LOS ANGELES, CA (October 18, 2004) -- As pre-running started Saturday for next month's 37th Annual Tecate SCORE Baja 1000, SCORE International CEO/President Sal Fish continues the painstakingly-slow process of recovering from major surgery.

Fish, who is helping SCORE celebrate its 31st year as the world’s foremost desert racing organization, is recovering at his home in Malibu, Calif., from major prostate surgery he had on Oct. 6 at the prominent Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles.

According to attending medical personnel, the surgery was completely successful.

His recovery and rehabilitation is expected to take up to four weeks and the long-term prognosis is that Fish will have fully recuperated just prior to the start of race week for the legendary granddaddy of all desert races (Nov. 15-21).

“I have been battling this for a few years now and it’s great to have it finally over, but the recovery process is very challenging,” said Fish, 65, who has been part of SCORE International since soon after it was founded in 1973. “I’m not used to being on the sidelines, but something like this is really a wake-up call and I feel very fortunate that things have gone as well as they have to this point. I will definitely be making some lifestyle adjustments and I look forward to enjoying this year’s special peninsula run at the Tecate SCORE Baja 1000. I would like to thank everyone for their prayers and other expressions of kindness and concern. With this surgery behind me, I can clearly focus on this race and the incredible 2005 SCORE Desert Series schedule we have lined up.”

Fortunately for Fish, his advance preparation this summer in designing and plotting this year’s 1,016.3-mile race course down the Baja California peninsula with Frank DeAngelo and Dave Walter of BFGoodrich Tires Motorsports helped make the course-marking work considerably easier.
With GPS coordinates and detailed course descriptions to follow, the SCORE course marking crew completed the actual marking of the route last Friday, just prior to the start of pre-running yesterday. The SCORE marking crew was led by long-time SCORE race official Bill Wick and veteran SCORE racers Bill Rodriguez, Dave Sykes, Chris Wilson, Eyanne Wilson, Julie Wilson, Paul Wilson and Steve Wolcott.

“Marking the course is part of my work that I enjoy the most,” added Fish, “but at least we did our homework prior to my operation which made the job much easier for our SCORE crew. Hurricane Javier that went through Baja California Sur during late summer forced us to move some of our originally-planned course to some areas along the Pacific Coast of Baja that we haven’t used for over a dozen years. This course will rank up their with some of the toughest in the history of the Tecate SCORE Baja 1000.”

The 37th Annual Tecate SCORE Baja 1000 expects nearly 275 vehicles competing in 23 Pro and 5 Sportsman classes for cars, trucks, motorcycles and ATVs in Mexico.

For SCORE races in Mexico, pre-running, or practicing over the actual race route is allowed in the few weeks prior to the race. The majority of the participants will cover the race route at least once, many practicing their section of the course as many as a dozen times.

While the fastest finishers will complete the course in just over 16 hours, entries will have a 40-hour time limit to become official finishers in the elapsed-time race.