Official UTVUnderground Baja 500 Updates Thread

[Heybeerman]

Congrats to Burnett. Way to pull through!

Everyone else commenting on the "bottle neck incident" if you weren't there you don't know what was going on. You don't know how it was handled. Problem is every hill that can and does give all the other 2wd racers problems are absolutely nothing to us 4x4 UTV's.

There is racers etiquette and sportsmanship. If you choose not to use it that's your call. If you want to back up your shitty choices by saying I'm racing to win, or what about my sponsor. That's your call too. But your probably the same person that would cheat to win, and think you were the better racer.

It does not sound like that was what happened here. It sounds like Marc new he could make the hill with ease, saw his opening and took it. Heads up play in this case!

I have been in a few good bottle necks. I'm always out of the car helping push, pull the cars blocking us. While I looked back at most other co-drivers lounging in their cars waiting for their turn. :-(

Congrats to ALL of the finishers. I wish I could have been there, but my I-phone sent me in the wrong direction.

 

[SimsMotorsports]

Actually this is NOT Branden's first BAJA 500!!! Branden has competed in the BAJA 500 before on a Quad...

It is his first time in a side by side (XP 1000) and finished 2nd...

Cognito Motor Sports Entry finished 3rd!!!


Congrats to Marc on his win...

Also First Time BAJA 500 entry Johnny Angal (UTVINC) and finished 4th!!!

Congratulations to all the contestants...

Actually....... This was my first Baja 500, I did get invited in 2006 to be the mule and race a quad through the night at the Baja 1000 when it went from Ensenada to La Paz.

 

[PickupTrucker]

awesome thread guys thanks! I was busy all day yesterday, so it is awesome to read the progress thread even though I saw the result already lol This stuff is exciting

 

[rzr 1930]

We checked our GPS and at time of impact we were at 37mph, but thanks for your concern and stopping to check on us!

 

[badassmav]

So that's how BAM did it, a Jack ass move, not real fast driving skills.....Think he will be caught by the end, there's a thing called Karma.

It's a race, and that is what happens in one. When asked about this incident, Marc elaborated that there was not one single file line like some suggest, but rather more of a "land rush start"environmet with several different drivers taking a shot at the krux. and don't even start commenting on Marc's driving skills. He started about 1/2 way deep in the class, 7th to be exact. was in first place before RM40, and then owned it for the rest of the race. and, he was by far the first class 1900 car to arrive at the bottleneck you refer to. After flashing his lights numerous times, and honking his pass siren, it was your lack of driving skills that required him to nerf you out of the way. You held him up for quite some time, and this is after all , racing. How does it feel being pushed out of the way in a class 5 unlimited baja bug buy a UTV with barely enough horsepower to pull a carriage?

 

[Kalop]

It's a race, and that is what happens in one. When asked about this incident, Marc elaborated that there was not one single file line like some suggest, but rather more of a "land rush start"environmet with several different drivers taking a shot at the krux. and don't even start commenting on Marc's driving skills. He started about 1/2 way deep in the class, 7th to be exact. was in first place before RM40, and then owned it for the rest of the race. and, he was by far the first class 1900 car to arrive at the bottleneck you refer to. After flashing his lights numerous times, and honking his pass siren, it was your lack of driving skills that required him to nerf you out of the way. You held him up for quite some time, and this is after all , racing. How does it feel being pushed out of the way in a class 5 unlimited baja bug buy a UTV with barely enough horsepower to pull a carriage?

Simi dude just got ...
OWNED !!!!!! lol

 

[facteryfmf]

Simi dude just got ...
OWNED !!!!!! lol

I wouldn't take it that far by any means. Those people in that canyon that he did that to well have retaliation at a later race. They ain't forgettin what he did.

 

[Kalop]

That's the whole point.. he didn't "do" anything wrong as I see it, I've read every side and post about it..... lol for fu#k sakes, it seems like group of tampons need to be removed.. peeps getting all butt hurt for someone RACING.

 

[JoeyD23]

It's a race, and that is what happens in one. When asked about this incident, Marc elaborated that there was not one single file line like some suggest, but rather more of a "land rush start"environmet with several different drivers taking a shot at the krux. and don't even start commenting on Marc's driving skills. He started about 1/2 way deep in the class, 7th to be exact. was in first place before RM40, and then owned it for the rest of the race. and, he was by far the first class 1900 car to arrive at the bottleneck you refer to. After flashing his lights numerous times, and honking his pass siren, it was your lack of driving skills that required him to nerf you out of the way. You held him up for quite some time, and this is after all , racing. How does it feel being pushed out of the way in a class 5 unlimited baja bug buy a UTV with barely enough horsepower to pull a carriage?

