Tavo Vildosola outguns large field to claim SCORE San Felipe 250 pole

The SCORE International 2025 season engaged first gear today as an impressive field of the sport’s best drivers and teams gathered on the Sea of Cortez shoreline for the 38th running of the King Shocks SCORE San Felipe 250.

A longtime favorite for racers and spectators alike, the annual visit to San Felipe is a spring tradition known for large fields, incredibly rough, sandy wash terrain and being fastest Baja race of the year.

In recent years the turmoil of too many promoters with too many races in the United States has served to shift the focus of most top-tier racers toward the four-race Baja SCORE International series. On Saturday more than 240 teams from the United States, Argentina, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the host country of Mexico will battle a 250.6-mile race course that starts and finishes seaside in downtown San Felipe.

San Felipe is located just 125 miles south of the U.S. Border at Calexico, California. on the eastern side of the Baja peninsula.

For 2025 SCORE International has broken up the entire unlimited Trophy-Truck field into three separate classes, SCORE Trophy Truck, SCORE Trophy Truck 2WD and Trophy Truck Legends for racers 50 years old or older. In addition, the more limited but growing ranks of the SCORE Trophy Truck Spec class is also in the mix for a top ten 10 overall finish.

Confused yet? Now consider that racers can decide if they want to run their 2WD Trophy Trucks in the SCORE Trophy Truck class. SCORE even allows the more ambitious Trophy Truck racers to run in the Trophy Truck 2WD class despite having about half the horsepower.

In Thursday’s Method Wheel Qualifying sessions racers took on a short course located about 10 miles north of town. The Trophy Truck Specs ran as a group first, followed by the unlimited Trophy Truck classes. For the latter, the starting positions for the race are sorted on the overall qualifying time regardless of class.

12 of the all-wheel drive (AWD) unlimited SCORE Trophy-Trucks took part in San Felipe qualifying. Australian Toby Price in the No. 46 Mason AWD was the first to take the green flag for the afternoon qualifying session. After a blistering first half of the lap, the speedy Price lost a serpentine belt to finish a disappointing 26th overall.

Price’s unfortunate luck opened the door for Mexican national Tavo Vildosola to take advance of an early qualifying position to post the day’s fastest overall time in the No. 21 Mason Motorsports Ford on Toyo Tires. Early race favorite Bryce Menzies piloted his No. 7 Red Bull-backed Toyo Tire-shod AWD to a time of 4m 33.795s good for 2nd position – just over three tenths of a second behind Vildosola. After making the switch to a Joe Gibbs Racing engine package for 2025, the No. 83 BFGoodrich-shod Mason AWD of Luke McMillin came in third with a time of 4m 35.943s.

2024 SCORE Trophy-Truck champion Alan Ampudia took 4th spot in the No. 1 Mason AWD truck, while Justin Lofton rounded out the top five in another Mason AWD.

To the delight of fans on both sides of the border, off-road legend Robby Gordon returned to the Trophy-Truck ranks for this year’s San Felipe race. With son Max Gordon in the navigator seat, Gordon piloted the unique twin-engine, twin transmission No. 5 Geiser-built AWD truck entered by Clyde Stacy and RPM Motorsports to a fine 6th place qualifying run.

Supercross legend Ricky Johnson used another Mason AWD to claim pole in the Trophy Truck Legends class for team owner and co-driver Gustavo Vilodsola Sr. It was a performance solid enough for a 9th place overall starting spot. Johnson was followed by the Mason AWD of Rolf Helland (12th overall) and David Payne (Mason AWD) in 16th.

The qualifying session also proved the continuing dominance of the Mason Motorsports-crafted trucks as seven of the top 10 fastest times were posted by the potent AWD machines.

In the new Trophy Truck 2WD class, Californian Ryan Daniel gave Jimco its first category pole position something to celebrate – stopping the official clock at 4m 51.311s – good enough for the 12th overall starting position. The legendary manufacturer is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2025. Daniel beat recent BFGoodrich Mint 400 overall winner Adam Householder in a 1Nine Industries truck.

The morning’s qualifying session for the highly competitive Trophy-Spec category (for unlimited 2WD trucks with spec engines) wasn’t without its drama. A total of 29 Trophy-Spec trucks engaged in a qualifying battle that took advantage of a smoother course with little dust thanks to a strong wind. While Apdaly Lopez posted the fastest overall time in his Brenthel Industries-built Trophy-Spec, the pole was taken by second place Jason McNeil (TSCO Chevy) after officials gave Lopez a penalty for cutting the course. Lopez will start second, with EJ Herbst taking third.

A rapidly deteriorating course throughout the day resulted in an unforeseen and eye-opening qualifying pace that saw the fastest Trophy-Spec time set by McNeil at 4m 51.501s would have placed him third in the SCORE Trophy Truck 2WD class and 14th overall. By rule, the SCORE Trophy-Spec category starts the race behind all the SCORE Trophy-Trucks and the unlimited Class 1 open-wheel cars.

The 2025 King Shocks SCORE San Felipe 250 will take place on Saturday, with the first motorcycles schedule to take the green flag at 6:00am PST for the motorcycle classes and then 10:00am PST for the four-wheel categories.

Complete live stream coverage can be found at http://www.score-international.com.