Las Vegas: Round four preview

Friday, Saturday at LVMS Dirt Track
Herbsts, Steele, J Baldwin, Ramirez, Freemans, Noe/Watson all entered in two classes for SCORE Las Vegas Terrible's Cup III

Event starts Thursday with SCORE Las Vegas Pit Stop for SCORE Trophy-Trucks at Fremont Street Experience

LAS VEGAS--Long known as the hard-core, endurance racers of motorsports, the world's best desert racers take a break from their normal open-desert long courses to compete in this weekend's SCORE Las Vegas Terrible's Cup III at the Dirt Track at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The two-day special stadium-style event, Round 4 of the six-race 2007 SCORE Desert Series, will be held on a fan-friendly 1.5-mile purpose-built desert race course.

Racing will begin at 7 p.m. each night at LVMS and both nights will include the crowd-pleasing Terrible's Fireworks Shows.

Festivities for the event kickoff on Thursday with the SCORE Las Vegas Pit Stop being held at the Fremont Street Experience. At the SCORE Las Vegas Pit Stop, starting at 6 p.m., there will be a vehicle display and the $10,000 Terrible's Pit Crew Challenge for SCORE Trophy-Trucks, meet the SCORE racers party for all competing SCORE racers under thse multi-million dollar canopy on Fremont Street.

Single-day general admission tickets or special two-day SCORE Combo packages are available online at the event website at www.scorelasvegas.com or by calling UNLVtickets.com at 866.388.FANS, locally at 739.FANS. SCORE Pit Passes are also now on sale. Children, three and under, with an adult, will be admitted free. General Admission tickets are priced at $15 for Friday/$20 for Saturday and $30 for the discounted two-day SCORE Combo. Permanent seating at the facility is 8,026.

SCORE Pit Passes are available for $10 per day or $15 for the discounted two-day SCORE Pit Combo.

The event will also feature TERRIBLEvision for the first time, with a 16' X 26' LCD screen bringing the live race action from throughout the course and scenes and interviews from the pits even more up-close and personal. Terrible's Fireworks shows will explode each night during to the second intermission.

The tightly-timed, three-hour, 15-minute event has added an exhibition event each night as the increasingly popular new Trophy-Karts with drivers from 8 to 12 years old making their Las Vegas debut.

With gates opening at 5 p.m. each night, early-arriving fans will again be able to participate in the popular pre-race driver autograph party and vehicle display of all vehicles entered in the race down on the race track each night from 5:15 p.m. to 6:15 p.m. The first 2,500 fans each night will receive a miniature replica of the No. 19 Terrible Herbst Motorsport SCORE Trophy-Truck, the winningest truck in the history of the SCORE's marquee racing division.

Reflecting the nature of the sport, family ties will be very evident in this SCORE race as will be the fact that several drivers will race in multiple vehicles. The entry list includes several fathers and their sons, as well as brothers, cousins, wives and there are also three female drivers of record entered.

There are also seven racers who have entered in two vehicles each. Las Vegas brothers Ed and Tim Herbst, who race together in SCORE Trophy-Truck, have each entered a vehicle in Class 1-2/1600 and Cameron Steele, San Clemente, Calif., will be racing in both SCORE Trophy-Truck and SCORE Lite.

Josh Baldwin, Newport Beach, Calif., has entered both SCORE Trophy-Truck and Class 1 while Mexico's Luis Ramirez Jr. is entered both in Class 1 and Class 1-2/1600. Teammates Tim Noe, San Diego/Tom

Watson, El Centro, Calif., have entered two vehicles in SCORE Lite with each being driver of record in one car and second driver in the other.

Brothers Bryan and Cody Freeman, of Las Vegas, are entered as driver of record in Class 1-2/1600 and SCORE Lite respectively and second-driver in the other entry.

The three female drivers of record entered are Lisa Grint, Sargent, Neb., in Class 1-2/1600, Patty Hayos, Santa Clara, Calif., in Class 7 and Eve Baldwin, Newport Beach, Calif., in SCORE Lite.

In a season of tight point competition, it will be a point's race for the first time in its brief three-year history and there are a race-record 95 official entries from eight states and Mexico in the limited-field event.

The talented field includes 19 entries from Southern Nevada.

Six car and truck classes will compete in the unique short-course, stadium-style event that will be part of this year's championship point races in the World's Foremost Desert Racing Series for the first time.

Nearly 90-percent of the specially-made 'chunk of Baja' 1.5 mile course will be viewable from the grandstands in the 8,026-seat facility. Competing in individual races will be the marquee SCORE Trophy-Trucks, the unlimited SCORE Class 1 open-wheel desert race cars along with open-wheelers in Class 1-2/1600, Class 10 and SCORE Lite and the competitive mini-trucks of Class 7.

Each class will race twice each night as full fields, while the SCORE Trophy-Trucks will be split into two heats with a full-field semi-main event on Friday and a main event on Saturday. There will be points awarded both nights in the second race for each class.

Ryan Arciero, Foothill Ranch, Calif., another of the talented second-generation SCORE desert racers, will be pulling double-duty this weekend. Besides racing the No. 82 Arciero/Miller Chevy C1500 in SCORE Trophy-Truck, he will also be computing to race in a VW Touareg Race 2 in Saturday's Pike's Peak International Hill Climb in Colorado.

Celebrity racer Jesse James, Sunset Beach, Calif., who is married to superstar actress Sandra Bullock and star of the old Monster Garage TV series, will race for the first time in this event, driving his No. 54 West Coast Choppers Racing Chevy C1500.

Action sports television announcer Cameron Steele, another celebrity SCORE regular, has entered two classes. The popular racer will drive his No. 16 Dessert Assassin Cadillac Escalade in SCORE Trophy-Truck and the No. 1201 Desert Assassin-VW in SCORE Lite. The popular Steele, who leads the point standings in SCORE Lite, will spend his 'free' time at the event as one of the event Public Address announcers.

Max Theriot, 18, Petaluma, Calif., is a budding Hollywood actor and one of the top racers in Class 1 this season with driving help from Glenn Harris, Camarillo, Calif. Theriot has four major film credits, including this summer's hit 'Nancy Drew', where he plays the hometown boyfriend of the lead actress. He is currently third in the 2007 SCORE Class 1 season point standings.

The 2007 SCORE Desert Series also includes the chase for the $75,000 Kartek Off-Road contingency bonus to be awarded to several 2007 SCORE Class point champions along with the run for the $12,000 Toyota True Grit and Toyota Milestone Awards.

-credit: www.score-international.com.