SCORE-Baja-1000-49th-9-12-16ENSENADA, Mexico — While deservedly grabbing the majority of the headlines will be the battle in the marquee SCORE Trophy Truck division for 850-horsepower high-tech, unlimited production trucks, this week’s internationally-televised iconic 49th annual SCORE Baja 1000 desert race will also include everyman racers from across the U.S. and around the world along with nearly two dozen cross-over racers from other motorsports disciplines as well as business leaders and entertainers.

Season finale of the four-race 2016 SCORE World Desert Championship, this year’s competition will be a loop race, starting and finishing in Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico, 65 miles south of the U.S. Border at San Diego.

Season class point titles as well as the SCORE Overall point championship of the 2016 SCORE World Desert Championship will be decided in multiple classes for cars, trucks, utvs, motorcycles and quads. In all, this year’s talented field includes 82 racers who have combined for 292 class wins in the legendary Granddaddy of all Desert Races.  Included in that total are 12 racers who have combined for 29 overall race wins in either four-wheel or two-wheel categories. There is also at least one racer who won an overall title in each of the last 10 years.

GREEN FLAG
Like so many other past years the iconic race is helping celebrate the 106th anniversary of the Mexican Revolution. Motorcycle and Quad classes will leave the start line, one vehicle at a time in the elapsed-time race, starting at 6 a.m. PT Friday with the car and truck classes beginning their odyssey starting at 10:30 a.m. PT Friday in a similar single-file procession into the majestic mysterious and foreboding northern portion of Mexico’s spectacular Baja California Peninsula.

With pre-running in its final days on the 854.50-mile race course, nearly 275 entries, from 32 U.S. States and 17 countries racing in Pro and Sportsman classes for cars, trucks, UTVs, motorcycles and quads are expected to take the green flag.  While the fastest vehicles in the elapsed-time race are expected to finish in around 17 hours, all vehicles will have a 36 hour time limit from the time each started to become an official finisher in the epic event.

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BEGINNING TO END
This year’s race will start for the 42nd time and finish for the 24th time in Ensenada. The start line and finish line will once again be adjacent to the iconic Riviera del Pacifico Cultural Center in the heart of Ensenada and the first and last several spectator-friendly miles running up and back down the Ensenada Arroyo.

PRE-GREEN
The race week festivities will be held today through Sunday, with the race and all side events starting and finishing in Ensenada.

Pre-race festivities on Thursday for the SCORE Baja 1000, including the vastly popular tech and contingency of all vehicles and the SCORE Manufacturer’s Midway will be held from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. PT on Boulevard Costero in front of the Riviera del Pacifico Cultural Center.  The pre-race mandatory driver/rider briefing will also be held on Thursday  at 7 p.m. PT in the Cathedral Room at the Riviera del Pacifico Cultural Center.

Racer registration will be held in the Red Room at the Riviera del Pacifico Cultural Center in Ensenada. Racer registration will be held from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. PT on Tuesday, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. PT on Wednesday and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. PT on Thursday.

Media registration will be held as well in the Red Room at the Riviera from 1 p.m. until 6 p.m. PT on Wednesday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. PT on Thursday and the BFGoodrich Tires/Baja California Secretary of Tourism SCORE Media Center will be open on Friday at 5:30 a.m. PT until the course closes at approximately 12:30 a.m. PT on Sunday  and will re-open on Sunday from 8 a.m. until Noon PT.

Two special Monster Energy parties will be held before the race starts. On Wednesday from 7 p.m. to Midnight PT at the Riviera del Pacifico Cultural center will be the SCORE Baja 1000 Goes Green Monster Energy Party for racers and SCORE staff. On Thursday, the night before the start of the race, the Monster Energy SCORE Papas & Beer Fan Fest Street Party will be held on Avenida Ruiz in front of Papas & Beer from 8 p.m. to midnight PT.
GLOBAL INTEREST

In addition to the 32 States represented on the entry list to date, racers have officially entered from 18 countries.  In addition to the United States, entries so far have come from Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, China, Costa Rica, England, Finland, France, Germany, Guatemala, Japan, Lithuania, Mexico, New Zealand, Thailand, Venezuela and the US Territory of Guam.

POST GREEN
As the celebration continues all-night on Friday, all day and evening on Saturday while official finishers cross the line and tales are added to the legacy of the event, the post-race awards fiesta will be held in the Cathedral Room at the Riviera starting at 10 a.m. PT on Sunday.

SCORE COURSE ‘SUPREMO’
As it has for over four decades, SCORE has put together another agonizingly memorable race course, this one for a loop race, with all of the foreboding, unforgiving terrain that the northern state of the majestic Baja California peninsula has to offer. SCORE CEO/President Roger Norman and SCORE Race Director Jose A. Grijalva have designed and finalized this year’s SCORE Baja 1000 race course.

Starting and finishing in the heart of Ensenada in front of the historic Riviera del Pacifico Cultural Center, the course travels in a counter-clockwise direction. It includes the approximate 20 mile stretch to Ojos Negros which is used in both directions. Outgoing, the course heads south from Ojos Negros through Santo Tomas and then runs along the picturesque Pacific Ocean for over 100 miles and then back across to the center of Baja California Norte.

The 854.50-mile course covers both sides of the peninsula and includes four checkpoints and 122 viritual checkpoints. There are also a total of 14 speed zone restriction areas for a total of approximately 115 race miles.

