If his qualifying win was any indicator, Robby Gordon showed up at the 2013 Tecate SCORE Baja 500 focused to earn his second win at the 45th running of the race. Thats exactly what he did when he pulled away from the Trophy Truck field to earn the victory in the Trophy Truck class at the 2013 SCORE Baja 500.
It was a good day. The guys did a great job prepping the car it ran all day long, Gordon said. The pit stops were awesome, awesome pit stops.
Earlier in the day, the JCR Honda 1x team of Timmy Weigand, Colton Udall and David Kamo crossed the finish line to earn the motorcycle win and also the overall victory at the 500 with a time of 9:46:50, just under 20 minutes faster than Gordons time of 10:05:43. The JCR Honda team cruised to victory after the 2x KTM team of Kurt Caselli (who finished second) and the defending Baja 500 winners on the 4x Kawasaki of Robby Bell had crashes during the race.
I was really worried about the silt at the finish, Udall said about his final stretch of the race after taking the bike from Weigand to finish out the race. I had more fun because we just had a 20-minute lead. Im stoked. This is by far the best Baja 500 Ive ever had.
CHECK OUT A FINISH LINE VIDEO WITH COLTON UDALL
For the Trophy Truck class that left the line in Ensenada over four hours later than the bikes, an area of the wash flooded by a broken water main nearly took out Gordons #77 Speed Energy Chevy at the start of the race.
We started out front and I spun out about three miles down from the wash at the start line, and Voss got in front me, he said. You know, the wash was gnarly. I didnt anticipate the water being like that and they didnt give us heads up that it was going to be two foot deep of water and Im lucky that I didnt kill anybody. It was big.
Although a handful of racers made efforts to get past Gordon a few even did, such as Bryce Menzies only a few were able to stay with his pace for the duration. BJ Baldwin was one such driver that gave Gordon a run for his money until late in the race, but a brake problem cost him a shot at the win and he had to settle for second place.
Theres a bolt that holds the brake pedal into the brake lines which controls obviously how the car stops, and it broke in half. So we had to hammer it back in. I had to drive 20 miles just with the [brake] handle, BJ explained, noting that it occurred late in the race just before Santo Thomas. I limped in. I had to hold my foot on the brake for 60 miles just to make sure if I put pressure on [the pedal] it wouldnt come out. I wasnt super confident on diving into corners like I normally do. I was unable to make up the time because everything had to be perfect to do my thing and become a beast in this thing.
Obviously it was at the end of the day and Im tired. We have a break issue that may or may not fail at any moment, so going through Uruapan and going through the finish if we would have had that thing break we would have gotten seriously hurt. I got kids now I cant take that chance.
Baldwin felt the issue cost him the race, which was a tough pill to swallow considering he was on the home stretch.
We had Robby covered by a minute and 15 seconds all day. We were the only ones that showed up to the party. Everybody else was 5, 6, 7 minutes back, and then there was another group that was 15 minutes back.
Bryce Menzies was in the hunt for the win but just off the pace toward the end of the race, as the previous back-to-back winner had to settle for third. A mechanical issue also cost him a shot at a three-peat win.
We started third and our plan was to get to Borrego clean and be the first truck out of Borrego clean, Menzies said. It was looking really good. We got to mile 170 and I got around Robby so we became first truck on the road. We knew from there it was dusty and silty and we could take it home if we didnt have any problems. About 10 miles after we got first truck on the road we had a power steering line break and we lost powering steering, so me and Pete jumped out and changed it on the course. It took a while and we were ninth after that and we sat in dust the rest of the day and made it here to the finish in third. Well be back next year to try and get another win out of it.
The fourth truck to cross the finish line in Ensenada was the #19 Monster Energy Ford of Tim Herbst and Larry Roeseler, who finished in fourth place with a time of 10:31:49. Earning fifth place with a time of 10:36:38 was the #98 TSCO Ford of Gary Weyhrich.
Earning the victory in Class 1 was the Speedy Energy Chevy-powerd Geiser of Justin Matney, who finished with a time of 11 hours, 16 minutes and 25 seconds. In second place with a time of 11:22:29 was Corey Keysar, and rounding out the podium for Class 1 was Ronny Wilson with a time of 11:29:30.
