Gordon welcomes opportunity to pad SCORE series lead

Robby Gordon has opted to race Saturday in Primm instead of in the NASCAR Sprint Cup event at Richmond, Va.

Gordon, who owns and drives the No. 7 Toyota in the Cup series, decided last week to skip Richmond to race in the Terrible's Primm 300 as the SCORE Desert Series overall and Trophy-Truck points leader.

At Richmond, David Gilliland will sub for Gordon, who is 33rd in driver points and 34th in the owners standings.

Gordon won January's SCORE Laughlin Desert Challenge and finished second in the Tecate SCORE San Felipe 250 in March.

It's been a busy and eventful two weeks for Gordon.

After suffering minor injuries a week ago while testing in the Arizona desert, he placed sixth last Saturday in The Off Road Championship series in Crandon, Wis., and 16th Sunday in the Cup race at Atlanta.

On Wednesday, Gordon placed 18th out of 23 cars at Ohio's Eldora Speedway in the Prelude to the Dream dirt-track race, won by event promoter and track owner Tony Stewart.

Another late entry into the Primm race is Las Vegan Rob MacCachren, who will drive solo in a Trophy-Truck owned by MasterCraft. MacCachren had been the co-driver this season with Mark Post, who withdrew from the Primm race a week ago.

Racing for most SCORE sportsmen classes begins at 6 a.m. and the premier Trophy-Trucks and Class 1 will leave the starting line at 1 p.m. behind Buffalo Bill's off Interstate 15.

• PETTY TO FORD -- Richard Petty Motorsports and Yates Racing plan to merge in 2010, with a four-car team running Fords under the RPM banner.

Under the agreement, Yates driver Paul Menard will join RPM's three-car team of Elliott Sadler, AJ Allmendinger and Kasey Kahne, who won Sunday at Atlanta.

The deal leaves Reed Sorenson of Petty and Bobby Labonte of Yates without positions on the new team.

RPM was formed in January when Petty Holdings merged with Gillett Evernham Motorsports.

• BULLRING -- Jeff Connors won a pair of 33-lap Super Late Models features on Saturday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway's Bullring to take an eight-point lead over Taylor Barton in the NASCAR All-American Series standings.

The penultimate race in the series is Sept. 19.

Contact reporter Jeff Wolf at jwolf@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0247.