This year, off-road racers will do battle on a 542.12-mile brute of a course in the Baja 500. Hall of Famer Rob MacCachren is set to lead the pack from the green flag in a SCORE Trophy Truck to start the event’s 4-wheel segment.

Over three hundred entries have signed up from thirty-two U.S. states and places far flung as Italy and Finland. The Baja 500 is round two of the four-race 2018 SCORE World Desert Championship and will be held this Tuesday through Sunday (May 29-June 3). The internationally televised race will start and finish in Ensenada, located 80 miles south of San Diego.

READ MORE: Everything You Need to Know About the 50th Baja 500

Prior to the start of the 2018 season, SCORE announced that the finishing order from the San Felipe 250 race held in April would determine the start order for the Baja 500, at least for those who entered the Baja before the calendar deadline. Separate drawings were held for entries that didn’t finish in San Felipe, plus another start draw for any entries that didn’t race in San Felipe.

After winning the season-opener for his 16th career SCORE Trophy Truck win, MacCachren will start his No. 11 Rockstar Energy MacCachren Motorsports Ford F-250 on the pole. Based on the finishing order in San Felipe, Cameron Steele will follow MacCachren into the Baja desert in the No. 16 Monster Energy Desert Assassins Chevy Silverado.

Third off the line will be Luke McMillin, with Andy McMillin just behind in fourth. Starting fifth will be Ryan Arciero. For the motorcycles, Morgan and co-riders Mark Samuels will be the first vehicle off the line in their No. 7x Monster Energy Honda CRF450X.

While three-time Baja 500 overall and SCORE Trophy Truck winner Bryce Menzies continues to recover from a broken back, driving the majority – if not all – of next Saturday’s race will be French rally racer Cyril Despres, a five-time motorcycle overall winner of the Dakar. Despres has driven the last three years in the Dakar Rally for a powerful Peugeot factory team, finishing on the podium in 2017.

The Baja 500 is an elapsed-time race with staggered starts. The green flag drops in the wee hours of Saturday morning for the motorcycles and quads, followed by the waving off of cars, trucks, and UTV classes about five hours later. While the fastest vehicles are expected to finish in around 11 hours, all vehicles will have a 22-hour time limit from the time each starts to become an official finisher.

For the third consecutive year, all four races are being held in Baja California, Mexico. The San Felipe 250 was last month, followed by next week’s Baja 500. The Tijuana Desert Challenge is in September, while the mighty Baja 1000 caps the season in November.

We’ll be keeping a close eye the race, so stay tuned to the off-road.com website and social media for up-to-date coverage.