by Dominic Clark

ENSENADA, México -- After four top ten finishes this season, Bob Shepard (No. 82) claimed his first ever SCORE Trophy-Truck race win. He finished in 15 hours, 48 minutes, 49 seconds, averaging 44.82 miles per hour. He entered the Tecate SCORE Baja 1000 race leading the season point title by a slim two points over Tim and Ed Herbst. In fact, seven racers were all within 22 points coming into this final race, but Shepard’s win by a seven minute, 19 second margin locked up the season title. In the six races this season, there have been six different winners.

Shepard withstood challenges from several other SCORE Trophy-Trucks, most notably Chad Ragland (No. 80), who led midway through the race and trailed by just over two minutes with about 250 miles left to go.“This thing held together, what a car,” Shepard commented. “The race went pretty good. We had a flat at the start of the day; I did that. It went pretty well to plan except I didn’t plan to do the whole race; we planned on Larry Ragland driving. I always have higher hopes, I wanted to win the overall, but it was great to win the championship. I’ve driven every mile the whole year, “True Grit.” Next year I’m going to do better because I’m proven. This was a new car this year but now we’ve worked out all the bugs. I really work all year to get to this. It really happened. I’m really happy! It took a lot of homework, a lot of work happily paid off. I’ve got a great crew unbelievable car builders, the best of everybody. My crew was just fantastic, they were everywhere I needed them. It takes a good team to do this. I am thinking of getting a boat, I’ve just got to take a year off after this. I don’t know what I am going to do. I will probably race again. My race was very good with very few problems, hardly anything. It is the hardest course. I don’t have any breath because I drove all the way, I did not have any brakes so I think that was the hardest thing I have ever had to do. I’ve solo’d a lot of the SCORE Baja 1000’s to La Paz, I have been to several of those, but this race was much more demanding and challenging. It was really a hard one.”

Alan Pflueger (No. 28) was the second SCORE Trophy-Truck to finish, and it marked just his second official finish of the year (also in Primm in September). Pfleuger was right in the mix of SCORE Trophy-Trucks in the first 200 miles, but over the next 100 miles he lost some ground. He was able to make up most of it, but ended up just over seven minutes behind the class winner. “It’s just like a walk in a park, it was great when we got to the bridge,” Pflueger said. “Lots of energy during the race and it brought us home. We got the start, got us pushing. It is a long day; we got up front, we got behind, we didn’t get back into it until the end here. The course was tough, you don’t see it because of the amount of people that finish but it was brutal. The vehicle is great, we didn’t have any problems.”

Tim and Ed Herbst (No. 19) was third in this class, marking the third time this season he has had a podium finish but has been unable to emerge victorious. Two hundred miles into the race, Ed Herbst led all SCORE Trophy-Trucks and was the second fastest four-wheeled vehicle.

Chad Ragland (No. 80) was the fourth SCORE Trophy-Truck to cross the line. Ragland was competing for just the second time this season, having placed 10th in the Tecate SCORE Baja 500 in June. He received a big assist during this race as his father Larry, the SCORE Baja legend, drove the final part of the course.

Illustrating the parity in the featured class is the fact that in the six SCORE races this season, there have been a total of 14 different racers with podium finishes (first, second or third place). Only three drivers have had more than one podium finish in 2005, with Tim and Ed Herbst leading the way with three of those finishes. Shepard is right behind with a pair of top three placements, as is Jason Baldwin (1), who garnered a 10th this race. A total of 11 other drivers have placed in the top three this season, but were only able to manage this once. Included in that group was Pfleuger, whose second-place finish at the Tecate SCORE Baja 1000 was his first placement that high this year.

CLASS 1
Troy Herbst wanted to win the 38th Annual Tecate SCORE Baja 1000. So much so that he withdrew his vehicle (No. 118) this week in order to get a better starting position (No. 105) with teammate with Larry Roeseler, forgoing any chance he had for the season point championship, as he was fifth in a tight contest entering the race. Last year the duo won this race with the second-highest average speed in race history (62.167 mph), while this year they were again the fastest four-wheeled vehicle.
