LIVE BAJA 1000 2015 Pre-Race Schedule and LIVE COVERAGE

PRE-RUNNING NOTES CLOSED!




CLICK HERE FOR RaceDay LIVE! COVERAGE


BajaRacingNews.com 


***Pre-Runners Wrapping Runs Across Baja California***

***Police in San Felipe Ordered To Arrest Racers!

***SCORE Changed Truck Start To 11 AM!

**SCORE FORCED TO ACCEPT ENVIRO'S NEW COURSE DEMANDS! Classic Baja race sections, 'Frog Canyon', now gone forever!

**FORD BRONCO 2020! BajaRacingNews.com EXCLUSIVE! 


**#4 Trophy Truck, RPM-Geiser-4x4-AWD NEW! Details and INSIDER Future Truck Storyline for B1000'15

**#28 Trophy Truck, a Harris designed truck was in Goerke's shop a few years ago. It has a constant velocity (CV) rear end. Click Here for the 2007 article on the truck. The entire design is predicated on the success of a single component, an exotic differential.



November 18

*The usual threats from Ensenada locals to close the race down are floating in the town's press. Numerous reports of teams coming across hostile land owners.

Blocked race course sections by pissed-off land owners and so many demands for 'pass permission' money, it'll take all day for us to write-up all the assertions!

Nothing new, however, the level of emotion and the increasing permission fee amounts, make pre-running an expensive venture. One pass fee, across only one ranchers land amounted to $20 for each gringo! $220 total! 

*Teams are now back in town (Ensenada) and gearing up for the start, Friday morning. Racers are scheduled for one last night off, for going into town, late tonight. MORE>>>

November 17

The second Baja Crew Pre-Run details.
The start of our second prerun began on the course west from Laguna Chapala, which starts behind a little rancho 0.8 miles south of the highway. Lots of heavy equipment and big trucks are in the area, working on the paved east peninsula routing, connecting to the highway. 

Teams pre-running were commenting the highway sections make this course a loser. Not a real desert race. Many like the new sections, but, the highway sections this year, make this event a sea-change in SCORE events. Much like a rally event, with many different 'travel' elements.

The eastern half of this course includes a massive paved section. Speed controlled, its not what desert racing in Mexico has been, for years.

Teams that steer clear of getting stuck in the numerous silt beds, can win. 






November 15 

The Police Commander of the Federal Highway Patrol for Mexicali and San felipe will impound any vehicles who are running lights other than street legal type lighting if they enter any Federal Highway (and paved street) in the Mexicali-San Felipe Highway Sector. The commander is very upset with the pre-runners speeding on the hwy and with light bars on! No more warnings! They will ticket and impound any racers vehicles if they don't comply!

November 12


The first Baja 1000 Baja Crew Pre-Run, last weekend, started at RM 240 just before the military checkpoint before El Rosario. The course starts over the mountains before El Rosario and drops down into a rock infested wash for about 3 miles and then takes a hard left in to the El Rosario wash and pretty much the same course as the 2014 Baja 1000 until Arenoso at RM 283. 

The course then takes a left off highway 1 and hits the same course as last years Baja 1000 for about 20 miles and then it is very technical through the choya cactus's until Guayaquil and then hits same course as last year until almost Catavina. The new section from Catavina to Punta Blanca is a roller coaster rocky ride through the mountains and will be pretty beat up by race day. 

The course then hits the silt beds a little after RM 415 all the way until you hit the coast. There is alternative lines around the silt but those lines will turn into silt beds by race day. At RM 435 be prepared to pay your way through Ranco Las Palmas gate. We were unprepared and luckily our good Spanish allowed us to go through as we didn't know about the gate fee. After that you hit more silt beds and you start working your way through the technical mountains and cactus before El Crucero. The gate fee is seven bucks.

The new section from El Crucero to Cocos is pretty fast all the way to Old Puertecitos road where we ended our pre run. Since we were on quads, we did about 4 hours and a half from catavina to el crucero including a little problem we had and our gas stop. 

