At the front of the pack, Brian Collins, driving slowly and carefully, brought his Chevy Silverado Trophy Truck to Larry Ragland, a racer who’s already earned five wins at the 500 (three of them overalls). Using his exceptional Baja skills, Ragland completed the run in first place for the 4-wheeled vehicles, finishing the 424 mile race after 9 hours and 36 minutes. Their average speed was 44.13 mph. Hawaiian Alan Pflueger, in another Chevy, was second, eight minutes later. He drove the entire distance. Defending champion, Robby Gordon and his co-driver, Andy McMillin, were first on the road and looking good when a fire on board brought their effort to a temporary halt. The fire was extinguished, repairs were made and McMillin finished the race while Gordon flew back east to drive in a NASCAR event. But they were a disappointing 11th in the Trophy Truck standings. The Trophy Trucks were the stars of this race, earning seven of the first ten overall positions.

In Class 1 the team of Larry Roeseler and Troy Herbst, in the Ford powered Smithbuilt Truggy took the win in spite of shifting problems. They had 14 minutes on Dale Ebberts who soloed in his Toyota powered Jimco. Last year’s Class 1 champion team, Mark McMillin and Brian Ewalt, drove their Jimco to third.

Lobsam Yee, in a Honda powered Jimco Class 10 car, had a good day going and was as high as fifth overall on the tight, technical course, but got stuck on a boulder and lost his lead. Darren Hardesty, in a VW powered Alumicraft, took the Class 10 win, placing 11th overall, 40 minutes in front of Yee.

SCORE Lite cars fielded a bigger entry than has been seen in years, with 32 starters. Tim Noe and Tommy Watson said their only problems were bottlenecks and one brief episode when they were stuck in a rut after Uruapan. The Reinertson/Johnson Protruck pulled them out, and Watson and Noe went on to win.

The 1-2/1600 cars showed up 29 strong, and Gerardo Iribe, in a Curry-ISRT drove all the way to the win. He was stuck only once, and finished 15 minutes in front of Caleb Gaddis, last year’s overall SCORE points champion, in another Curry, who also drove all the way. He survived a rollover.

In addition to the silt bed traffic jam near Ojos Negros, there was also a huge mud lake that caught many competitors unaware, since it hadn’t been there during the prerun. Mark Miller rolled his Trophy Truck, and others had to be helped out of the quagmire. The locals who’d flooded the area were apparently playing good Samaritans and pulling the stuck cars out.

Fog started to roll into the beach area early in the afternoon. Early enough that even Ragland, who was first on the road, had to slow a bit because of it. Later racers reported that they were blinded by a miserable combination of fog on their visors, which then caused the dust to stick. They couldn’t get their visors clean; so many drivers covered a lot of miles with their visors lifted, and their eyes exposed to the irritating dust.

Another recurring problem for the racers was finding their way from Ojos Negros to the finish line. It’s a distance of only 30 miles, but at night it was hard to pick out the correct dirt road from a myriad of choices. The markers had disappeared, and racers had to rely on spectators to point them in the right direction. Most of the time they were helpful, but once or twice the spectators showed a mean streak and indicated the wrong way. Some racers flailed around in the outskirts of Ensenada for an hour or more, trying to find their way around a new housing development.

When all was said and done, most of the racers liked the course. They described it as fun and challenging. To quote Larry Ragland, “Wonderful course, tough course – you could actually pass – challenging and real fun.”

-end-

Photos by Pat Chicas and Mike Hobbs