“This year he gave me the car fourth physically,” Roeseler said about his teammate, which was quite a feat considering that their vehicle was the fifth Class 1 car to start and followed the 30 SCORE Trophy-Trucks to leave the line. “I just tried to stay consistent, no mistakes. If we have to go, we csp; “This year he gave me the car fourth physically,” Roeseler said about his teammate, which was quite a feat considering that their vehicle was the fifth Class 1 car to start and followed the 30 SCORE Trophy-Trucks to leave the line. “I just tried to stay consistent, no mistakes. If we have to go, we can go, that’s what makes us such a great team. This is a fantastic race. I’m really proud to be a part of BFG Tires and the legacy of the race. This is the hardest race in the world and to win back-to-back is just incredible. It was very, very difficult: it was a true test of man and machine. This car here is amazing, I think its eight years old now. We went the whole race with no flat tires, competing with great racers. This is basically a SCORE Trophy-Truck without fenders. This car has won more races than any car, it’s incredible!”

Roeseler’s win marked his 14th class victory and 12th overall title. Roeseler and is second only to all-time leader, Rod Hall (18 SCORE Baja 1000 titles). Not since 1989-90 has a vehicle other than a SCORE Trophy-Truck won consecutive overall titles at the Tecate SCORE Baja 1000, when Robby Gordon accomplished it. Herbst claimed his fourth Tecate SCORE Baja 1000 victory, as he also won in 1999 and 2000 before winning last year. It was also Herbst’s 17th Class 1 win since 1997.
“We got the lead when I think Andy (McMillin, No. 103) blew his motor right below San Felipe,” Herbst said. “We had a nice clean race. When we turned it over we were fourth or fifth and there were no consequences. We came in last Sunday night so I could pre-run a few times and this is one of the best courses I’ve ever had to race.”
Roeseler’s overall title came by finishing 42:30 faster than the first SCORE Trophy-Truck, nearly equaling the 45:45 gap in 2002, when Dan Smith/David Ashley’s SCORE Trophy-Truck defeated Mike Julson’s Class 1 car. In the BFG pits, Bob Shepard (No. 82) led Roeseler by a mere 1:20 in the first pit but Roeseler steadily outpaced Shepard through the other pits (5:41 in the second pit, 7:53 in the third pit, 14:25 in the fourth pit, and 26 minutes in the fifth pit). Finishing second in the class was the point leader entering the race, Mark McMillin (No. 115), who has won eight Tecate SCORE Baja 1000 races in his career, all of which were in the 1980’s. McMillin had hoped to get another SCORE victory, as he won the Tecate SCORE San Felipe 250 last year, for his second victory in the 21st century. Shy of getting another win, he also strove to beat the person who was a very close second in the points standings coming in, Damen Jefferies (No. 116). Midway through the race, those two cars were separated by just four seconds (adjusted time), but McMillin pulled away the second half of the race to notch a seven-minute advantage over Jefferies at the finsih.“We are beating Damen, all we had to do was stay close to him,” co-driver Brian Ewalt said. “I liked this course. It reminds me of the old traditional course when I started racing in 1986. We have been racing for years. Sometimes the race gets a little dusty and sometimes it gets a little bit technical, a little bit of everything. No problems at all, we just stayed in the same race stuff.” Damen Jefferies (No.116) has placed second and fourth this season in other SCORE races, and this race he filled in the gap with a third-place showing. His time of 16:05:01 was also the sixth fastest amongst all four-wheeled vehicles.“It was tough, it was a long way,” Jefferies said. “I drove the whole way. My brother Casey (Jefferies) rode with me for most of it. Our vehicle was good, I think the fuel filters are plugged, we couldn’t speed up for the last 300 miles. It was a real rough course, I am surprised how many people made it. I didn’t see many cars parked out. I thought we went too hard all day, I’m dying. I had problems driving the whole way, I was not supposed to. It was a lot of race course, I would have rather gone to La Paz any day.”

CLASS 1/2-1600
Caleb Gaddis (1603), with third and second-place finishes to his credit already this season, clocked the fastest time in the class to gain the victory. His win denied Rob MacCachren (No. 1614) his quest to defend last year’s title. Gaddis trailed both MacCachren and L.J. Kennedy (No. 1601) in points coming in, and posted a 1:10, three-placement class win against Kennedy in the race, while MacCachren was unable to finish.
