Baja Racing News
Santee, California - (January 9, 2006)
Winning the 2005 Nissan National CORR Class 1 Championship in San Diego was the last race 2004 SCORE Class 1 Champion – John Marking raced in his Jimco-built championship car. In fact, after suffering an injury the night prior to the Nissan Championships, Marking’s friend, All-American Off Road Racing Champion – Rob MacCachren, was summonsed and raced the John Marking Motorsports Class 1 car to victory in the second and final race of the weekend.
Desert racing has a short off-season between the first week of December and mid-January, but that was all it took for the dominos effect to begin the buying, selling and trading amongst the best-of-the-best race teams.
Chet Huffman sold his Robby Gordon-built Trophy Truck to McMillin Racing, as Andy McMillin signed on as a driver for Robby Gordon Motorsports. Andy McMillin and Robby Gordon are set to split time in the #83 Trophy Truck for the 2006 season.
Huffman purchased John Marking’s Jimco-built Class 1 car that had just been re-configured by John Marking Motorsports to a rear-engine buggy changed from a mid-engine buggy.
The word was out that Marking was without a race car/truck to drive and shortly after the Baja 1000, CST Suspensions owner, Chris Robinson invited Marking to pilot the new CST #26 Trophy Truck.
Robinson debuted the #26 CST Trophy Truck at the SCORE Tecate Baja 1000 on November 18, 2005 and ran a near flawless race finishing in 13th position with a time of 20 hours, 10 minutes and 6 seconds.
Marking and Robinson came to an agreement in early December and the stage was set for Marking to race Robinson’s truck. Over the holidays, Marking has prepared the CST/Viejas Casino/Fox Racing Shox Trophy Truck for battle and recent testing has proved the truck to be nearly dialed in for the upcoming SCORE Laughlin Desert Challenge.
Co-driving with Marking in this season’s effort will be split by two JMM long time team members – Tom “Turbo Tom” Geviss and Todd “PopLocker” Tenbrok. Geviss had already committed to SMD Motorsports to co-drive with Matt and David Scaroni in the #27 SMD Trophy Truck for the entire 2006 BITD season, as well as the SCORE Baja 500 and Baja 1000, so JMM went deep into their bench and has tapped the “PopLocker” for duty in the two big races.
Geviss will see action in the right seat of the #26 CST/Viejas/Fox truck at the SCORE Laughlin Desert Challenge, SCORE San Felipe 250 and the SCORE Primm 300. Tenbrok will co-drive during the SCORE Baja 500 and also the granddaddy of all off road races, the SCORE Baja 1000, which for 2006 will traverse the length of the peninsula ending in La Paz where the fiesta begins.
“My year is already packed with some big races,” said Turbo Tom Geviss. “Splitting duty in two different series in two different trophy trucks is just my style. I’d like to race every single weekend if possible, plus I have my agent working on securing my spotter position on Robbins Motorsports for the upcoming UROC rock crawling season.”
Marking commented on his 2006 racing efforts, “We’ve got a team that is well-versed in the winning tradition. All these guys know what’s going on so we should do pretty good. Although this is a new truck, it performed great at the Baja 1000 and we’re looking forward to racing as hard as we can.”
John Marking Racing unveils the #26 CST/Viejas Casino/Fox Racing Shox Trophy Truck on January 12, 2006 at the SCORE Laughlin Leap Event.
On Saturday, January 14, 2006, John Marking will race from the 8th position at the SCORE Laughlin Desert Challenge. Two trucks will go off the start line side-by-side in 20 seconds intervals in the battle for the first SCORE championship of the season.