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[vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text="BFGoodrich Tire Celebrates Its 40th Anniversary With SCORE International" font_container="tag:h2|font_size:22|text_align:left|color:%23565656" google_fonts="font_family:Montserrat%3Aregular%2C700|font_style:700%20bold%20regular%3A700%3Anormal" link="url:http%3A%2F%2Fgoo.gl%2FTrZZia|title:BFGoodrich%20Tire%20Celebrates%20Its%2040th%20Anniversary%20With%20SCORE%20International|target:%20_blank" css=".vc_custom_1461941939773{margin-top: 10px !important;margin-right: 10px !important;margin-bottom: 10px !important;margin-left: 10px !important;border-top-width: 10px !important;border-right-width: 10px !important;border-bottom-width: 10px !important;border-left-width: 10px !important;padding-top: 20px !important;padding-right: 20px !important;padding-bottom: 20px !important;padding-left: 20px !important;background-color: #ffffff !important;background-position: center !important;background-repeat: no-repeat !important;background-size: cover !important;}"][vc_single_image image="12310" img_size="large" alignment="center" onclick="custom_link" img_link_target="_blank" link="http://goo.gl/TrZZia"][vc_separator color="black" align="align_left" border_width="3"][vc_custom_heading text="Another SCORE JOURNAL Original Feature" font_container="tag:h3|font_size:18|text_align:center" google_fonts="font_family:Droid%20Sans%3Aregular%2C700|font_style:700%20bold%20regular%3A700%3Anormal" link="url:http%3A%2F%2Fgoo.gl%2FTrZZia|title:Another%20SCORE%20JOURNAL%20Original%20Feature|target:%20_blank"][vc_custom_heading text="By DAN SANCHEZ" font_container="tag:h5|font_size:14|text_align:left" google_fonts="font_family:Open%20Sans%3A300%2C300italic%2Cregular%2Citalic%2C600%2C600italic%2C700%2C700italic%2C800%2C800italic|font_style:600%20bold%20italic%3A600%3Aitalic" link="url:http%3A%2F%2Fgoo.gl%2FTrZZia|title:By%20DAN%20SANCHEZ|target:%20_blank"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width="1/2"][vc_column_text]
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Forty years of testing and development in Baja says something about a tire company, especially one that has a history of the most race wins and championships in SCORE International desert racing. Within that time, BFGoodrich has accumulated 27 overall wins at the SCORE Baja 1000, and 86 total wins on the Baja peninsula. Over the years, BFGoodrich's relationship and history with SCORE International have been much more than a means to test tires. The company's engineers, marketing team, and many employees have helped hundreds of people become addicted to desert racing, resulting in the development of numerous SCORE champions along the way. Welcome To Baja The close relationship between SCORE and BFGoodrich began at a time when Baja racing was attracting serious competitors who were building faster vehicles with more capable suspension systems. In 1975, at the suggestion of then SCORE owner Sal Fish, BFGoodrich engineers first set foot on the Mexican Baja Penninsula to see if this race venue would make for good testing grounds. "At that point, we were developing the BFGoodrich Radial All-Terrain T/A when we got hooked up with Sal who invited us to Baja," said Dan Newsome, who started with BFG in 1978 and is now the Marketing Manager at Michelin Tire. "We learned a lot from the experience so we went back to do more development. A year later in 1976, BFGoodrich had its first entry at the SCORE Baja 1000 with Fritz Kroyer in a Class 6 Oldsmobile Starfire. Although the company's first entry into the SCORE Baja 1000 resulted in a DNF, it sparked an enthusiasm within the company, creating the goal of winning the 1000, one they needed to achieve. At that time, only bias-ply tires were suited for off-road racing and were widely used by teams. According to Frank DeAngelo, who started with BFGoodrich 38 years ago, and is now the Executive Director, Motorsports at Jackson Motorsports Group, BFGoodrich was the first to try a Department Of Transportation, D.O.T., approved radial tire in off-road racing. "After that initial SCORE entry in 1976, the company did more testing with the help of Frank "Scoop" Vessels and his team," said DeAngelo. "The original tire was two-ply, and the company found out that it was not strong enough. So they developed a three-ply tire. It was a lot stronger, and in 1977, Vessels went racing on it." During the same year, at the SCORE Baja 500, Ivan Stewart, won his class in a Chenoweth buggy equipped with Radial All-Terrain T/A tires. BFGoodrich tires continued with two more victories the following year, winning the 1978 SCORE Baja 500 and SCORE Baja 1000 in Class 8. The launch of a radial off-road tire was big news at the time, as radial tires were thought of as "street" tires, not suitable for any racing application. "The BFGoodrich Radial All-Terrain T/A was the industry's first off-road recreational tire," said Chris Baker, Motorsports Director at BFGoodrich Tire. "Most will tell you that this single product created a general type of tire within the tire business. But it was intentionally focused on off-roading. It was with the involvement in desert racing with SCORE from that time in the mid-seventies, that became the mechanism through which BFGoodrich learned about soft soil mobility, endurance, and off-road traction in general. After 40-plus years, we've gotten a lot better at it." Despite the wins by Vessels, Stewart, and other racers, it was a slow process to get teams to try racing on radial tires. In fact, according to Newsome, it was a difficult just to get Vessels to sign off on using the tires in the first place. "It was a very slow process," said Newsome. "Initially, it was a challenge to get Scoop into trying these tires. When he did finally say okay, he bought off on it. As he began to win, he partnered with Bobby Gordon which helped get more teams to notice." With Vessels and Gordon entering a variety of races, other teams had begun realizing that the BFGoodrich Radial All-Terrain T/A was holding up to serious punishment. With more development going into making the tires successful, BFGoodrich developed and successfully launched its Radial Mud-Terrain T/A in 1980, offering a more aggressive tire for racers and off-road enthusiasts. "The Radial Mud-Terrain T/A was also D.O.T. approved, and was very successful," said DeAngelo. "Racers now had the option to race on all-terrain or mud-terrain tires." At this time, several teams had already begun running SCORE races on BFGoodrich tires. This resulted in the company's first overall win in 1981, at the SCORE Baja 500, with Malcolm Smith and Bill Newbury. This lead a several teams wanting to use the tire from that point forward. "By 1982, we had four to five good-sized teams running on our tires, including Ivan Stewart, Bill Stroppe, Rod Hall, Don Adams, Malcolm Smith, and Johnny Johnson to name a few," said Newsome.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/2"][vc_column_text]