CLASS 3
Brothers Donald Moss/Kenneth Moss (No. 300) won their class for the fourth straight Tecate SCORE Baja 1000 race. The Moss brothers continue to dominate this class, as no one else has won a SCORE title since the SCORE Las Vegas Primm 300 in September 2003, when Randy Sorenson took the checkered flag. Since that time, the Moss brothers have won nine of the ten SCORE races (there were no official Class 3 finishers in the 2005 Tecate SCORE Baja 500). Donald started and finished, Ken drove from mile 200 to mile 530.
Donald Moss: “It was ROUGH! Rocks, rough roads, a lot of traffic and a lot of dust the entire race. Lost one front spring at race mile 60 and another at mile 210, it set us back for about an hour. Overall, it’s always good to win the SCORE Baja 1000. It’s always worth every bit of everything you go through. This year was no exception.”
CLASS 5
Chris Bowman (No. 501) took the checkered flag almost 15 minutes ahead of his nearest class competitor, Luivan Voelker (No. 517). He overcame a 10-minute deficit after 200 miles against four-time Tecate SCORE Baja 1000 winner George Seeley (No. 500). With his win, he solidified his season point championship with his second SCORE victory of the year. Bowman also won the season-opening event in Laughlin, Nevada in January. “It was rough, it was off-road racing,” Bowman stated. “Jarry Longo did the first 400 miles. I did the last 300 miles. My section was pretty rough, especially coming out of Mike’s. Up near the Simpson’s Falls area there was a bottle neck. The most surprising and interesting part was us winning. I just felt ecstatic coming across the line because it wraps up a championship for us.”
CLASS 5/1600
Marcos Nunez (No. 574) was the class point leader despite not having a win, but he changed that with an hour-plus win this race. Nunez placed third in the season opener in Laughlin, Nevada, but was just two minutes, seven seconds behind the class winner. In this race, however, he left no doubt to the outcome, starting out strong. “We had some little electrical and mechanical problems,” Nunez said. “It was a good day though. The course had some flood problems. We did not have any flats.”
CLASS 7
Doug Siewert (No. 708) won for the second time this year in Ensenada, having previously won the Tecate SCORE Baja 500. Siewert had also been in the winner’s circle in the 2001 Tecate SCORE Baja 1000 when he competed in Class 7S. The win this year also gave Siewert another two-win season, which he accomplished in 2002 in Class 7S.
“It was one of the toughest courses I’ve seen in a long time,” Siewert said. “Every year it seems like it gets rougher and rougher out there. We broke a rocker arm in the motor at mile 85, put us down for about two and half hours. That put us behind everybody. At the time we were running in fourth place, we picked our way through after that. At San Felipe there were a lot of broken cars, that’s where we kind of got by everybody. These were the same tires I ran at the SCORE Baja 500.”
CLASS 7S
No official finishers in a class dominated this year by John Holmes (No. 739), who had four wins this season.
CLASS 7SX
There were no finishers In the class that was introduced in 2003, Ricardo Castanon (No. 757) did cross the finish line as an apparent winner, but was later disqualified when a post-race inspection revealed that he did not use the required SCORE ‘black box’, gps Rally Logger.
CLASS 8
Keith Fontana (No. 802) took the checkered flag for this class for his first SCORE victory. “It was very, very good,” Fontana said. “Words can’t describe it, the experience. The course was everything from fast to extremely rough. We knew we just had to keep it at a steady pace. The vehicle ran excellent for us. All our sponsors did a wonderful job. I drove the first and last third, Ron Lammer drove the middle third. The last 80 miles were the best. I had a huge sigh of relief and just huge excitement to come across the line.”
CLASS 9
Eric Fisher (No. 900) completed the sweep this year, winning Class 9 in all five races this year. In the process, he got revenge for last year, when his three-year Tecate SCORE Baja 1000 streak was ended.