MORE>>>






November 11

* 9 AM - Ensenada Race Bulletin!
Score International ordered to move the time of the start of the 48th Edition of the Baja 1000, so as to not conflict with the start of the November 20 Parade, so the the start of the race for the Trophy Trucks will be at 11AM. The change was announced by the official spokesperson for the off road organization, Dominic Clark. Friday, Nov 20., 9AM will be the start of the civic parade in honor of the Mexican Revolution, which will start in the area called R1, and the turn around on Juárez and the bridge over the Ensenada arroyo. 

The motorcycles will start at 6AM from Bulevar Costero, to cover a route of 828.38 miles, and all the competitors have a time limit of between 33 and 34 hours to complete.

*In late November 2014, after the big race, an Ensenada newspaper (reported here) reported that SCORE was being fined hundreds of thousands of dollars for environmental violations for its recent running of the 2014 Baja 1000, desert off-road race. At the time, the charges were reportedly levied against SCORE and were being negotiated.

Today, SCORE can no longer race on courses in Baja California, that have been used for over forty years!  MORE LOADING>>> 
   

The original charge order, that has led now to SCORE being barred from large sections of the state.

November 10


*After several new versions of the Baja 1000 2015 race course map and numerous deleted sections, OFF-ROAD LIVE! BLOWS-THE LID OFF whats really going down!

SCORE is not talking about these changes publicly, insiders at the state government tell BajaRacingNews.com environmental issues have now changed the face of course making in the Baja races. Frog Canyon a long cherished run for racers, is forever off the list of driveable sections! After last years disaster of SCORE running through federally controlled parks and sensitive areas, with no controls, the hammer has come down from Mexico City!

A little primer on Frog Canyon. 'Calamajue' was once the route of "Hwy. 5", or the main gulf-side road south from San Felipe (1958-1983) before the government graded road was built from Laguna Chapala east to Puerto Calamajué, and crossed the gulf road where Coco's Corner was eventually established. Before automobiles, Calamajué Canyon was the route of El Camino Real between San Borja and the Calamajue mission and on to where it moved and renamed Mission Santa María. The canyon road was first used for the Baja 1000 in 1973, when the Mexican government replaced NORRA with their own creation, The 'Baja Sports Committee' who ran the race from Ensenada to San Felipe and south to La Paz. After a total failure in operating the race, Mexico replaced BSC with the new SCORE organization, there was no 1000 in 1974 as the time needed to create it was too short. That was the only year of no 1000 or longer race in Baja.

In exchange for a smaller fine, Roger has agreed (according to authorities) to stay off sensitive areas throughout Baja California! That way he pays a lower fine levied against the California [lack of] racing organization.


November 9 

 
*The #4 Trophy Truck Coverage Continues!

 "The transfer-case and front differential and axles are EXOTIC! We estimate $90-100k or more in goodies - than a new, current 2wd version!"

Most are still running Atlases, but some of the guys spending big money on new cars have been trying other equipment. Napier's Penhall car has reportedly had all sorts of trouble with its Atlases, now looking at other options. Weismann was making some changes in response to that feedback and going to have a few new test cases out. Some interesting and creative builds from a driveline perspective going on in U4, like the Horschel car and the Cody Waggoner car. 

In two wheel drive there's lots of wheel-spin and wasted horsepower. What's going to be the fuel advantage on these four-wheel drive racers, faster point to point and longer pit points because they can run longer on less fuel?

RPM Racing #4 Trophy Truck Goes 4x4
INSIDER UPDATE PREVIOUS REPORTS

The Slip Yoke broke during the Vegas To Reno race and an insider with RPM tells BajaRacingNews.com, "they've solved all of the problems of the 4x4 system".

"We'll have a perfect ride for this months Baja 1000. We tested and practiced alot at the Vegas track before qualifying in first, Tuesday night.

#4 Trophy Truck Coverage from Nov. 3 

2015 Baja 1000 Qualifying Winner Raises Attention

"Helped by a huge assist from legendary Supercross Hall of Fame co-driver Ricky Johnson, RPM Racing’s Justin Matney has earned the first starting position in the featured SCORE Trophy Truck division in this month’s 48th annual Bud Light SCORE Baja 1000.