Simi Dude doesn't race a class 5 and wasn't racing in Baja. His comment came from someone who posted up "what Marc had done". Just clearing that up.

 

[Ironman]

In what position did 1917 finish

7th...

 

[Ironman]

Official Sore Baja 500 Results:


CLASS 19 (Limited, Stock 4-wheel Utility Vehicle)

1. Marc Burnett, Lakeside, Calif./Fernando Flores, San Diego, Can-Am Maverick, 13:01:56 (34.33 mph)

2. Branden Sims / Jacob Carver / Justin Krause, Prescott Valley, Ariz., Polaris RZR1000, 13:15:15

3. Justin Lambert, Bakersfield, Calif. / Justin Sheakley, Peoria, Ariz. / Jeremiah Staffs, Apple Valley, Calif., Polaris RZR XP1000, 14:26:14

4. John Angal / Brian Bush, Mesa, Ariz., Polaris RZR XP1000, 14:42:06

5. Matt Parks, Newport Beach, Calif./Jason Spiess, Peoria, Ariz./Keith Redstrom, Glendale, Ariz., Polaris RZR XP1000, 14:54:17

6. Jamie Kirkpatrick/Nick Nelson/Dan Kirkpatrick, Olympia, Wash., Polaris XP1000, 15:24:27

7. Derek Murray/Jason Murray, Eastvale, Calif./Steve Amarine, Downey, Calif./Monty Aldrich, Can-Am Maverick, Can-Am, 16:01:33

8. Cory Sappington/Tyler Dixon, Peoria, Ariz./Donovan Cain, Glendale, Calif., Can-Am Maverick 1000, 18:12:53

9. Alonso Lopez/ Roberto Balderama, Murrieta, Calif./Wayne Matlock, Alpine, Calif., Polaris RZR XP900, 18:48:44

(Starters: 17, Finishers: 9)

 

[Nick]

 

[Ironman]

Actually....... This was my first Baja 500, I did get invited in 2006 to be the mule and race a quad through the night at the Baja 1000 when it went from Ensenada to La Paz.

I misunderstood what you told me when Nate and I talked with you at your shop...

Your 2nd place finish as I stated by a under funded team was and is AWESOME...

Congrats...

 

[JoeyD23]

​

Full story, photos and results.. just click the photo or go to the HOMEPAGE!

 

[COGNITO]

It's called race etiquette, we race all of our competitors on the track not while they are waiting for cars and the track to clear, he literally cut around everyone!! I know that I wouldn't want to win a race in that fashion nor would I want my sponsors to know that's how I race just bad sportsmanship

Ditto

 

[Brian B]

So long as he didnt deviate the course, I have no qualms with what Marc did.

 

[Markflexes]

First off I want to congratulate all the utv racers especially those who made the podium. An amazing job to just get there. Big props to the 1905 and 1913 who seemingly drove 457 balls to the wall miles completing the course more than an hour before the rest of the pack. And, 1920's success in his first Baja race doesn't require any further explanation.

As a member of the Jagged crew I was happy to see the 1932 car come across the line when it did. Considering some of the challenges we faced one should be pretty happy and grateful that we finished the famed Baja 500 in 5th place. A testament to our drivers and co dawgs for sure. I do speak only for myself, but, the expectations are always to win. Obviously, many things have to go your way when you battle the terrain of Baja and top notch competition.

I will not expand any more on our day since that is not my place. All I will say is it was far from ideal. The official race report will have to come from Matt, Jason, Joey, Bill or Keith should they so desire.

What I will say is this is just an awesome bunch of down to earth good people that I am fortunate to hang and associate with. Just a great time we have and make it. This team is first about being great UTV race representatives and ambassadors to the 1900 class.

I do have a shout out to our fellow pit crew over with 1913 that it was a blast to hang with you guys along the coastal side of the course down to V. Guerrero. You gave us some good laughs with your antics. Sorry about the Fireball but please post up the video of your boys trying to ride the little baby horse at Uruapan. That was too funny.

