Cameron Steele bagged the win at this past weekend’s special format Lucerna Hotels & Resorts Tijuana 22nd SCORE Desert Challenge. We’ve got results and quotes from the winners after the jump.

Racing concluded Sunday at Rancho Casian on the southeast outskirts of Tijuana. The event featured two days of racing scored as a single event. The route consisted of a 33.7-mile loop through the hills in that area, all run by each class. Competitors did two laps each day, equalling four laps and 134.8 total race miles. The classes were split into three groups, running one session each day to determine the final results.

After leading the first two of four laps on Saturday in the elapsed-time race, Steele, 50, of San Clemente, Calif., captured his first career SCORE Trophy Race win in a time of 3h21m36s while averaging 40.12 miles per hour over 134.8 race miles in his No. 16 Monster Energy Desert Assassins Chevy Silverado.

ALSO SEE: Course Map for 22nd SCORE Desert Challenge

Steele posted consistently solid lap times Saturday of 49 minutes, 37 seconds and 50:15. His first lap time on Saturday was the fastest lap time for any vehicle in the race. On Sunday he covered a now-rutted and more challenging course with lap times of 51:24 and 50:19.

Justin Morgan of El Cajon, Calif. put in consistent lap times for two days to take his third straight SCORE Baja motorcycle victory plus his own Pro Moto Unlimited class with an overall time of 3h34m13s with an average speed of 37.76 mph. Morgan ran lap times of 50:11 and 50:24 on Saturday on his No. 7x Honda CRF450X. With the course deterioration and fog during his group’s run, he turned in slower times on Sunday of 57:21 and 55:39.

As always, the action and ensuing rush of adrenaline generated plenty of comments worthy of a sound-bite.

Remarking on racing conditions, Steele said “It was dirty out there, but we are sitting pretty right now. We started in the back of the pack today so it was very hard to pass SCORE Trophy Trucks because of the dust.”

Echoing the challenges of Sunday, bike winner Morgan said “The wet fog during our group this morning was a game changer from yesterday. It was 80 percent fog and dust which was like floating mud. I had to try to clean my goggles with my shirt, but it was only good for about 50 feet.”

These people are tough.

Racers seemed pleased with the event, with Brandon Bailey of Class 1 calling it a “great track” and Brian Trotter remarking the track was “very technical and tight.” Sara Price, running the #204 machine in Class 1, gave a shout out to her BFG tires saying they were “great today with no flats,” pointing out that “If you made a mistake today you weren’t correcting it anytime soon.” They will also be at the Baja 1000.

As we said, these people are tough.

Proving the never-say-die attitude of desert racers, Kaden Wells in the Pro UTV NA class told reporters that “we broke a front axle and still finished. We will get it fixed and be back tomorrow,” after suffering that malady on Saturday. The 19-year old rookie SCORE racer from St. George, Utah continued on to wheel his Polaris RZR XP1000 to class victory with a time of 3h49m23s.

There were 161 official starters racing in classes for Pro and Sportsman cars, trucks, UTVs, motorcycles and quads. There were 96 official finishers in the race for a finishing rate of 59.6 percent. The 161 starters was the eighth-most in the 22 occasions this race has been held.

The unique, two-day event was Round Three of the four-race 2018 SCORE World Desert Championship. The season-finale is granddaddy of all desert racing – the 51st SCORE Baja 1000. That event will be held Nov. 14-18, starting and finishing in Ensenada, Mexico.