2015 Baja 1000 Qualifying, presented by BFGoodrich Tires was held on a purpose built, very technical 3.6-mile course that started and finished on the Off-Road Track at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

In front of an appreciative capacity crowd at the LVMS Off-Road Track on Tuesday night, Johnson, who won 38 Supercross races and seven season championships in his Hall of Fame motorcycle career, blistered the dirt and asphalt covering the course in three minutes, 46.11 seconds with an average speed of 57.32 miles per hour in Matney’s new No. 4 RPM Racing four-wheel drive Chevy Silverado built by Geiser Brothers of Phoenix. He was quickest among the 23 trucks out of the 32 entered in the race that elected to participate in the optional qualifying event.

Johnson, driving Matney’s SCORE Trophy Truck, finished nearly two seconds faster than the runner-up qualifier as all of the top 10 qualifiers finished the course in less than four minutes."

#4 Trophy Truck Coverage from Nov. 1
It takes a Driver to Win!

""Trophy Trucks are the fastest, meanest and most reliable racing machines in off-road racing. These vehicles undergo extreme punishment during off-road races like the Baja 1000. Trophy Trucks are built all the time, so when the Rigid Industry sponsored Trophy Truck driven by Justin Matney debuted at the SCORE Imperial Valley 250 race in September, it didn't seem like anything new, until the word got out that this truck was quite different.

From the outside, the Rigid Industries Trophy Truck looks just like any other desert racing vehicle. The fact that it is all four-wheel drive, however, is a big deal in the world of desert racing. Most Trophy Trucks are two-wheel drive, but this is not the first time a four-wheel drive Trophy Truck has entered into  desert racing. Nonetheless, all of the attempts have not been successful, so two-wheel drive Trophy Trucks remained the norm. 

So why now? Improvements in materials and design have lead to another try at making a go at a four-wheel drive Trophy Truck. For SCORE Unlimited Trophy Truck racer Justin Matney, a veteran desert racer and one of the drivers for the RPM Off-Road racing team, the debut of the Rigid Industries four-wheel drive Unlimited Trophy Truck was a big deal. Unfortunately, a yoke sheared from the front driveshaft during the first race it was enterd in, which put the truck out of contention. Nevertheless, this prototype truck keeps getting refined with every race and will soon be a game-changer in the Unlimited Trophy Truck division at the 48th Bud Light SCORE Baja 1000 that takes place November 18 to the 21st in Ensenada, Mexico.

This state-of-the-art truck was built by famed Trophy Truck builders, Geiser Brothers Racing in Arizona. With their design knowledge, the race truck incorporates a Weismann transfer case and a Fortin front differential that sends the power to a Tubeworks front hub and CV assembly, that had to fit within the Trophy Truck's chassis. "It was a tight fit," said Rick Geiser of Geiser Brothers. But we mocked it up and got it all in there. To make everything work correctly, we had to move the motor back farther and raise it up a bit, but it all ended up working out very good."

That motor is a Dougan's Racing, Kinsler fuel-injected, 480 cubic inch engine that provides plenty of power and is designed to work well with this prototype drivetrain system. "This truck is a totally new creation," says Justin Matney. "When RPM Off-Road owner Clyde Stacey (SCORE Whore) and I first discussed this with the Rick and Jeff Geiser, we all knew that four-wheel drive was the future of off-road racing. Because of the 4x4 drivetrain, Rick and Jeff Geiser sat down, figured out a new program for this vehicle, and designed it accordingly. In the past, CV joints and wheel travel were a concern, but the truck is still a prototype. It did perform flawlessly at the Vegas-To-Reno race, but we're still learning with it."

With four wheels driving lots of horsepower Matney says that the truck has shown great potential. The added traction, however, makes this truck drive and handle much differently than what drivers like Matney are used to. "The truck feels completely different than anything I've driven before," he says. "It handles so well, and it's easier to get out of trouble in silt beds and water crossings because of the four-wheel drive. I have to get more seat time and fine tune the suspension to really see what the truck can or can't do."

