Baja 1000 countdown is on – here’s why you should care.
With 250 entries from 20 countries the Baja 1000 is second only to Dakar in international off-road prominence. It is the ultimate off-road race, where excess and attitude meet impossible-to-predict terrain and stunning Pacific Ocean back-drops.
The 2015 Bud Light SCORE Baja 1000 will take a loop format, taking on 1,321 kilometres of the Baja California peninsula, a mysterious, picturesque stretch that has been pushing drivers and riders to their limits since the first timed run in 1962.
Friday at 9.30am Baja time (4.30am Saturday in Sydney) the world’s fastest off-road vehicles will launch from the start/finish line in Ensenada.
Teams have been pre-running sections of the race since October 30, committing each detail to reflex. With the unpredictability and perpetually shifting conditions on course, marred further by spectator-laid booby traps, there is no amount of pre-running that can totally prepare you for the race.
Trophy trucks are the big boy class and Toyo Tires has six horses in the trophy truck race. Among them, the two most prominent names in international off-road racing.
Squeezing the B1K in between Stadium Super Truck runs in Sydney and in the USA and a pending Dakar 2016 campaign, the great orange hope Robby Gordon starts fifth after a massive qualifying effort.
Gordon’s father was known as “Baja Bob” Gordon and Robby’s accolades at the event run deep. He was SCORE Trophy Truck season point champion in 1996 and 2009 and SCORE Baja 1000 winner in 2006, in the No. 77 Gordon Motorsports Chevy Silverado.
Off-road racing pundits Race Dezert described Gordon’s chances enthusiastically:
“Starting out in fifth place is the off-road enigma, the James Brown of off-road, the king of winging it, hands down the most entertaining driver in off-road, Mr make it or break it, Roooooooby Gooordon! If Robby is on, nobody stands a chance.”
Dropping the epic RECOIL III only 10 days prior, BJ Baldwin and 800hp truck Rampage will join Robby and are looking to reclaim the throne of his 2012-13 back-to-back victories. The only driver to ever ‘Ironman’ the race, Baldwin once remarked:
“Whenever I go down to Baja, I’m not only going down to beat my competition, but to beat them bad.”
Baldwin will start 25th due to missing qualifying, but is confident (as are most race reporters) that he will make up the places with his patent white-knuckle racing style.
“It's definitely a disadvantage, but I believe we can make it up on race day.
“It looks to be a short Baja 1000; it will probably only take 16 hours for the first truck to finish the 840 mile loop back to Ensenada.”
What tyres will these heroes of off-road lore, these myths of flying dust and thumping V8s employ for this, the most challenging of desert races? Toyo’s Open Country M/T-R, of course.
Good luck and godspeed. Stay tuned to Toyo’s Facebook for updates.
