Desert Assassins start 2013 off-road World Championship series with the win

San Clemente, CA (January 18, 2013) The Desert Assassins hit pay dirt in Las Vegas winning the first World Championship event of the newly created series that combines SCORE and HDRA off road racing events into one overall title.

After word of the combined World Championship point series took the desert racing community by storm in late December the Desert Assassins made the decision to bring the #16 Monster Energy/Yokohama Tire Trophy Truck to round number 1. The new championship will contest four races in the US and three races south of the border in Baja California, Mexico including the legendary Baja 1000 in November.

Team driver Cameron Steele and navigator "Turbo" Tom Geviss went to the start line on the front row in 16-­‐degree temperatures for the Vegas stop on the new series. They were successful in the side-­‐by-­‐side drag race and would lead the field from the start to finish of the race, but not without great challenge from their Monster Energy teammate BJ Baldwin. The two trucks would be the first two trucks on the road all day and with a one minute stagger in start time the two could battle for corrected time while only really having to battle with lapped traffic as the race was held over 4 laps each 60 miles in length.

"We knew we had to set a fast pace and we did while taking moderate risks," said Steele, who continued, "we had a number of spots on the course where we were getting splits for BJ, the Herbst's (#19 and #91) and for Jimmy (Knuckles #48). It didn't take long to realize that BJ and us were gapping the others so after leading on time both laps one and two we had our pit at race mile 19 on lap three tell us BJ was gaining and we had to get on it.

Unofficially the team had BJ leading us by 18 seconds at the end of lap 3, but we had put 9 seconds on him in the last 19 miles so I knew we could push harder and have the 1 minute gap we needed at the finish to win," said Steele.

BJ would end up having an issue at the end of lap three that brought him into the pits and the #16 would have about an 8-­‐minute gap back to the new second place Jimmy Knuckles who was being chased hard by Larry Roeseler in the #19 and Kyle LeDuc in the #85. The race wasn't over and there was still smashing to do to lock the win.

"For me it is very sweet after multiple decades of working together we have brought home the Trophy Truck win with Yokohama and this is the second race in a row where we smashed hard and I had not one tire issue," said Steele after the win.

Official results have the #16 winning by over 5-­‐minutes on corrected time and taking the lead in the World Championship points going into round two the SCORE San Felipe 250 in early March.

Next up for the Desert Assassins is the 6th annual Hell Ride Baja dirt bike trip prior to continuing the chase for the new world title.