Part of the truck's success so far is in part due to the unique Tubeworks front hub and CV assembly, which is far superior to what's been available to racers in the past. This allows the front drive-train to remain reliable and yet provide greater wheel travel than other four-wheel drive Trophy Truck attempts in the past. This also allows the 'RPM-Rigid' four-wheel drive Trophy Truck to have 23.5 inches of working travel and same turning radius as a standard two-wheel drive Trophy Truck.

With the advantage of four-wheel drive, Matney is looking forward to attempting to win this years Baja 1000, a race that every desert racer wants to have on his resume. Geiser Brothers and the RPM Off-Road racing team are committed to seeing this project through. If they succeed, the four-wheel drive Trophy Truck will definitely be a game changer for anyone competing in any desert off-road racing event, and further showcase the ingenuity that desert racing brings to the automotive racing and aftermarket industry.""

November 7

BULLETIN! PRE-RUN TEAMS IN BAJA!
DO NOT EAT "ROCK CRAB" FROM BAJA

*Notes continued...New Sections made for "Creating Mileage", are not improving the event.

Comments coming in from racers who have finished their first, second and third weekends of pre-running have not been kind to SCORE. LOADING>>>

November 6

*Something not discussed often about this Baja racing. SCORE never has been a purely 'adventure' race. One way to tell are the overnight plans during the race and pre-running. Hotel-motel accommodations are ALWAYS preferred. Rather than in rally racing, camping overnight, 'bivouac' accommodations are preferred. Yes, chase and pit teams are camping during the race event. But, the 'participants', or signed-up "racers", do not camp.

The racers SCORE entertains now have always been called, the "Country Clubbers".

Nowadays, the 'racers' are well-to-do spoiled types, who have multi-million dollar mansions, surrounded by assistants, maids and servants. Not to mention the teams of volunteers, who take care of chasing, pre-running and pit service. The regular guy crowds, the teams of volunteers. They volunteer because the rich guy, team 'leader' will pay for some expenses.

You will not catch a Baja "racer" (Country Clubber), camping!!!

Unless the event participant is a regular guy, on a budget, on his own. An adventure seeker. A breed of man, being eliminated by this 'new' SCORE. 

'Wealthy Glory Seekers' are the customers SCORE is seeking. All you had to do was witness Rogers wife sucking off the 'Chinese prospects' during qualifying in Vegas. Gross! 

Racing outside of SCORE will provide the new adventure seekers, their new kicks. We'll talk more about the new Baja "adventure racing" thru 2016. 



November 5

*PreRunning Ojos Negros to Catavina, Baja California

*Racers Reports

1. Plenty of opportunity for log jams in the first 80 miles. The first part of the race should be a bit more open, so luck isn't as much of a factor. If a dude stacks it up or burns out a clutch in front of you before Urapan, your whole race could be ended in the beginning.

2. It's not all fast and open down the coast like the map implies.

3. From a bit north of El Rosario to just north of Catavina is some new stuff that seems to be miles of freshly-created winding just to create mileage.

4. It seems like many of the more fun, higher speed roads we used to use on recent past events have become off-limits.

5. This course is surprising many teams. It's very tight. Not sure what it will end up looking like on race day after it's burned in, but it was not open, big desert stuff yesterday. It will take patience and discipline to finish.

6. A rally-race platform or maybe, 4x4 Justin Matney's Trophy Truck or similar vehicle will be a huge advantage on this course if it can hold together - less likely to get stuck and faster acceleration in all the tight, flat new corners. 

November 4 

*Baja 1000 race experiences from the Country Clubbers! Luke McMillin tells one of his favorites:




"Chris Olimon, my co rider and I started car #103, we took off the start line cautiously... and great, 2 turns into the race we pass #101 doing a driver change. That left 1 more class 1 car in front of us, ohh not to mention, it was JOHN HERDER in front of us! We chase him a fair distance back for a long time and as anyone who has raced class 1 against him knows, John Herder CHARGES HARD off the start! I knew I could not run a comfortable Baja 1000 pace and try and catch him, so I had to let him go. I knew we had a better fuel plan and figured we could get him in the pits...