CLASS 10
Entering this race, Class 10 was another closely-contested battle for the season points championship, with a tie at the top between Travis Brookshire (No. 1008) and John Cooley (No. 1004), and Lobsam Yee (No. 1009) in third despite Yee having been the only one of the three to have gotten a win this year. Yee added another race win, outlasting Cooley, who finished second in the class, and Brookshire, who was fourth.
SCORE LITE
Stan Potter (No. 1213) continued the tradition of having a different winner in the Tecate SCORE Baja 1000, as in the nine-year history of this class in this race, only Jerry Penhall has been able to win more than once. Potter also was the first SCORE LITE racer to win two races this season, as he took the checkered flag in San Felipe in February.
CLASS 11 For the second time in three years, no Class 11 vehicle was an official finisher in the Tecate SCORE Baja 1000.
STOCK FULL
Josh Hall (No. 861) was the first Stock Full finisher, edging out his brother Chad (No. 863). Josh finished 40 minutes before his younger brother Chad, who was second in this class. Combined with his father’s class win (Rod in Stock Mini), the duo became the only father-son winners in this year’s contest. Chad had won the last four Tecate SCORE Baja 1000s, including one with his father and one with his brother. In the 13 years this class has been a part of this prestigious race, a Hall family member has won this class nine times.
Josh Hall: “It was good, our Hummer ran like a winner. It ran smooth and we only had to deal with ‘little fixes.’ It was rough and that brings out the best in our team.”
Josh Hall laughingly added: “See that vehicle…it has a sticker on it….’Stupid hurts’….That’s how it is in the SCORE Baja 1000.”
STOCK MINI
Rod Hall (No. 761) crossed the line in 28:11:21, and in the process extended his record class win total to 18. Hall, who has competed in each of the 38 Tecate SCORE Baja 1000s in a 4-wheel vehicle, has won a title in five different decades. He drove a new Hummer H3 to its first SCORE desert racing victory. He became the first Stock Mini racer to complete a SCORE race this season.
Driving solo for the first time in several years, the venerable Hall, who turns 67 on Nov. 22, quipped, “My sons won’t give me enough driving time so Hummer gave me one of their new H3 vehicles to test. I’d say we passed the test. In all the years of the SCORE Baja 1000, it was probably the roughest I have ever seen. I wanted this one bad, and we got it. It’s great to see my boys finish 1-2 in Stock Full as well. I guess you could almost say it was a ‘Hall’ of a race.”
PROTRUCK
Jim Nuckles (No. 288) won his first Tecate SCORE BAJA 1000 title, and in the process collected his fourth SCORE victory of the year. Nuckles’ victory also meant that there has been seven different class winners in the last seven Tecate SCORE Baja 1000 races in this class.
BAJA CHALLENGE
BC8 Sebastian Bourdais
“We had this broken brake line and we had to fix it because we need brakes at the front and they don’t work well on the sand. We got stuck for 40 minutes and Michel (Jourdain Jr.) went by so then we tried to get him but we got in touch, and we sat the car in a pile of sand just to dig it , and we lost even more time so just managed to get it back home. It was a tough race. But it feels good to finish, it is probably the toughest SCORE Baja 1000 in a long time, so it’s good to see the end. We raced last year, we didn’t end well, so everybody put the car back together and took care of it. We tried to finish to receive a podium but four is not bad. Claire, my girlfriend, started the race and drove the first 80 and then they gave it to me. Then we gave it to Jim until mile 200, and then Wally took over. Then Glenn took over and gave it to us right back at pit 5 and we drove until here. It was very nice at the end, nice roads and we just had a good time. When we saw the finish line, we felt such relief. We saw the checkerd flag, that’s all we wanted to see. Compared to what I usually drive, you just have to forget what you know, begin from scratch and enjoy yourself.”
Robert Sutton (No. BC8), the CEO of Centrix Financial of Denver, which sponsors the Baja Challenge class for the Tecate SCORE Baja 1000, won the special class for Porsche-powered Baja Touring cars for the third time. The other drivers on his team were Rod Millen, Mouse McCoy, and Richard Kelsey.