Already looking forward to the 1k.For now over and out and just remember "two for one, all day long"....lol

 

[badassmav]

I wouldn't take it that far by any means. Those people in that canyon that he did that to well have retaliation at a later race. They ain't forgettin what he did.

To elaborate on "what he did", when Marc first came up on the 511 car, he was obviously faster than them. He flashed his lights, then honked his horn. Instead of being courteous and moving over, the driver sped up and pulled away from Marc, leaving him, to navigate through the dust without the use of his GPS (that didn't work for the first part of the race). When Marc came upon the 511 car for the second time, he again flashed his lights and honked his horn. Again, they would not pull over and let him pass. That is when he took the initiative to push them out of the way. Ask anyone tracking us during the race, and they will tell you how long that car was holding us up. With the second fastest UTV in the race closing in, what would you have done Justin? Let them pull away again whilst you lose your momentum for a second time, hoping that they will let you by on your third try? With that being said, on what grounds would they have to retaliate? He gave them their chance not to be nerfed. Twice. In return, they dusted him out for it.

 

[badassmav]

Here's Marc's race report as he posted it on his Facebook page. After reading it, I doubt anyone could say that we won the race because of shady driving practices, or rough driving, or whatever the nay-sayers want to label it as. Marc is one of the most qualified and passionate drivers out there.

We are working on getting some helicoopter footage of him racing the Mills class 8 truck, and others hard. You will then see that THAT is how we are winning races. I'm so stoked to be a part of something as big as this. I don't know what the next year of my life holds for me, but this racing thing is kind of therapeutical for me. I'm starting to feel like somebody again. Maybe I'll unpack my bags here....

Thanks to all of my new forum friends that have been encouraging me along the way. I am in a constant struggle with depression, but your kind words, along with insane working hours, has kept me out of the dark. At least for awhile.

It all started the week before the Baja 500. Before the nightmare started I was going on little to no sleep. The week before the Baja I had flown out to do a show in DE. But the real nightmare started Tuesday night in Plaster City, CA. We were testing the car for the 1st time with the brand new Can-Am motor. I was very excited to finally test the new suspension in the car as well as the motor.I knew I had to drive the car 70-100 miles to break the motor in. We were only going about 40-60 MPH for about 14 miles before the motor locked up. When the motor locked up I knew it was the bottom-end of the motor by the way it sounded. At this time it was about 2am Wednesday morning while I was sitting there in the car waiting for my cousin Reid to pick me up I was very seriously contemplating weather or not I was going to be able to race. My cousin Reid at this time had had no sleep because he had been working night and day on the race car to get it ready for the Baja. He's a perfectionist and makes sure everything is perfect. Reid finally got to us and picked us up and when he heard what had happen he was not a happy camper. As we were getting the car on the trailer we were both wondering how we were going to put another motor in in two days. At this time it was about 3:30 am driving back to San Diego thinking of our game plan. A lot of people were suggesting that we put the old motor back in the car but I knew the motor was worn out. It had low compression. So we decided to take the motor out of one of our brand new 4-seater Can-Am's. By the time we got home and unloaded it was around 4:30 am. We decided to get a few hours of sleep before we got to work again. Taking the 4-seater motor out was not very difficult compared to our 2-seater. Our 2-seater takes forever to remove the motor because its so tight inside the vehicle. At this time we were suppose to be down at the Baja pre-running, relaxing and eating tacos on the beach but that plan went out the window. I was very concerned that this other motor might do the same thing. The motor had a total of only 9 miles. We had the car done and ready to go by noon Friday. By the time we got down to contingency it was around 5:00 pm. We informed SCORE that we were running late and they told us not to worry cause they were still a lot of people in line. My cousin Reid did not get back to the hotel till after 12am from getting the car tech. The tech line was ridiculously long. I told my cousin that I wanted to test the car after tech so when he came back I went and drove the car down the street for about a mile when I noticed the transmission was making a clicking noise when I came to a dead stop and accelerated. I also noticed that my separate alternator was not charging on top of those two issues the 4WD was not working either. By this time it was about 1:30 am. I told Reid all the problems that we still had. We both were thinking of not racing. I was exhausted and bummed out that the car was not working right. Reid got the 4WD to work after about an hour in half of working on it but we still had the problem with the alternator and the transmission. I was more concern with the alternator at this point. We tried for hours to get the alternator to work. We even went to a Mexican electrical shop to see if he can fix it and the shop was still open at 2:30 am. We were there for about an hour and he was unable to find the problem with the alternator. By this time it was 4:00 am I still had no sleep. We brought the car back to the hotel and worked on it more to try and figure out what the problem was. Reid told me to go inside and try to sleep and that he'll figure it out. I tried to sleep but I was too worried and stressed out about the car. I just laid in bed for about 2 hours thinking about the car. I got up around 6:00 am to see how Reid was doing. The poor guy looked like shit but the guy always looks like shit anyways cause he works so many hours. We then again considered not racing. We couldn't get the alternator to work or the transmission to stop making noise. Our pit crew started coming in early in the morning. One of our pit crew guys is really good with electrical and was able to solve the alternator problem. Apparently the problem was the wiring in the connection was bad. This gave me a little more hope with the alternator now working. At this point I was 4 days with little to no sleep. For all of you who know me, I sleep very little anyways but this was beyond what I can handle. At this time it was around 8 am and we decided to race just to get the points.

