2012 SCORE Baja 500 Pics / Updates / Stories

[Bajaxp]

Congrats Derek and Jason! Do'n work! I called you guys today to get a race recap, but only got J's voice mail. You guys are probably still sleeping. haha.

I would love to hear the whole adventure, or better yet post it up here for all of us to read.

[noceros]

X2, looks tougher than the mint?

[Bajaxp]

Originally Posted by noceros

X2, looks tougher than the mint?

I can't speak for J or D Murray regarding being tougher than the Mint (IMO 4X tougher), but I did just talk with Derek and he said the course was brutal. Congrats to the 'stud brothers' for surviving Baja. Congrats guys! See you at V2R

[SGM4Life]

Awesome job! Looks like that car is an animal.

[tatum]

Well another adventure in Baja is over and what a great time.I got there Sunday evening and was ready to prerun first thing Monday.My section in the Hawk Performance UTV was race mile 295 to 408 which is the beach and Urepan section.

I pre ran my section Monday and Thursday and tested and tuned the race car on tuesday and Wednesday.Everything went great with no issues and spent Thursday and Friday afternoon hanging at the pool and running the rental car around the short course at Estero Beach.

Race day came and after sending the car off the line we went back to Estero for lunch and some rest since I knew the car wouldnt be on the coast side until that afternoon/evening.

By the time the race car reached me it was dark out,we checked it over and filled it with gas and headed off to the beach.The course was NOTHING like the pre run and was rough and silty.The first silt bed was like a wave over the car and filled it so full of dirt it was still flying all over the place well after we got through it.

Between the giant boulders,cactus and whoops from the big cars the track was really rough with deep ruts.We fianally made it next the beach were you could really open up the car and what a blast.The tide came way in and they ended up changing the course down by the rock whoops but we made our way out to the road to Santo Thomas and were on the gas hard to the pavement.

Once we got to the Urepan section I knew from previous races that this was going to be a tough time and headed out ready for the gnarly silt hills and rocks.We made our way through the giant ruts and silt to mile 410 were I handed the car back off to the team to be take to the finish line for a 1st place finish.

I have to thank Hawk performance for trusting me with there race car and Todd Romano for designing and Smitty for building a fantastic race car that was amazing the whole race.I was easily hitting 80 mph and could have gone faster but we had a nice lead and there was no need to take chances.
I hope to see everyone at the 1000!

Hans

[az_amsoil]

My Baja 500 started Friday morning with a drive down from Phoenix. Got to the team "camp" around 1:30PM. Both cars (TT & CL1) arrived about 15 minutes after we arrived. Headed to contingency for some tacos, beers and gawking. Returned back to camp and loaded up truck, milled around to BS with the team. The cars were prepped. Team was calm and there was nothing to do until 9PM…for some reason (or non reason), they knew that had an outer boot issue and the CL1 car, but decided to wait until night to start changing it. We got the CV pulled, outer boot changed & back together around midnight. Time for bed…

My pit was south of San Vicente (~RM295), we left way early and got there around 11:30AM. Waited…waited…waited…4x & 1x passed…waited…waited…waited…BJ came through a good 4-5 minutes ahead of #19 Herbst. The section between us and the coast was pretty bad, as a lot of the cars that passed us, didn’t make it to our visual pit around 30 miles away on the coast.

Our cars were kicking @ss! The TT started 20th off the line was within 150 miles was running 6th on the road, the CL1 started 40th and was up to 24th on the road. Somewhere within the first part of the race, our TT and the #17, Mike Julson, got into it. Julson ran into the front/right of the truck only causing fiberglass damage (we through…later in the race proved disastrous). The first “panic” moment came at our drivers change. Radio was asking for a transmission to be placed into a chase truck and head over to the pit (~RM200). We have had tranny issues in the past, so this was bad news. We then hear that the TT is on its way and they changed out the driveline! What a relief!!! CL1 car comes into the drivers changes, fuel and on it’s way…

First bit of bad news comes via IRC tracking in the states…TT is stopped around RM278, not sure why…soon after that CL1 reports they have lost all rear brakes. We finally hear that the lower front/right a-arm is damaged and the TT is done. The CL1 car is getting a left rear caliper replaced, so the TT is waiting on the CL1 to clear before we can send a welder out to the truck. The plan was to get the CL1 car moving, weld the TT enough to drive it out to the road at San Vicente and trailer it back.

We got the CL1 around 6PMish (I wasn’t paying too much attention to time). We had another caliper, so we planned on fueling the car and changing the other caliper. Once the car arrived, we discovered that we did not have the correct parts. We fuel the car and send it on its way. Our visual pit called and says they have the correct parts, so the car will stop and get a new caliper about 30 miles from us. The course was knarly from 295 to the coast and heading north. Tony Miglini (the CL1 driver) decided that he was use to the handling and declined the new caliper. I was already en-route to RM370 to splash fuel into the car for the finish.

We arrive just north of Santo Thomas with just enough time to setup a pit for the car. We splash fuel, give the driver an energy bar, eat some tacos & head back toward Ensenada. We start hearing reports that only two CL1 cars have crossed, when we are 20-30 miles out from finishing. Awesome news! As it turns out, the CL1 car finished 6th in class (12:35:32).

TT arrives back to camp on the trailer…bummer! The a-arm is destroyed…we had a spare arm, but the problem was the tire pushed the headers back ~2 inches and ripped them out of the block. This is why we couldn’t repair the TT to get it back racing.

Another Baja 500 in the books and another great time! HUGE thanks goes out to All German Motorsports ( http://allgermanmotorsports.com ) for allowing me to participate in the race. They are a great team!!! Congrats to all the race/support down in Mexico. If you haven’t been, your missing out on one of the greatest places to race…hope to see ya’ll at the Baja 1000!!!

[RuggedRadios]

Great pictures Joey! I was out there with a couple buddies pitting with BFG. Can't wait to go back for the 1000.