BJ Baldwin of Las Vegas, Nevada, drove the entire race distance in his Baldwin Motorsports Chevrolet Trophy Truck to claim his first career Baja 500 in come-from-behind fashion over the Rockstar Energy Drink/Makita Power Tools Ford driven by Mark Post and Rob MacCachren.

Baldwin, who started the race a minute behind Post when the Trophy Trucks were flagged off the starting line in Ensenada, overcame several problems en route to completing the 441.15-mile race in 9 hours, 10 minutes and 47 seconds, averaging 48.06 mph. Afterward, the 28-year-old Baldwin appeared to be more relieved than excited to earn the win. 

Actually, it hurts,” Baldwin said. “I didn’t have any brakes. The front ones were the only ones that were working, and the brake pedal got really hard, so my knee is kind of messed up. I’ll put a Band-Aid on it, and it’ll be all right. We got two flats, and the steering in the truck, the power steering belt, gets loose at about 5500 rpm and stops working. I had to use my muscles a little bit. I‘m just glad I didn’t have to finish two and a half minutes ahead of them [Post and MacCachren], because I’m hurtin’. We did just what we planned to do. It went great.”

MacCachren, who took over from Post with a 40-second deficit to Baldwin, drove like the reigning SCORE champion he is, trying to put enough distance between himself and Baldwin late in the race to secure the overall win. Although MacCachren crossed the finish line first, he came up just short when the times were calculated, finishing with a time of 9:10:54 to average 48.05 mph.

“We were playing a cat and dog game for the last hundred miles,” MacCachren said. “He got in front, and then he had a problem and I got in front. He started a minute behind us, so we had to finish a minute in front of him, and we only beat him by 53 seconds. Other than that the Rockstar/Makita Ford ran good, no problems. Obviously, we’re disappointed not to win, but congratulations to the Baldwin guys. They did a great job. We had a great race, and this is where we are.”

Collins Motorsports’ Chuck Hovey shared driving duties with defending event champion Brian Collins, who was seeking out his third consecutive Tecate SCORE Baja 500 victory – and his third consecutive major win in his new Mopar-backed Dodge Ram 1500. But Collins had trouble during his shift, suffering a flat tire and losing time while trying to get it changed.

“I slid into a tree and messed the jack up,” Collins said. “If we changed the tire and didn't stop, we would have been right in there, but we got stuck and it took us 15 minutes to get it out. The truck was phenomenal, a couple driver errors, but that's racing. To get the three-peat was going to be tough. It was all going against us. We wanted to win it. We all did our homework, [but] unfortunately, that's just part of racing.”

Hovey brought the truck home in third place overall, finishing with a time of 9:25:47 for an average of 46.78mph.

“All in all it was a really good day, but I had two flats because of driver error,” Hovey said. “I’m still the new guy here, and it is taking some time for me to get used to the truck. We lost some time early, but then we started making it back. We came into Ojos [Negros] and we were down nine minutes, and Brian [Collins] just told me to cruise it in and not try to catch the guys in front of us. All we could do was hope that something would happen to them, but they ran great races. Our Mopar Dodge was really fast, though, and any time you can get on the podium is a great day. Third place in a race like this, with competition like this? We’ll take it.”

Luis Ramirez Jr. of Cabo San Lucas had a fantastic day in Class 1, becoming the first Mexican national to earn a Tecate SCORE Baja 500 win in the unlimited buggy division. Ramirez piloted his number 109 HMS-Chevy to first in class and fourth among the car and truck divisions, completing the distance with a time of 9:36:55 and a speed average of 45.88 mph.

“We had a great battle with Armin Schwartz and Pat Dean,” Ramirez said at the finish line in Ensenada. “One time we would be third, and one time we would be in front. We kept changing positions. At mile marker 205 we started to be up front and just never looked back. Everything was perfect, just… no brakes, all the way from San Vicente to the finish. It was very technical so you needed the brakes to be 100 percent. But thank God we are here at the finish and we got a win.”