Sportsman Car 1449 Dean Lunski
I put the program together, started in advance in San Felipe and we got some guys in, a driver record from the United States up on Minnesota and another guy from Arizona and we put it together pre-run for a week and then turn them loose. It went good as good as could be expected in SCORE Baja 1000 and we had troubles and tribulations and we got them back to Ensenada, and we walked away from it, anyway when you got to walk away it’s the good one . I drove 150 miles. Dean Lunski from Minnesota started the race and Chad Fisher from Arizona finished the race and Dean More and myself split up the middle sections. I did the canyons , Dean did the Mike’s loop and the boys did the start and the finish. SCORE did the course themselves, there is a loop race, and I think because of the movie (Dust to Glory) we’ve got a lot of the media attention but I think that doing a loop race, they showed them everything that you could ever see, it was tough. It was very technical. The vehicle took some hits but is O.K, we are going to move it to the trailer, that is a good thing.
1401 Heidi Steele (wife of SCORE Trophy-Truck racer Cameron Steele) My portion of the ride was great, I started in the lead and I handed the car off from the lead, it was a rough 200 miles, I have to admit. The course is pretty torn up, but I had a great time and had a good go at it. I handed off the car to Greg Boyer, then he gave it to Cody Stewart and Justin Smith finished. Towards the end unfortunately about 10 miles out, actually at 540 miles we had to weld our friend’s A-arm. Unfortunately when they where tightening up , they did not tighten up the last A-Arm, and so about 10 miles out the A-Arm just completely broke , the wheel came off, and one of our competitors passed by us so we had to settle for second. Justin Smith, who was driving then, to the springs off as well, and we ran on three wheels for about the last 10 miles. The SCORE Baja 1000 is overall, of the experiences I’ve had, actually indescribable. There is so much adventure to it and so many stories, there is so much fun in all of it. I can’t wait for the next SCORE race.
1401 Justin Smith, co-driver
At about mile marker 530 the lower driver side ourA-arm geared shot off and broke in half so we had to pull the hole passed a car and rolled it.
MOTORCYCLES
CLASS 22
The three races in 2005 produced different class winners each time, with the season point title going to the winner of the Tecate SCORE Baja 1000, Steve Hengeveld/Johnny Campbell/Mike Childress (No. 1x). Hengeveld / Campbell won this race for the fifth straight year, while Campbell earned his ninth consecutive overall motorcycle victory in this storied race. Averaging 49.42 miles per hour, they finished in 14 hours, 20 minutes and 30 seconds, over 13 mph slower than their record pace in the 2002 version.
“It was a great race and we had a good time out there,” Hengeveld said. “Baja is Baja and you never know how it’s going to be out there. It was pretty good; we were about 30 minutes off what I thought we would finish. The course was great, probably one of the toughest Bajas yet that I’ve raced in 10 years. That was one of my goals, to extend the Honda streak. We pretty much prepare all year long for this race. The bike ran flawless, it’s very reliable and we had no problems with it all day. I was probably on it for about a total of six or seven hours. I did the start to Nuevo Junction, a run in the middle, and Trinidad to the finish.”
Childress ran from San Felipe to San Matias, about 140 miles, then did a stretch right before dark that was unfamiliar territory for him, completing half of Mike’s Loop. “They gave me a map and said go here and get on the bike and ride it to us. It was kinda weird because I got on the bike and it was getting dark quickly. I didn’t know any of the corners, I didn’t know where to go, I just took it easy and didn’t make any mistakes; I just got the bike to Steve. Coming into the pit I didn’t see a cow and hit it and thought it was over right there. The bike was flawless, the pits were perfect, all the chase crews were in the right place.”
“The course was probably the roughest ever,” Campbell stated. “I think it was shorter, there was a lot of sand, the sand gets rough, and the sand brings out the rocks. A lot of people are pre-running now, so it gets pretty chewed up. I had a stomach illness last night and all day today, I was kind of under the weather I guess. We didn’t have any problems with the bike though.”
