BFGoodrich Performance Team member Rob MacCachren fought the grueling conditions of the 854-mile course to make history in claiming his third consecutive SCORE Baja 1000 overall win. MacCachren joined forces with Jason Voss, who also partnered with MacCachren for the 2014 SCORE Baja 100 win, to bolster a team that took the win by nearly 27 minutes. The win culminates a year of recognition of 40 years of SCORE Baja racing for BFGoodrich Tires and marks the company’s 28th overall Baja 1000 win and 87th win on the Baja peninsula.
BFGoodrich placed seven of the top 10 overall finishers at this iconic off-road race and secured 14 class titles. As the final race of the SCORE season, the Baja 1000 determined many classes’ season championships, including the overall Desert World Championship crown. Additionally, nine different iterations of BFGoodrich Tires claimed class wins at the race.
A very tight battle in the Trophy Truck class had MacCachren chasing down leaders Mark Post/Kyle LeDuc, Justin Matney/Ricky Johnson and Robby Gordon. Once MacCachren hunted those trucks down he handed the truck to co-driver Voss at mile 498, who extended the lead and was never challenged on the race course.
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MacCachren becomes just the second driver (Larry Ragland) to win three consecutive SCORE Baja 1000 overall titles. He is also the all-time winningest racer in the SCORE International Trophy Truck class with 14 class wins.
In Class 1, the Wilson team of Ronnie, Brian and Randy ran away from the field midway through the race and took his Jimco-Chevy across the finish line 12 minutes ahead of the next finisher and helped BFGoodrich to a class podium sweep. The Wilson entry was one of many that declared zero flat tires on their run and were running on the BFGoodrich All-Terrain KDR2, the tire of choice for many entries in the upcoming 2017 Dakar Rally. Once again, BFGoodrich demonstrated its commitment to using Baja desert racing as a proving ground for its tires.
“This was a special year for BFGoodrich Tires as we recognized four decades of desert racing in Baja and the development of the radial all-terrain tire that changed the industry,” said Chris Baker, motorsports director, Michelin North America and BFGoodrich. “We are proud to celebrate continued success with our 28th overall Baja 1000 win and are thrilled to be a part of the greatness that Rob MacCachren and his team have achieved. We congratulate them for their third consecutive win at this race.
“We haven’t rested on our success. Another SCORE Baja race season has driven additional innovation in our race tires. We’ve continued testing and proving that our desert race tires are unmatched and our partner racers are among the most talented in the industry, creating a performance team second to none.
After several years of remarkable success with our Baja T/A®KR2 race tire (24 overall race wins in the desert) we’ve continued to challenge ourselves to provide ongoing tire performance improvements for our racers. We are very pleased with the performance of the latest version of our desert race tire, the Baja T/A®KR3 in this race. And several may have noticed that we also debuted our next generation mud-terrain tire here in prototype form as we continue to refine the design for its upcoming commercial launch both of which continued a tradition with our brand, sustaining the brutal demands of proving itself in the Baja peninsula, added Baker.
BFGoodrich’s Performance Team, featuring championship-caliber racers, overcame a few vehicle issues and a virus that ran rampant through the entire team and demonstrated their persistence and guts to capture their second consecutive Baja 1000 Baja Challenge (BC) class win in just over 28 hours.
With two teams entered, BFGoodrich teams finished first and second in the class. The team led by captain Bill Weber relied on seasoned drivers Lance Clifford, Mike Johnson, Larry McRae, Rich Minga and joined by BFGoodrich engineer Jay Jakupca.
The second team came in roughly an hour later and was filled by past Baja 1000 champions including Bob Bower, Brad Lovell, Andrew Comrie-Picard, Kyle Tucker, Brian Finch and John Williams.
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