39th Annual SCORE Tecate Baja 1000
November 15th-18 2006
Leaving the infamous dusty town of Ensenada, hundreds of competitors gathered for the SCORE International Baja 1000, presented by Tecate and many other sponsors such as Honda, Toyota FJ Cruisers, Red Bull, and Micron.
For the few times a year a SCORE event comes to town, the racers, race crews and fans know how to make a little town into a big city. From Contingency to the Race day, then to the finish and the victory parties to end make it a great weekend for most people.
Thursday morning the Ensenada canal was already packed with people at the crack of dawn. They were stoked to see the first motorcycles rip through the dirt at approximately at 6:30 am on November 16th followed by the quads at around 7:30 am.
Darkness is the time in which most of the motorcycles finish. Team Honda’s Steve Hengeveld on the 1x bike was first across the finish in La Paz at 12:55AM PST! Two hours later at 3am Hengeveld was followed by Johnny Campbell on the Honda Team 6x bike; Campbell’s wife and children were waiting to see his safe arrival.
Honda received its 10th consecutive desert racing win.
Chad Erl with team Husqvarna 152x, hit a rock and crashed outside of El Crusero. Even though he tore his rotator cuff and punctured a lung he got back on the bike, continued to ride another 145 miles to get the bike to the next rider. All of this in the dark due to a broken head light.
Most notable of all came from Ana Cody # 18x. She was the first and only woman to ride a XR650 solo and finished in 33 hours, 35 minutes, and 40 seconds. Competing against 37 other men riding solo, she was one of the only 16 solo riders to actually finish in the designated time frame.
“ I have been through a battle. I made it! I’ve been riding since 6:30 yesterday morning. I stopped about 20 minutes at a pit to refuel and hydrate and go on. It was tough – the toughest SCORE race I’ve ever done.
It’s such an awesome feeling. I just said a little prayer to my former teammate that we did it and I wish she could be here with me. I’ve always wanted to solo it to La Paz.”
The first Trophy truck off the line was # 97, driven by J.B. Baldwin. Followed by the other great divers including # 3 Mark Post, # 86 Josh Baldwin, #83 Robby Gordon, Larry Roeseler, #28 Alan Pflueger. Following the trophy class was the truggies, and numerous other classes including the small buggies, Stock, Stock Mini, Class 1, Class 8, Class 10, and many more.
The trophy trucks and all other classes battled it out in the sand, silt beds, ruts, and dust to pass each other. Then most of them run into troubles including flipped vehicles, broken front ends, and flat tires; in Baja what can go wrong, can and will.
With many years of competition in the off-road racing it came to most as no surprise to see them come in first. Robby Gordon and his team driver Andy McMillin #83, driving the Red Bull Chevy CK1500 cross the finish line first and in a time of 19 hours, 15 minutes, and 27 seconds.
"We didn't come here to get second, we came here to win and that's what we did tonight," said the soft-spoken Hengeveld, who lets his driving speak volumes. "I didn't have any problems, I just kept riding and I don't think they had any problems either. The new sections were really hard but that's what Baja is about. It's not supposed to be easy, it's supposed to be technical and that's what we had here today. We all had our tough sections and it's just a really good, tough course. This is my fifth SCORE Baja 1000 in a row and we made history tonight so I want to thank my other two riders Quinn Cody and Mike Childress. It takes a team to do this and we did it tonight."
The race was one of the most intense that the riders have seen from the dusty depth of Baja, with the record number of entrants and finishers, 234. The thrill of victory and finishing gives racing families, sponsors and fans a reason to look forward to the next race of the season. The next race of the SCORE series to be held in Baja will start again in March of 2007.