Robby Bell/Kendall Norman/Quinn Cody (No. 4x) placed second in the class, coming in over 17 and a half minutes behind the team they traded places with most of the day. “We had the physical lead, but when it got dark they pulled away,” Norman stated. “I rode from about mile 200 to 390, it was pretty physically demanding but I knew what I was getting myself into. Not too many traffic problems or anything. I got passed almost at the end of my section. Robby hit a booby trap in the morning, it crushed our tailpipe. We didn’t end up changing it until around mile 390. We need more night experience. You go against Baja, not first or second place.”
“The course is a blast,” exclaimed Bell. “I had lots of fun until I hit that jump. It was at mile 70, there was a burm outside of a ditch. Right over the end I hit it and it was too late. I went end-over-end there and beat up this bike pretty good. My whole left side is pretty sore. Tomorrow it will be interesting when I wake up. I was on the bike to about mile 95 from the start and did 143 miles from 390 to 533. Baja is pretty unbelievable. To start it was pretty awesome, I’d never started one of these, it was pretty exciting to see all the people, being on the bridge and everyone cheering you, it is pretty cool.”
No. 6x, Travis Pastrana
Travis Pastrana/Andy Grider/Ricky Johnson/Gregg Godfrey (No. 6x) unofficially finished third in the class, before they were disqualified when post race inspection revealed that they did not use the required SCORE Black Box, gps rally logger.
“ I got one and a half days to practice,” said Grider, who won the Tecate SCORE San Felipe 250 with Chris Blais. “The SCORE Baja 1000 is a good race, and this was the toughest in many years. Travis got to mile 70 with very little problems, only four minutes down. Gregg (Godfrey) ended up having a flat for about 20 miles. We made up some time in the rough stuff, but in the flat stuff the (Honda) 650’s just pulled away from us. But the bike never went down the whole day, so we’re stoked about that. We’re just happy to be on the podium with a rookie team. The course was a hate-love thing; as I was going, I was hating it, but now that I am done I love it – it was the best thing I’ve done.”
Co-rider Ricky Johnson, who last rode a bike in the 1998 Tecate SCORE Baja 1000 said, “To finish third is perfect, we knew we had nothing for the Honda guys. It’s a very spiritual thing out there; if you get hurt, you fall down and you are in trouble, so you gotta finish.
CLASS 21
Tim Morton (No. 103x) took the checkered flag in a bit of a daze, his nose still bloody from a fall near the end of the race, but his win completed the sweep for him in Class 21 this season. Morton collected the season point championship for the third time in his career, also winning in 1994 and 1995. “I am amazed; I can’t remember a whole lot before Highway 1 at San Vicente. I have no idea; I really don’t remember where I crashed but I think I might have crashed next to this Class 40 guy, I don’t know if I passed him or I don’t really remember so good for the last 15 miles. I think I just made it over a turn.” “Over the beginning we lost a tire about mile 35,” said co-rider Jason Trubey. “My ride was pretty good. This year the course was rough, but it was fine. SCORE Baja racing is excellent.”
CLASS 30
Brian Pinard/Scott Myers (No. 307x) won the class, as the sixth motorcycle and ninth overall finisher to cross the line. “I started the race today,” Myers said. “It was really rough this year, one of the roughest I can ever remember. Especially at the time we went over the mountain when the sun was coming down, the dust. It was one of the toughest I’ve ever done in my life. Once the sun goes down it is actually easier.” “I did not have any problems,” Pinard said. “Earlier in pre-running I crashed and blackened up my eye and hand but today I kept it together. I will never not race in Baja, I just love it.”
312x Ken Hutchinson
“ It was pretty brutal. We had a rough time of it starting in San Felipe, when our lights went out. So we were duct taping flash lights, burning through trail tech lights and I rode till this morning. I started but then we swapped out, we had 7 guys riding and everybody was riding 100 miles. Deren Heker finished. Tom Watson ran the first leg, Steve Wilkison the second leg, Greg Gaip the third leg, Gordy Mc Carty the fourth leg, J.C. Hilderbrand the fifth leg and Ken Hutchinson the sixth leg. I am so tired and sore, pretty beat up. For all of us, this is our first SCORE Baja race, seven rookies. So we finished our first SCORE Baja1000. We would of done it a lot better if our lights wouldn´t have failed out. We probably would have been in the top 5 of class 30. We pre-ran a week, we all ran our sections a couple of times and ran the whole course once, it was a necessity. We’ll see if we will do it next year, it depends on everybody else. If everybody is into it, I’ll do it. Out there, mother nature was abusing me. I was her whipping boy. But we finished, everybody did it. A couple of guys finished without lights on at all, in the night, in San Felipe and out in the mountains, so we’ve got some resilient guys on the team. That´s for sure.”