We had a VERY interesting first 100 miles. With the talent I had in my right seat guiding me, we started to charge through dust and picking off trophy trucks (maybe hitting a couple of them a little too hard, sorry). For the first time in my racing career my co rider, Chris was actually yelling at me to “Hit him, hit him, hit him!!!”, usually he's calming me down, haha! By about mile 35 (Ojos area), to my disbelief we had passed over 15 TROPHY TRUCKS and not much later we were running 15th on the road!!! I was running about 3 minutes behind John, but was very happy with where we sat in overall track position. Keep in mind we are at mile 50 of a 1121 mile race!

FINALLY, on our way out to K77, we had some clean air, and one of my favorite roads of baja, where I knew I could rally the car hard, I wanted to utilize the clean air to close the gap on more TT's. Down a graded road I had been down a million times in my life, I thought I was doing good. This was only my second time leaving Ensenada in the class 1 car and I underestimated that the smallest dips at pre run speed can become A LOT bigger when you are doing 95MPH!! We hit a little dip doing 95MPH, straight through the shock, we SLAM bottom and STRAIGHT BACK UP ON OUR NOSE AT 95MPH!!! yeehaw! We ride the nose for about 100 yards! Hurt my co riders back and head, but he pushed through it... Time to back it down!!!! Hahaa! I thought for sure we just broke every transmission and motor mount in the car, this was NOT good! BUT the car was totally fine... down the road we went!

I knew Herder was pushing it hard, but I had to have some self control and let him run away, unfortunately for them, I passed them while they were upside down in a ditch at mile 100 area, it looked like they took a hard hit! We slowed down for them, Brian gave us the wave and off we went, 1st place in class 1 and deep into the TT's!! I kept a comfortable pace, picking off a couple more TT's before the goat trail (Salgado and Vanderway).

We finally get to our first gas stop at mile 170, we take a full tank of gas and a light bar in 20 SECONDS and off we went down the San Felipe whoops!!! After a while, my pit finally radios to us that we have a 20 MINUTE class 1 lead... That then is where I decided to back it waaay off and go for a class win rather than try and keep pace with the TT's. In order to keep up with the trucks we would have to push it through the whoops and I knew a class win was a smarter choice. Keep in mind we are driving a 9 year old buggy on 35 inch tires... keeping up with new TT's on 39 and 42 inch tires through the SF and Puertocito's whoops was just NOT going to happen. We have those stupid things called CV's!!!

We had an uneventful next couple hundred miles hanging out with TT #2, Pete. Other than the fact that our main lower light bar wasn't working... LOL
Finally I get it to 350, our next gas pit and driver change, Justin Smith and Josh Abbott would get in the car for the next few hundred miles... They did exactly what they were suppose to, they ran a steady pace without a single problem and got the car back to me in 1 piece with a bigger lead...

Chris Olimon and I get to North Loretto, where we would get back in the car to take it home the last few hundred miles. We took off into the night, into my favorite part of the entire course, North Loretto! Where a buggy would FINALLY have the advantage, really tight and twisty! We get the radio call from my dad to “Take it easy, slow down, you have over an hour lead!!” We cruise on for a few hundred mile's... We are finally getting somewhat close, and i'm starting to think, wow we are going to win this.... Nope, it's about to get good...

We leave our last gas stop, about race mile 1,000, the car is running great, we are on the home stretch! NOPE! As we go cruising down a straight away at 80MPH, the car DIES! Within 2 second, the dream baja race goes down the drain as we coast off the course!!! It takes about 10 minutes for my co driver and I to diagnose the problem. We find out it is the power to the fuel pumps, because neither of them were working... We wiggle a bunch wires up at the dash and the pump fires up for about 2 seconds. We have no idea what we did to make it work, but it is something electrical... What were we going to do, tear into the electrical? Nope, Chris figures out a way to use my parker pumper power which was luckily mounted near the fuel pumps and uses that power to fire one of the fuel pumps and off we went!

We cruised it into this finish, through a forest of cactus (my bad). We finally reach La Paz and WIN the race in class 1 by over an hour and a half! So stoked!

So many people to thank, first my Co Rider Chris Olimon, who saved the race multiple times! My co driver and his co rider, Justin and Josh, they did an awesome job, together we have won 5 out of 6 races together, including ALL 3 2012 BAJA RACES OF 2012!!!"