As one of the lower-budget teams in Class 1, Ramirez’s team consists mostly of family members.

“I was really hungry for a win,” Ramirez said. “We’re not the biggest team, so it’s really good to do this. I want to thank all the guys from Jeffries racing, Damon and all the guys. They helped us with our pits.”

Roger Norman shared driving chores with new teammate Larry Roeseler and finished fifth overall and fourth in the Trophy Truck class in the team’s Crystal Bay Casino/KMC Wheels Ford, posting a time of 9:44:55 to average 45.25 mph.
Roeseler, who has a race-record 11 overall victories among his 16 total class wins in the Tecate SCORE Baja 500, started 10th in the truck and moved up into  the top five before handing it over to Norman at Erindira, 300 miles into the race.

 “We’re happy,” Roeseler said at the finish line. “All said and done, I ran up front. We third on the road over by Borrego, and we were sitting in good shape, but unfortunately alternator problems got us, and then the belt flew off the new alternator, so we had three really long stops.”

Roeseler also had an interesting moment in which the aerodynamics of the truck improved dramatically just as its hood began to loosen up.

“Yeah, the hood flew off on me at about 100 mph, but it got wind underneath it and the truck started taking off like an airplane. It just kept going higher and higher, and then the truck just fell out of the sky because the hood couldn’t hold on anymore. It was pretty spectacular.”

Earning a third consecutive overall motorcycle victory, and its first Tecate SCORE Baja 500 with its new factory Honda-backed Johnny Campbell Racing colors, the duo of Robby Bell and Kendall Norman piloted their number 1X Honda CRF450X to a time of 8:43:38 earlier in the day. Bell and Norman did three stints each aboard the bike. Bell started and rode to race mile 103 before handing off to Kendall, who rode from race mile 103 to race mile 206. Bell then took over again from race mile 206 to race mile 270. Kendall then went from race mile 270 to race mile 398.5 before returning the bike Bell, who rode it to the finish line.

Bell and Norman faced a stiff challenge from a privateer team led by Ryan Penhall, the son of two-time World Speedway Champion and former “CHiPs” television star Bruce Penhall, but  Bell and Norman prevailed, averaging 50.55mph.

“It was just experience, just knowing not to get too excited with them (Penhall) riding with us,” said Bell, who won this year’s Tecate SCORE San Felipe 250 with SCORE Baja legend Johnny Campbell while Norman was recovering from knee surgery. “We didn’t get too nervous. As soon as you start to worry about the team behind you, you start making mistakes. Around Valle de Trinidad (race mile 260) was the closest they got. I had to do a quick repair on the bike, and they came in one second behind me. From there, we kind of kept pulling away.”

Earning its first career Tecate SCORE Baja 500 victory, 2008 Tecate SCORE San Felipe 250 winner Wayne Matlock and Marc Spaeth rode a new Honda TRX700XX to the overall ATV win, posting a team of 10:10:40 to beat a team led by Javier Robles of Mexicali, Mexico, by just 21 seconds and the two-time defending race-winning team led by Danny Prather by eight minutes, 25 seconds.

Last but not least, off-road racing icon Rod Hall added yet another record to his list of accomplishments in a Baja career that spans four decades. The 70-year-old Nevadan broke out of a tie with fellow racing legend Ivan “Ironman” Stewart for the most wins in the Tecate SCORE Baja 500 by piloting a Hummer H3 to victory in the Stock Mini class. Hall completed the race with a time of 14:42:54, averaging 29.98 mph – certainly not the fastest run he has ever enjoyed in a Baja 500 – but still one for the books.

“We earned that one, Hall said. “We had a problem keeping up in the first 220 miles, but we can only go so hard. I had no problems. We had a few hiccups on the start. We had to go to four wheels to get around some of the cars. At the 210-mile marker, we were down, and I handed it over to Mike Winkel. He brought it in. We split the driving. I don't have to be macho anymore.”