CLASS 40
Jim O’Neal (No, 400x), who recorded his first win in this race last year, again shared the duties with several others, including Jeff Kaplan. Kaplan won the 1979 edition of the Tecate SCORE Baja 1000 (with Rick Finger) in Class 21. This race they had the dubious distinction of becoming the first incident for SCORE’s Medical Team, as Luis Franco started the race but hit a booby trap three miles from Highway 3, at KM 77.
“We just kept chipping away once we got the bike going,” Kaplan recalled. “We had bent the front brake really bad. Other than that, though, it was pretty uneventful. The only other person I saw was Tim (Morton, 103x).
Co-rider Randy Morales contributed to the win, which extends O’Neal’s streak to six SCORE wins in as many starts since the beginning of the 2004 season. “It was real good at the summit, but then I had to do Mike’s Loop,” Morales observed. “I got my butt handed to me once the sun went down. That was one of the toughest rides I’ve ever had to do.”
CLASS 50
Chris Haines/Scott Forward/Jim Castillo (No. 549x) won their class as the ninth fastest time of all motorcycles. “Are we really ninth overall?” Forward inquired at the finish line. “That’s great! I saw some headlights behind me and I said ‘screw it,’ I’m not going to give up a class win to get passed by a quad. We had a great time, we had a fun time as usual. We had a few problems but we got through them; a broken muffler, a bent shifter but we got it fixed all in one shot. The course was great this time. The split up was I started and then Jack Johnson went over the summit, Jim Castillo took it at Borrego and then Bob Johnson around Matoni up to St. Matias and Jack got back on the bike and Chris Haines into Santo Tomas and then I finished it, from Santo Tomas in.”
The win gave Haines his seventh consecutive Tecate SCORE Baja 1000 title, and 12th since 1987. Only three other people have won more SCORE Baja 1000 titles in their careers (Rod Hall, Jimmy Johnson and Larry Roeseler).
“ The ride was fine, with extra traffic for a while, we were sitting back with the dust,” Haines said. “The course is one of the roughest courses in the last five years that I remember. We changed from a Honda XR650 which we normally ride, and actually for our team this is our 7th consecutive Baja. The six before this we rode XR650’s, this is the first time on a 450x. It went perfect.”
CLASS 25
Wayne Matlock/Chad Prull (No. 9a) were the first ATV finishers, clocking a time of 18:06:53. “When you pre-run it’s not that bad,” Prull observed. “But it’s so different on race day when you get that adrenaline going. I ran 80 to 85 percent, I never hit 100 percent but I kept it on the throttle.”
SPORTSMAN MOTORCYCLE >250cc
The winner of this Sportsman class, which with 28 starters was tied for the second most of any class, was an individual who rode solo. Robert Laughlin (No. 278x) had the eighth fastest time of any motorcycle, at 19 hours and 12 seconds. “I didn’t fall once, but then almost fell two miles from here coming down a hill,” Laughlin said at about 2:00 am at the finish line. “I was hoping to beat all those things (Trophy-Trucks); they look really cool coming, but not so good going as they kick up a lot of dust. I beat my goal by about an hour; the key was to set easy goals. There was a lot dust but no traffic from Tres Hermanos to here. It is better at night because you can see others coming for a while. Will I do this again? Ask me in a month. Now I can go home and work again; I have been addicted to the gym and a lot of spinning classes.”
SPORTSMAN MOTORCYCLE <250cc
202x Nobyuki Tsugita
“ Today my ride was tough. We had 3 riders. I took the start to mile 190, Rusibara took it next, then Masami Ishii. The course was very tough. This is my third time in the SCORE Baja 1000 for me, this is the toughest. We didn’t have any problems, the course is very nice. I feel very happy.