 Cameron Steele shared this one:

"14th position in TT, 18th overall
Cameron Steele/Josh Daniel/Mike Johnson/Mark Miller/Larry Job team drivers

Josh ran a great race and was for some time in 2nd place on corrected time. I know he used the iron horn on a few TTs and I'll let him elaborate there. Was 6th on the road at our 2nd fuel stop after starting 20th, dang he's good. Post Frog canyon he got a rear flat but I think it was because they were talking about the alternator which was being silly and going up and down like a roller coaster, call it a 5 minute stop even though Jordon is good for under 3 min but I don't know about in the dark in Frog Canyon.

LA Bay Hwy we change the alternator... in hindsight we should have just stayed on the secondary alt and hoped it made it all the way as they are really solid set ups. Keeping the spot on the course would have been good but a gamble for sure with 700 plus miles to go. The change should have been under 10 minutes but for reasons unclear to me took about 35 minutes... THEN a few miles down the pavement SOMETHING in the highway gave Josh 2 TWO flats at one time and chase had to go to him and give him tires, 15ish minutes spent.

Now about 14th on the road I'm waiting at our fuel, tire, driver change at the Yokohama Semi [Bye Bye Yoko] . Two TT drivers in my opinion need to be slapped for their driving through this zone but we’ll leave it at that. The truck feels perfect and off we go... for about 4 miles.... then she starts acting like she either didn't get fuel or got bad fuel. We were in the SOFT ZONE but had a really nice line and our truck could cough and choke her way through it but at the Tortuga road crossing we had to stop. Crew was on her way, Cody said to jump out and vent the tank with the non-dry brake filler, we did and decided to try and go, NOPE.

At VCP 40 I left the track thinking that I could take this nice graded road to the highway.... yes I think I know most roads in the Baja but I didn't know this one. Luckily a local class 8 driver named Benjamin followed us into the dead end I drove down into some fields as the truck finally died and came to a stop. I hitch hiked with him to the highway and the DA followed us in. Let's just say we were convinced it was a fuel issue since we just got fuel but after 45ish min Greg Distefano (25 year buddy and team member) goes after the spark and low and behold there is none.

I have been fighting electronics and fuel injection for years, I don't ever want to be waiting for a computer to plug into my race truck... well we had them for the 1st time so we could get fuel economy (from under 2 at full stick to almost 3) and here we were with our first crank sensor failure....

About 2.5 hours after I pulled into the dead end we were strapping back in. Truck ran basically flawless the rest of the way, great prep by the boys.

In the Loreto hills I had the pleasure of chasing down the lead 1600 car (twice, as we stopped to check something) and man was he hauling the mail. We also saw the #20 in a BAD parking spot but there was nothing we could do for them.

At Loreto we handed the truck to fellow buggy dork Larry Job (called in after Mark Post jumped to the BJ train) and dang Larry did an epic job. We had IRC text reports saying we were back to 13th and we knew we had a chance for 12th and a better starting spot at San Felipe. I got back in at the last stop and caught the 48 in the salt water.....!!!!!!! The mangroves were 2 and 3 feet deep with the ocean coming in. He turned one way and we went the other but we made it through smooth but now our beautiful truck is being eaten by salt.

Into the finish we were just behind the Herbst trucks and I was surprised to find out we were like the 16th vehicle in, with all the down time I would have thought there would be a bunch of cars in but there were only two 1 cars and one 10 car there, the rest were TTs.

14th sucks, we went to win. But the #1 goal is for safety and we did accomplish that.

The bikes, ohh man. It's tough catching so many of them and I'm guessing most all the bikes were caught by the trucks other than like 8 or 10 fast and solid teams. It's a strange thing we do but I don't see it changing so we'll just have to watch our 2 wheeled brothers. Many of them need to realize when they turn around and see us that we are going to wait until they get to a safe spot, well most of us will.

After 2 of the last three months spent in the Baja, I think I'll stay home for a few weeks before we start planning for ride in January.

