The JCR Team of Kendall Norman (left), Timmy Weigand (middle) and Quinn Cody (right) earned the overall victory at the 2009 Tecate SCORE Baja 1000.

The Johnny Campbell Racing team of Kendall Norman, Timmy Weigand and Quinn Cody earned the overall motorcycle win at the 2009 SCORE Baja 1000 aboard their Honda CRF450x. It was the 1x Kawasaki bike of Robby Bell, Steve Hengeveld (who rode across the finish line), Ryan Penhall and Connor Penhall that actually crossed the finish line in first after holding the victory for much of the day, but Norman and the JCR team were able to catch them toward the end of the race to earn the win.  

Norman rode the 12x bike across the finish line shortly after Hengeveld, and the Kawasaki team knew that they probably didn’t have enough of a gap on corrected time. SCORE officials handed us the corrected time showing that Norman and the JCR team won the race over the Kawasaki-Monster effort by 1 minute and 57 seconds. This is unofficial until the tracking data is reviewed, but it looks like Honda earned another Baja 1000 victory, and this is the closest time between two rival brands since the ‘90s.

“It went really good,” Norman said at the finish line. “I did the start and rode to race mile 200, which is Borrego, and I started 12th and it was super dusty. It took forever to actually punch through some of the other riders, and by the time I got out into clear air, the Kawi was gone. When I handed the bike off to my partner Quinn Cody in Borrego, we were probably like 10 minutes down, but they caught back up, and when Timmy Weigand handed me the bike at the meadow it was on; [we] were a minute and a half down and I just kept it there to the finish.”

Steve Hengeveld rode the 1x Kawasaki KX450F across the finish line first, but on corrected time it was not enough to earn the overall victory.

The Kawasaki Monster team, which was assembled by two-time World Speedway Champion Bruce Penhall, led for the majority of the race. Unfortunately, rider of record Robby Bell had a bad crash around race mile 417 that bent the handlebars and required a replacement exhaust system.

“Early in the day we were pulling away,” Hengeveld said after the race. “We had one big crash. Robby Bell crashed real hard, bent the bike up real bad, and we lost about 5 or 6 minutes. Actually, earlier than that, we had about a 10 minute lead and Ryan Penhall messed up in the Matomi Wash, and they sucked us back up, and Robby got on and kind of gapped it back to about 8 minutes again and then he crashed really hard, so it was back to about three minutes. It just was back and forth, and we me and Kendall got on at [race mile] 500, and it was 20 seconds apart just like we finished. It was just hold it wide open the whole way – sprint race home, that’s for sure.”

Norman didn’t know exactly where the team was at on corrected time, but he knew if he stayed close they had a good chance to win.

“I was honestly just riding, just in the dust the entire time,” Norman said. “I knew staying in the dust I was going to be fine. I knew for sure I was close enough.”

Close enough was good enough for the JCR team. Unless there are any penalties looming from the tracking data (which was the big story in almost every class at the Baja 500 earlier this year), Honda wrapped up its 13th Baja 1000 victory.