Kendall Norman, Quinn Cody Earn 2010 SCORE Baja 1000 Motorcycle Victory

Kendall Norman crossed the finish line on the 1x JCR Honda without another motorcycle within two hours of the team. He and teammate Quinn Cody earned the victory with an overall unofficial time of 19 hours, 20 minutes and 52 seconds, with an average speed of 54.874 mph. 

“With the fog and stuff and some of the other elements of Baja, man, it was crazy,” Norman said at the finish line, noting that his last few hours of racing were very challenging due to the weather.

Kendall started the race off the finish line in Ensenada and battled early on with the KTM team and JCR teammates on the 8x bike. Kendall rode until about race mile 340 where Cody took over and rode to race mile 743.

“It went pretty well,” Cody said after the race. “Kendall just rode a clean ride this morning for the first stint and brought me the bike in the lead.

“I had a relatively clean ride. I got one flat tire just a couple miles from the asphalt in Viscayno, but we had a guy there with wheels, so we changed the rear wheel there and had a fresh tire and it was pretty clean after that. The course was really fast this year. Not quiet maybe as technical as it has been in the past, but it was good. It was a fun course.”

Norman took over at race mile 743 and rode until the finish line in La Paz. Although there was a high number of entries overall in the 2010 SCORE Baja 1000, the professional dirt bike class was low on race entires this year. Only 11 teams lined up at the starting line in Ensenada will hopes of making it to La Paz after traversing the rough and rugged 1061.69-mile course.

Aside from their teammates on the 8x bike, the stiffest competition for Norman and Cody was the Bonanza Plumbing/FMF/KTM team on the 7x KTM 530XCW. The five-man team – which featured FMF/KTM factory rider and 2007 Hare & Hound National Champion David Pearson, multi-time Baja Champions Steve Hengeveld, Mike Childress, Shane Esposito and the youngest member of the team, Ivan Ramirez, who was hoping to be the first Mexican national to stand atop the podium for the Baja 1000.

Norman said the KTM actually passed them at one point early in the race while he was pitting, though he was able to regain the lead when they put. The 7x KTM bike was running physically in the second position only about a minute behind the 1x bike at race mile 200. Unfortunately, only a few miles after Pearson jumped on the bike after Ramirez ran the first leg, the engine blew up, dashing the team’s hopes of winning, let alone completing, the race.

The unfortunate news in the class was related to the JCR Honda team on the 8x Honda CRF450X. The team, piloted by Colton Udall, Timmy Weigand and Justin Imhoff, was running in second place behind the 1x bike after the KTM’s motor blew. Unfortunately Imhoff had an accident near race mile 784. He was reportedly knocked unconscious and was later taken to the hospital with a concussion and a broken arm. Due to the rough and rocky area, it took some time for medical vehicles to get on the scene. The team was leading the points in the class and simply needed to finish in second behind the 1x bike of its teammates to earn the Season Championship in Class 22. We'll update the situation when we have more information.