The race will have its normal start from Ensenada to Piedras Gordas, then out to highway 3 around Rm 20.7 and will go to Km33 and get back on the dirt. The course will go past Rancho Grijalva to El Mezcal (Rm 39.6) and head to Uruapan using La Lagrima Rd, a different road than in past years.

From Santo Tomas, the course heads to the coast of the Pacific Ocean at La Calabera and runs down nearly 100 miles to San Quintin, Nuevo Odisea and then to El Rosario. The course will travel zig zag up the well known hill La Vivora, el Arenoso, and will loop around from San Juan de Dios at approximate Rm305 to El Metate Rm 340, Los Martires Rm 363 and go back to San Quintin on the east side of the highway and run north to Col. Vicente Guerrero, Jaramillo and Colonet.

The course will travel a new route from Colonet to Llano Colorado and across to Valley de Trinidad. The race course goes along the highway from San Matias to Villa del Sol then crossing the highway at El Chinero, north to Coabuso Junction and then out to Borrego, up Highway 1 and up the goat trail to checkpoint 4 Nuevo Junction. From there it will be on to Catarina then back to Ojos Negros and from Ojos Negros back to the finish line.

The four checkpoints will be located at Santo Tomas (CP 1–race-mile 88.15), El Rosario (CP 2–rm249.92), Vicente Guerrero (CP 3–rm469.15) and Nuevo Junction (CP 4–rm751.04).

HALL-MARKS
This year’s race will again commemorate the achievements of legendary desert racers like Rod Hall, Ron Bishop, Johnny Johnson, and Larry Roeseler. Hall, who will turn 79 on Nov. 22, has a record 23 class wins (including one overall win in 1972), and is the only racer who has competed in all 48 SCORE Baja 1000 races. Bishop, who passed away in 2014, was the only racer who competed in the first 40 SCORE Baja 1000 races all on a motorcycle.

Hall will be racing this year in the Stock Full class with his son Chad Hall as he attempts to add to his untouchable legacy.

Roeseler, has won 17 times in this race, including 13 overall wins (10 on a motorcycle). Roeseler will share driving duties this year in SCORE Trophy Truck with Andy McMillin (five class wins, four overalls in this race) in the No. 31 NexGen Fuels Ford F-150. Roeseler won the unlimited Class 1 for four consecutive years (2004-2007), driving with the youngest of the three racing brothers, Troy Herbst, in the Smithbuilt-Ford open-wheel desert race car that was known as the ‘Land Shark’. Roeseler is the only racer in the history of the event to win the overall 4-wheel in a truck and also in a car as well as the overall 2-wheel title as well.

In 2008, Roeseler split the driving with driver of record and team owner and now SCORE owner Roger Norman when they were the overall 4-wheel and SCORE Trophy Truck champions and the pair was second in 2009. In 2010, Roger Norman drove solo the length of the peninsula and finished third overall.

Retired from racing, Johnson had 15 class wins in the SCORE Baja 1000, amazingly in eight different classes.

TIGHT POINTS
Several classes enter the 49th Baja 1000 with very tight title point’s races for the SCORE season championship in each class. Classes that seem to have the closest battles for the 2016 championships are SCORE Trophy Truck, Class 1, Trophy Truck Spec, Class 10, Class 7, Pro UTV FI and Pro Moto 40.

Billy Wilson has a six-point edge over Carlos ‘Apdaly’ Lopez and 24 points over Gary Magness in SCORE Trophy Truck.  In Class 1, a three-way battle looms between Brad Wilson, Long Beach, Calif. (211 points, No. 153 Jimco-Chevy), Jaime Huerta Jr, San Luis Rio Colorado, Mexico (206, No. 175 Racer-Chevy) and Brad Wilson’s uncle Ronny Wilson, Long Beach, Calif. (196, No. 138 Jimco-Chevy).

In Trophy Truck Spec, Chad Broughton, Scotts Valley, Calif. leads with 223 points (No. 202 BajaLite-Chevy) followed closely by Elias Hanna, Ensenada, Mexico (216, No. 274 Chevy 1500) and Gonzalo Pirron, Quartz Hill, Calif. (203 No. 252 Chevy Silverado) while in Class 10 things are even closer with father/son leaders Todd and Matt Winslow, Clovis, Calif. (242, No. 1081 Alumi Craft-Chevy) followed by Rafael Navarro IV, Temecula, Calif. (239, No. 1009 Alumi Craft Chevy) and Sergio Salgado, Mexicali, Mexico a distant third (219, No. 1088, Jimco-Honda).

In Class 7, Dan Chamlee, Summerland, Calif. (152, No. 700 Ford Ranger) leads JT Holmes, Reno, Nev. (Ford Ranger) by just five points (147) while in Pro UTV FI Marc Burnett, Lakeside, Calif. leads (213, No. 2905 Polaris RZR XP1000Turbo) with Mike Cafro, Fallbrook, Calif. second (200, No. 2975 Polaris RZR XP1000) and Derek Murray, Eastvale, Calif.  third (191, No. 2917 Can-Am Maverick Max).

The closest point’s race in the motorcycle classes is in Pro Moto 40 for riders over 40 years old. Jano Montoya, Winter Garden, Fla. (208, No. 404x KTM 450XCW) has a four-point lead over Mike Johnson, El Paso, Texas (204, No. 455x Honda CRF450X) and an eight point lead over Colie Potter, Las Vegas (200, No. 400x Honda CRF450X).

For more information regarding SCORE, visit the official website of the SCORE World Desert Championship at www.SCORE-International.com.