We were waiting in line and in front of us was John Angal # 1920. I had to bump him just to see where my bumper would hit since he was the first guy I would pass and also we had a bet. Winner takes $1,000. We joked about it before we started racing. He said if I came behind him he would let me thru. John is a great guy and a great racer. So the race started around 11:50 am. The first team we passed were the Murray Brothers # 1917 at around the 15 mile marker. The second team we passed was a Polaris team. The third team we passed was #1921 John Angal. At this time we were approximately at the 36 mile marker and I felt like I had a flat. I decided to make a pit stop at one of our pits. When I was in the pit # 1920 passed me back. We went for approximately another 5 miles being behind John when we passed him back. We were able to pass him because he blew a turn. A few miles down the road there was a bottle neck of cars that were not in line and were scattered everywhere going up the hill so I waited for a couple of minutes and we went forward because nobody else could make it up the hill " this is the hill that everybody said that I cut in front of people", which I have video of all the cars scattered around and not in line. After the hill I lost my GPS in the car and this was the worst part to loose the GPS due to the slit and dust. We then came in to a big slit bed with 6 cars stuck in the slit. We passed all of them in the bad ass Mav. When we got to the pit in mile marker 75 our GPS started working again. We were coming up to my favorite section by the beach which has a lot of whining turns which the Can-Am loves! We started coming up on a Spec8 truck and a Class 7 truck. A few turns later I was in the bumper of the Mills Class 8 truck. We both passed the 7 truck and we had our sights on another 8 truck too but by that time we got into a lot of high speed straight aways. Moving forward we got to approx mile marker 170 and we were battling again with the Mills truck. As we proceeded to go up to Mike's we passed some more cars, some 16''s couple of Class 1's, a Class 3 and a 9. Now we were up in mile marker 229 where there were more slit beds before Rancho Meling. We had to wait in a jam there too IN A SINGLE FILE LINE. After we got out of that there were more slit beds and jams to deal with. We were about 10 miles away from Mike's when the belt broke. It took us about 32 minutes to replace the belts because I could not remove the CVT cover because the exhaust was bent up underneath it. After that I only drove the car at about 60 MPH because I was concern that the belt was going to break again. As we were coming out of BORREGO dry lake bed and was going West we were told that our lead was getting smaller and Brandon Sims was gaining time on us. We had a lot of cars in front with little visibility because of all the dust. Most of the cars moved out of the way except a Class 5 car that when we pulled up to the rear bumper the person decided to out run us. I flashed our lights and honk our horn for the car to get out of our way. So the second time I got behind their bumper the person still did not move out of the way so I hit the person and the car still did not move out of the way. The second time I hit the car I hit it harder. Finally the car moved over and we pushed a little harder for the first time all day. We were getting closer and closer to the finish and we could taste the $1000 and the win. At mile marker 433 the front diff blew up and it was making a lot of noise. At this point we were only going about 20 MPH to the finish line. We didn't know what to do but we kept driving on it, crossing our fingers hoping that it would stay together. When we crossed the finish line I was amazed that we made it and that we won 1st place. I want to thank my cousin Reid and Rick along with my pit crew. Special thanks to Jose for getting our alternator to work and all our sponsors for sticking with us this year. Thanks to all our followers and fans for giving us all your support. Till the next race

 

[NIKAL]

Reid it would be great if Marc could post up the videos, especially with the hill in question and show how not everyone was in line. Also it would be awesome if he have video of the 5 car not moving over once caught. It would shut some mouths!