ENSENADA, Mexico — Capturing three straight wins in any sport is a challenge, but to earn a three-peat in the motorsports world in the same race is nearly unheard of, especially in desert racing. In next week’s legendary 49th annual SCORE Baja 1000, two former teammates will be looking to capture the proverbial three-peat by earning the overall victory in the toughest desert race in the world. After finishing second in 2013, winning the last two years of this iconic race as teammates were Las Vegas’ Rob MacCachren and San Diego’s Andy McMillin.
This year both will be attempting to etch his name in indelible bronze next week with a third straight victory in the SCORE Baja 1000 in Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico. Race week festivities start next Wednesday with the green flag dropping next Friday morning.
Leading a field of over 250 starters in classes for cars, trucks, motorcycles and quads including 31 in the marquee SCORE Trophy Truck division this year, the two good friends with similar driving styles and racing temperaments will find each other facing off in the cockpits of different race trucks.
The veteran All-America champion racer MacCachren, 51, will be driver of record in his own No. 11 MacCachren Motorsports Rockstar Energy Ford F-150 while the third generation champion desert racer McMillin, 29, will be driver of record in his No. 31 NexGen Fuels Ford F-150.
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MAC & MC
While Andy McMillin doesn’t have quiet the extensive history of MacCachren at 22 years his younger than his teacher, McMillin’s pedigree of mentors includes several champion SCORE Baja racers and most from his own family.
In addition to MacCachren, A. McMillin has learned from the best including the entire McMillin family of racers—his late grandfather (Corky), father (Scott), sister (Jessica), uncle (Mark), cousins (Dan and Luke) as well as former NASCAR owner/driver and SCORE Baja champion Robby Gordon. His cousins and Gordon are all on the starting grid for this race while his father will be chasing for him and his uncle will be doing the same for his two sons.
While MacCachren has three overall victories in the SCORE Baja 1000, the youthful Andy McMillin has five with three different teammates—his father Scott twice (2009, 2011), Gordon once (2006) and MacCachren the last two years.
MacCachren’s third overall in this race was in 2007 as the second driver for Mark Post meaning both MacCachren and A. McMillin has accumulated eight overall wins in the last 10 years.
ROB MAC ATTACK
With well over 200 career race wins and over 20 multiple season championships in desert racing and off-road stadium racing, the magnificent MacCachren, 51, started as a valet-parking attendant at a Las Vegas casino when he was just 16 years old.
He is a second-generation desert racer who is one of the few desert racers whose passion has afforded him the ability to own his own race team and become one of the most accomplished and respected off-road racers in the world and one of the sports few professional drivers in the truest sense of the word.
A six-time voted selection to the American Auto Racing Writers & Broadcasters Association (AARWBA) All-America team, MacCachren will be a key part of the field in the final round of the four-race 2016 SCORE World Desert Championship.
MacCachren and A. McMillin will both be forces to be reckoned with in a field of 31 desert racing superstars entered in the marquee SCORE Trophy Truck division for high-tech, 850 horsepower unlimited production trucks. MacCachren drives the No. 11 MacCachren Motorsports Rockstar Energy Ford F-150.
ENTRY UPDATE
Over 250 cars, trucks, UTVs, motorcycles and quads from 35 U.S. States and 15 countries are expected to take the green flag on Friday, Nov. 18 for this year’s 49th SCORE Baja 1000. The granddaddy of all desert races will be held Nov. 15-20 in Baja California Norte on Mexico’s majestic Baja California peninsula, starting and finishing in the seaside port of Ensenada, 65 miles south of the U.S. Border at San Diego.
So far among the car, truck and UTV classes, SCORE Trophy Truck has the most entries with 31, followed by Pro UTV FI with 21, Trophy Truck Spec with 20, Class 10 with 19, the unlimited Class 1 with 16, Pro UTV with 15 and SCORE Lites with 11 officially entered to date.
Among the motorcycle classes, the Pro Moto Ironman (solo rider) has nine entries followed by Pro Moto Unlimited class and the Pro Moto 40 (m/c riders over 40 years old) with six entries each and Pro Moto Limited with five entries so far.
In the Sportsman classes, leading the way is Sportsman Motorcycle with 13 entries to date.
SCORE COURSE ‘SUPREMO’
As it has for over four decades, SCORE has put together another agonizingly memorable race course, this one for a loop race, with all of the foreboding, unforgiving terrain that the northern state of the majestic Baja California peninsula has to offer. SCORE CEO/President Roger Norman and SCORE Race Director Jose A. Grijalva have designed and finalized this year’s SCORE Baja 1000 race course.
Starting and finishing in the heart of Ensenada in front of the historic Riviera del Pacifico Cultural Center, the course travels in a counter-clockwise direction. It includes the approximate 20 mile stretch to Ojos Negros which is used in both directions. Outgoing, the course heads south from Ojos Negros through Santo Tomas and then runs along the picturesque Pacific Ocean for over 100 miles and then back across to the center of Baja California Norte.
The approximately 854-mile course covers both sides of the peninsula and includes four checkpoints.
The race will have its normal start from Ensenada to Piedras Gordas, then out to highway 3 around Rm 20.7 and will go to Km33 and get back on the dirt. The course will go past Rancho Grijalva to El Mezcal (Rm 39.6) and head to Uruapan using La Lagrima Rd, a different road than in past years.
From Santo Tomas, the course heads to the coast of the Pacific Ocean at La Calabera and runs down nearly 100 miles to San Quintin, Nuevo Odisea and then to El Rosario. The course will travel zig zag up the well known hill La Vivora, el Arenoso, and will loop around from San Juan de Dios at approximate Rm305 to El Metate Rm 340, Los Martires Rm 363 and go back to San Quintin on the east side of the highway and run north to Col. Vicente Guerrero, Jaramillo and Colonet.
The course will travel a new route from Colonet to Llano Colorado and across to Valley de Trinidad. The race course goes along the highway from San Matias to Villa del Sol then crossing the highway at El Chinero, north to Coabuso Junction and then out to Borrego, up Highway 1 and up the goat trail to checkpoint 4 Nuevo Junction. From there it will be on to Catarina then back to Ojos Negros and from Ojos Negros back to the finish line.
The four checkpoints will be located at Santo Tomas (CP 1–race-mile 88.15), El Rosario (CP 2–rm249.92), Vicente Guerrero (CP 3–rm469.15) and Nuevo Junction (CP 4–rm751.04).