To those that we lost or injured in the Baja we pray for you, your families and teams. This is terrible part of life and we hope for the best for all those involved. If the DA can help or support in any way we are all in. [Sorry you died]"

 Dan McMillin chimes in with his:

"First off, what another great finish for the entire McMillin team. 2nd Baja Race in a row (500, and 1000) that all 3 McMillin entries, Andy, Luke and I, finished in the Top 10 Overall. Could not of done it without our entire team, friends and family who come to Baja to help us get to the finish line at all costs. Never give up as Corky would say.

We started 4th off the line, but quickly went to 3rd when Pistol had a flat right out of the wash off of the start. Maybe from the dog he hit? Not sure, but bummer for Pete. One truck down. The wash off the start was slippery because of the light rain that morning, which made things interesting (Insert Car 112) but that's the nature of Baja, never know what might happen! The rain helped bring that dust down which I wasn't hoping for since I was the 3rd truck on the road, but we held our own for a while. Right around RM 65-70, BJ got around me and so did Bryce. I knew those two and Andy would be right on my tail. My plan was to take it easy for the first 120, until the Goat trail and then get jiggy with it once I hit the bottom of San Matias wash. Andy wasn't far behind me coming down the goat trail, but he would soon get around me when I went for a splash of gas at the end of the pavement. No big deal, now we are the 6th truck on the road, still a LONNGG way to go. Back on the dirt again and after the right turn along the Hwy before Borrego, Andy was changing a flat so we were back to 5th. The wash past Borrego was the first time in the race where it was truly game on; where pre running was particularly important. We stuck to our lines and we chased the dust of who I think was either Bryce, BJ or Chris Kemp, both, or all of the above, I couldn't tell, but we knew it was a freight train of trucks at that point. RM 170 was our first fuel service stop, tires and fuel. Andy got by us there again. Back to 6th. No big deal, LONG WAY TO GO. Off of Zoo road we found Andy changing another flat, so were back to 5th. Hit Puertocitos road and there was Rob Mac stopped, changing a flat I think, back to 4th (PAR). Had a smooth ride all the way to the HWY off of Puertocitos where we were 100 ft off of Kemp's bumper hitting the hwy. It was now 48 miles of black tentacles as Scam Steele likes to call them. From there we could see Kemp's and BJ's amber lights, but no sign of Bryce. Not good. But still, A LONG WAY TO GO. Back on the dirt and we ate dust all the way to Cocos and into Frog Canyon. Come to El Crucero for another full service pit and we are now the 3rd truck on the road, which had me thinking "who dropped out?" Kemp. Didn't matter, STILL A LONG WAY TO GO. Now it was Bryce, BJ and myself. Get going again and it was next stop Bay of LA. I must of passed 10-20 bikes and quads. Thankfully it rained so it made catching and passing much easier. After Bay of LA it was time to boot scoot and boogie all the way to El Arco. 100+ MPH roads all the way made that section seem to fly by. Once again, passed 15-20 bikes and quads. I don't know how some of the bike and quad guys don't see our lights or hear us RIGHT BEHIND THEM but hey, I'm not the one starting them in front of me in Ensenada! About 10 miles before El Arco, we had a mystery right rear flat. No big deal. Changed the tire, but had a little trouble with getting the jacks up. and that's when Tavo got by us. "Holy Santa Claus **** he started like 25th?!" Now the race was on. After a 5 min tire change, and it was back on the road to Vizcaino where I handed the truck off to Chuck Hovey and Cameron Parrish. At that point we were the 3rd truck on the road, 12 or so mins behind BJ and about 4-5 behind Tavo, and the rest of the train right behind us. Chuck had a good run all the way to La Paz. TSCO was able to get by Chuck in the water at around San Javier I believe, and Arciero was able to get us on corrected time after Troy was stuck in some mud at around RM 987. All in All, another great race for Chuck and I. The truck ran flawless from Mile 1 to Mile 1121. Only ONE FLAT in the entire race, That's it. Not one part was pulled out of our Chase Truck, a sign of a perfectly prepped Trophy Truck for a Baja 1000."

Baja 1000 Daily Updates Continue!
November 2, 2015
SEMA in Las Vegas Nov. 2-6
Qualifying Coverage HERE!

Start of KING of BAJA 1000 Coverage HERE! 

Written & Edited by Gary Newsome
BajaRacingNews.com