Tavo Vildósola

Racing career

Vildosóla started racing at a very young age. Raced his first official off-road race in the year 2000 sharing the wheel of a SCORE Class 1 buggy in the San Felipe 250, in preparation for the Baja 2000. In the Baja 2000 he was copilot of Chris Harrold in the SCORE Class 1 buggy of Vildosola Racing.

Tavo and Brian Ickler raced a SCORE Lites class vehicle for the 2003 Baja 1000 and finished 1st in their class with a time of 19:18.17 (41.86 mph).

In 2005 Vildósola raced an Ivan Stewart built ProTruck #204 powered by a Toyota V8 engine and was crowned champion of its class in 2006 and 2007 in the SCORE series.

Tavo jumped on the SCORE Trophy Truck driver's seat in the Baja 1000 of 2007, the 40th edition of the race. Vildósola and his father Gus Vildósola finish second place making it, at the time, the best finish position ever achieved by a Mexico national team in the Baja 1000. This achievement was only surpassed by Vildosola Racing itself on 2010 winning the overall on the 43rd edition of the premiere off-road desert race.

Vildosola Racing managed to finish second during the 2010 Baja 500 after Andy McMillin. Tavo led a good portion of the race but finish second after having problems a few miles of the finish line in Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico. Vildosola Racing made history again being this the best finish position of all times for any Mexico national team on the elite class, the Trophy Truck on any Baja 500.

Tavo won the overall in the 43rd edition of the Tecate SCORE Baja 1000 making him, alongside his father Gus Vildósola, the first Mexican national to win the Baja 1000 He drove Trophy Truck #21 of team Vildosola Racing to the finish line in 19:00.04 (55.87 mph). Since 1973, a 4-wheel vehicle had not won the overall time over the motorcycles.

The 2011 SCORE season started with Vildosola Racing taking 3rd place overall on the 2011 SCORE Laughlin Desert Challenge with a final time of 1:56:37 (51.45 mph).

After a good start on the San Felipe 250 Tavo was leading the race until on race mile 90 the trophy truck had a broken transmission which took the team nearly an hour to fix. The team finished 13th with a time of 5:03.57.

Tavo raced at the inaugural Tecate SCORE San Felipe Challenge of Champions in September 2011, started 4th and led a big portion of the race after having mechanical problems at mile 190. He finished 9th with a time of 7:33:21.

Vildosola Racing presented a new Trophy Truck for the 2012 Tecate SCORE Baja 500. The new Trophy Truck was built by Dave Clark and Vildosola Racing, its lighter and narrower than the old truck and also was built to use 42" wheels. The team started 22nd and was able to pass several drivers after a transmission failure left them out of the race while running 6th.

For the 2012 Baja 1000 Tavo and Gus got a 28th starting position draw, (started 25th after withdraws) which would make things harder for them as they would have a lot of dust and trucks before them. Around race mile 1000 Vildósola had passed all of his competitors and for the second time in a row on a peninsula run won the Baja 1000 overall, beating the motorcycles again, only the second time this happens since 1973, the previous time been in 2010 when Vildósola won the overall. The father and son duo stopped the clocks at 19:45:00 (56.79 mph) and made history again been the only Mexico national team to have 2 Baja 1000 titles as the overall winners of the race.

5 days after the 2012 Baja 1000 a protest was filed against Vildósola from the B.J. Baldwin team which accused Vildósola of having made an illegal pit on the highway. The protest was accepted by SCORE International against their own rules, since protest can't be filed after 24 hrs of the unofficial results are made public. SCORE penalized Vildósola with 90 mins demoting him to 8th place overall and stripping him from the race win.

The 2013 San Felipe 250 was won by Vildósola whom had end up 2nd only 3 seconds behind Bryce Menzies, nevertheless Menzies failed to cross a Virtual Check Point which cost him a 5-minute penalty which gave Vildósola his 2nd overall win on the San Felipe 250.

2014

The 2014 season brought 6 races for Vildosola Racing, and the team had the best start in history for them having end up in the top 2 in the first 3 races of BiTD and SCORE International's San Felipe 250.

For the opening race of the 2014 series for BiTD the Parker 425, Tavo had a 2nd-place finish with a time of 7:18:11.466 only 10 seconds behind the O/A winner Jason Voss and 22 seconds in front of 3rd place Mark Weyhrich. The 3 lap race had what many called the closest finish in off-road racing.

San Felipe 250 brought another victory for the Vildosola team, winning their second San Felipe race in a row and for the third time in their history, having started it in 20th position since the qualifying for this race was ruled out for a draw. Tavo finished the race in 3:31:27.320. Vildosola was quoted saying he was happy to win this race which he considered his home race due to the proximity of the race course to Mexicali.

At the Mint 400 Tavo had yet another great performance, finishing a strong 2nd place behind Andy McMillin. Vildosola had qualified 8th for this race and after problems with Mark Weyhrich's trick truck just 30 miles before the finish line Tavo locked in another podium for the 2014 season.

2015

The 2015 season will go in history as the best season for the Vildosola Team, winning 2 races in the SCORE series and 1 on the only BiTD race they participated.

At the 2015 opener for the SCORE series Vildosola dominated the San Felipe 250 making it 3 San Felipe races in a row the team has won it, the only team to do so in history. Tavo finished 5 hours 10 minutes 16 seconds.

Tavo participated at the 2015 Imperial Valley 250 and won again, making it the first time for his team to win 2 races in the SCORE series in the same year.

On the Parker 425 Tavo also had a strong win finishing first on the 2015 edition of the race. Tavo participated on this race in 2006 and picked up where he left on the 2015 race winning it for a second time.

Best Results

Personal life

On 2014 Vildósola was appointed CEO of Mexicana Logistics.

Son of off-road racer Gus Vildósola. He is married to Leticia and has a daughter named Ximena.