MORE BAJA 500
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Robby Gordon Wins First-Ever SCORE Qualifying in Baja
45th SCORE Tecate Baja 500 Results
Trophy Truck
1. Robby Gordon 10:05:43
2.BJ Baldwin 10:14:52
3.Bryce Menzies 10:22:20
4. Tim Herbst 10:31:49
5.Gary Weyhrich 10:36:38
6. Steven Eugenio 10:44:22
7. Rob MacCachren 10:49:04
8. Juan Carlos Lopez 10:51:29
9. Justin Davis 11:04:24
10. Tory Herbst 11:09:21
11. Dan McMillin 11:19:04
12. Gustavo Vildosoloa 11:31:35
13. Mark Weyhrich 11:57:52
14. Jay Reichert 12:16:12
15. Heidi Steele 12:56:17
Class 1
1. Justin Matney 11:16:25
2. Corey Keysar 11:22:29
3. Ronny Wilson 11:29:30
4. Cody Parkhouse 11:35:35
5. Hiram Duran 12:18:27
6. Lyle Bask 14:10:45
7. Erick Jacobs 14:32:33
8. Ryan Sharman 15:39:54
9. Todd Tuls 15:56:38
Class 1/2 1600
1. Ernesto Arambula 12:53:50
2. Jose Robles 13:09:07
3. Jesus Velez 14:31:23
4. Jose David Ruvalcaba 14:37:37
5. Jorge Sampietro 14:48:14
6. Robert Rabago 15:30:02
7. Christian Celaya 16:50:22
8. Francisco Escareno 16:59:54
9. Eliseo Garcia 17:51:54
10.Marco Bernaldez 19:06:51
Class 3
1. Donald Moss 18:56:14
Class 5
1. Cody Kellogg 17:42:33
2. Kevin Carr 18:41:50
3. Jose Lopez 20:32:20
Class 5 1600-Limited
1. Clyde Stacy 19:04:58
2. Miguel Rosales 21:05:16
Class 7
1. Arturo Alvarez 15:09:43
2. Dan Chamlee 19:32:36
3. Javier Manzo 21:07:41
Class 7200
1.David Boynton 14:16:17
2. Jonathan Brenthal 14:26:18
Class 7SX
1. Elias Hanna 16:01:10
2. James Burman 20:35:32
3. Eduardo Gonzalez 21:50:09
4. Alonso Gonzalez 21:59:34
Class 8
1.Derek Fletcher 17:52:28
2. Rick Sanchez 17:59:31
Class 10
1. Mike Johnson 11:33:19
2. Brad Wilson 12:14:56
3. Kash Vessels 12:49:13
4. Todd Winslow 12:53:29
5. Alejandro Mendez 13:02:59
6. Mike Lawrence 13:07:15
7. Peter Hajas 13:43:56
8. Andrew Myers 13:56:46
9. Juan Garcia 14:23:48
10. J.J. Schnarr 14:23:48
Class 12
1.Rafael Navarro 12:58:54
2. Leonardo Rayos 13:51:06
3. Robreto Anda 15:08:57
4. Luis Barragan 16:37:59
5. Michael Crichton 19:55:28
Class 11
1. Rene Rodriguez 23:10:47
Pro Truck
1. Chelsea Magness 18:01:09
Trophy Truck Special
1. Clyde Stacy 13:34:40
2. Nick Mills 21:26:03
Stock Full
1. Joe Bacal 19:56:52
Lim. UTV
1. Matt Parks 17:49:36
2. Cory Sappington
Class 22
1. Timmy Weigand 9:46:50
2. Kurt Caselli 10:12:09
3. Kendall Norman 10:35:56
4. AJ Stewart 11:05:33
5. Robby Bell 11:15:26
Class 21
1. Adam Neuwirth 12:12:20
2. Jim ONeal 12:16:51
3. Carlos Valenzuela 12:52:42
4. Roberto Gomez 12:56:38
5. Francisco Teran 14:47:53
Class 20
1. Chad Broughton 12:59:04
2. Mark Bradford 13:34:13
Class 30
1. Francisco Arredondo 11:11:30
2. Mike Johnson 11:44:47
3. Jay Rabjohn 12:32:45
4. Cliff Cook 12:50:11
5. Ryan Gutile 13:01:32
Class 40
1. Mike Prunty 12:51:02
2. Giovanni Spinali 13:11:03
3. Darren Griffiths 13:38:05
4. Hironobu Tabata 13:57:07
5. Oscar Fazz 15:18:37
Class 50
1. Mark Prince 13:11:25
2. Tomohiro Murakami 14:20:45
Class 25
1. Javier Robles Jr.
2. Adolfo Arellano 12:22:41
3. Felipe Velez 13:24:19
Class 24
1. Thomas Wright 13:11:45
2. Rafael Lopez Torrez 13:45:37
3. Said Sanchez 14:18:18
4. Shawn Robins 14:57:25
5. Alejandro Avalos 16:05:52
Sportsman 1500 Unl. Buggy
1. Jorge Valdes 17:34:04
2. Jeff Cepeilik 18:48:27
MC 450 or less Sportsman
1. Mark Winkelman 10:12:57
2. Marc Jenkins 11:01:50
3. Carlos Silva 11:43:52
4. Christian Espinoza 11:46:26
5. Oscar Gutierrez 12:01:48
MC 450 or Over Sportsman
1. Servando Cazares 10:15:43
2. Julio Gaspar Leon 10:15:45
3. Perez Legaspy 10:29:32
4. Adrian Esparza 10:37:26
5. Fernando Beltran 10:59:23
ATV Sportsman
1. Martin Munoz 12:00:48
2. Richard Epperson 12:21:12
3. Marcos Zepeda 12:46:12
4. Adam Parks 12:57:00
5. Eric Dwiggins 13:10:12
6. John Nores Jr. 15:22:10