Sal Fish with BJ Balwin at the 2014 Off Road Expo

In the off-road world, there are several rockstars that helped make it all possible and it is easy to forget that they are humans, just like us. Sal Fish is one of those people. Monday, September 26, 2016, Fish underwent a successful open heart surgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California. “While this was non-emergency surgery that Sal planned in advance, it was a very serious and obviously a very lengthy operation,” said Paul Fish, Sal Fish’s nephew and former SCORE Vice-President. “The operation achieved what the doctors had hoped for in replacing a leaking aortic valve and vessel, as well as performing a single artery bypass.”

Sal Fsh and James Garner at the 1968 NORRA Mexican 1000. Image from SEMA.

Fish joined SCORE International Off-Road Racing in 1974 and lead the charge to expand the race series exponentially until he sold the organization in 2012. He created the iconic Trophy Truck class in 1994 and brought SCORE racing to international television. Desert racing is notoriously difficult to televise do to its expansive reach into remote areas but he pulled it off. Many racing sanctioning bodies used the SCORE Rule Book that Fish developed as a guideline for their own rule books. Safety standards were set and kept prominent.

Thankfully, Sal Fish is expected to make a complete recovery at his home in Malibu, California over the next several months. Barbara Fish, Sal’s wife of 40 years, and the Fish family intend to provide periodic updates on his recovery. “All of us in the SCORE family thank God, are relieved and pleased with the results of Sal’s surgery and we wish him a speedy and complete recovery,” commented Roger Norman, a former champion SCORE Trophy Truck racer and current owner of SCORE. “We look forward to having him wave the green flag as the grand marshal at one of the SCORE Baja races that have meant so much to him personally and to all of us in the sport he loves so passionately.”