Hengeveld, Oak Hills, Calif./Johnny Campbell, San Clemente, Calif./Kendall Norman, Santa Barbara, Calif.
The overall winners in the 4-wheel portion of the event was the team of Troy Herbst, Las Vegas/Larry Roeseler, Hesperia, Calif., in a Smithbuilt-Ford open-wheel desert race car.
Almost as a preview to this major network telecast, this year’s race was also featured last week in three separate highly-rated special segments on the acclaimed CNBC ‘Bullseye’ daily show with host Dylan Ratigan. Ratigan actually participated in the race himself as a co-rider for several hundred miles in the No. 2 SCORE Trophy-Truck driven by Pete Sohren, Cameron Steele and Rick Geiser.
The Tecate SCORE Baja 1000 is always the finale of the SCORE Desert Series. The 2004 SCORE Desert Series included the SCORE Laughlin Desert Challenge (Jan. 17-18-Laughlin, Nev.), the Tecate SCORE San Felpie 250 (Feb. 28-San Felipe, Mexico), the Tecate SCORE Baja 500 (June 5-Ensenada, Mexico) and the SCORE Las Vegas Primm 300 (Sept. 11-Primm, Nev.) prior to the Tecate SCORE Baja 1000.
For more information, contact SCORE International at 818.225.8402, or visit the official website of the SCORE Desert Series at www.score-international.com.
