2010

Armin Schwarz’s fourth season in the SCORE International Off Road Series was a good one. In fact, a very good one: For the Bavarian and his Californian-based AGM team it yielded their first overall victory. Of all places, the greatest success came at round two of the SCORE series at the San Felipe (12-14 March). San Felipe is a high speed race through the desert of Mexico’s Baja California. For this reason, and due to the massive bumps, it is regarded as the perfect hunting grounds for the large Trophy Trucks. Armin Schwarz and his driver colleague Martin Christensen beat the Trucks, although their Class 1 Buggy generated a good 200 hp less than the 800+hp monsters.

Race four of the SCORE series, the Primm 300 near Las Vegas, brought a class win and third place in the overall classification. In temperatures of a sweltering 35 degrees Celsius in the shade (only in theory, because shade is a rare commodity there) four laps of 67 miles each were on the programme. Armin turned the fastest lap in 1:11 hours, Martin rounded off the success with his immaculate performance.

At the season finale - the Baja 1000 (18-19 Nov.) - the situation looked promising for AGM. Armin handed the Buggy over to Martin after 900 kilometres ranking third in his class, Martin unfortunately crashed during the night, but remained unhurt, with the Buggy looking a little worse for wear. Two races - the Laughlin Desert Challenge (Round 1, 9-10 January) and the Baja 500 (round 3, 4-6 June) - ended with DNF due to power train problems.

A definite highlight of the season for Armin was an ‘Express Tour’ at the “Best of the Desert” Championship. Invited by team owner and desert virtuoso Roger Norman, he drove the race from “Vegas to Reno”in Nevada at the wheel of a Norman Motorsports Trophy Truck. Without any practice for the German, he and Roger brought the hp-monster home in third place overall and second in the Trucks category.

Not a bad omen for 2011. All German Motorsports return in full force with their own Trophy Truck.