Historic Motorcycle Victory

Just after 7 p.m., Johnny Campbell crossed the finish line in Ensenada, Mexico, and put an exclamation point on his prolific Baja career by earning his 11th Overall Motorcycle victory at the 41st Tecate SCORE Baja 1000. Campbell passed Larry Roeseler on the all-time Baja 1000 motorcycle winner’s list, as the two legendary racers were tied at 10 each entering today’s race.

When asked about breaking Roeseler’s record, Campbell mused about his historic win. “Larry’s record? That’s the old record – I just set a new one,” he said.

Campbell’s teammate Robby Bell took the Johnny Campbell Racing 1x Honda CRF450X off the start line this morning just after 6:30 a.m. as the seventh bike off the line. Bell handed the bike over to Kendall Norman for the middle section of the 631-mile course, and he managed to regain the lead Bell once had before he injured his wrist.

“The 2x had a big lead, a couple minutes, by about mile 120,” Campbell said. “Then at the bottom of La Rumarosa, Robby [Bell] hit a rock and sprained his wrist, and he actually dropped behind 10x when he came in at mile 147. Kendall got on and passed 10x after 10x had a tipover, and then he passed 2x. Pretty much when I got the bike in San Felipe, I had a 10-minute lead, so I just had to maintain it.”

Campbell took over the bike at mile 453, and by the time he reached BFGoodrich’s pit stop at mile marker 491, he had extended the lead to about 12 minutes over fellow JCR teammates on the 10x bike of Caleb Gosselaar, Timmy Weigand and Quinn Cody. Campbell then never looked back, as he rode the CRF450X to the finish line with an unofficial time of 12 hours, 29 minutes and 10 seconds, which was 26 minutes and 25 seconds ahead of his JCR teammates on the 10x Honda. 

The victory today is also the 19th overall win for Honda. As for Campbell’s co-riders, the win marked Bell’s second overall and Norman’s third.