SCORE addressed the penalties of the overall first Trophy Truck finisher at the 48th Bud Light SCORE Baja 1000 desert race, as Mexico’s Carlos Apdaly Lopez received time penalties from SCORE race officials Saturday morning for two course violations. The penalties cost Lopez the overall and SCORE Trophy Truck race victory.
Lopez, who previously won this year’s 47th SCORE Baja 500 in June, received a total time penalty of 20 minutes for missing two virtual checkpoints. The penalty moved him from an unofficial victory in the iconic race to second place overall and in his class.
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With racing for cars, trucks, UTVs, motorcycles and quads, all vehicles are required to follow a designated race route by using the GPS data provided to them as well as observing the visual course markings. All vehicles in the race are equipped with data loggers that race officials review at the end of the race and announce full penalties prior to the awards ceremony the day after the race. Because of the impact of this penalty, SCORE elected to make this penalty announcement prior to the close of the race course.
This year’s Bud Light SCORE Baja 1000, starting and finishing in Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico, 65 miles South of the U.S. Border at San Diego is being run over a rugged 821.38-mile course over the magnificent state of Baja California Norte. An elapsed-time race, the race has a 33-hour time limit from the time each vehicle starts to become an official finisher of the event.
In explaining this in-progress penalty assessment, SCORE Race Director Abelardo Grijalva commented, “Because Apdaly is so popular as a prominent home-country racer we wanted to avoid any confusion among the racers, fans and over 300 news media personnel from around the world covering this race that his penalty will move him unofficially to second place overall and in SCORE Trophy Truck.”
“When all the data loggers are reviewed, as is typical in our unique motorsport, numerous time penalties will be assessed for racers missing one or more of the 95 virtual checkpoints around the course as well as time penalties for speeding on several pavement sections that were part of the official race course. We put multiple virtual checkpoints on our race courses for a variety of reasons, especially respecting the wishes of the land owners who allow us to race on their property.”
“The results of the complete race will become official Sunday morning after all the data loggers of the vehicles that finished within the time limit are reviewed prior to the race awards, which will be held Sunday morning at 10 a.m.”
Following his 20-minute penalty assessment, Lopez’ final unofficial time prior to Sunday morning’s release of the official results will be 16 hours, 14 minutes and 55 seconds. He drives the No. 5 RPM Racing Chevy Rally truck in the marquee SCORE Trophy Truck race division.
Live tracking of the race continues on the SCORE website at www.score-international.com.