2013 Score Baja 1000

Mark (Sarge) Schleipfer, MTX Marketing - Mobile Marketing Manager

I received a call from a good friend 2 weeks prior to the Baja 1000 which was held on 11/14 thru 11/17 asking me if I would be interested in chasing for a class 5 unlimited buggy #501 for Irish Racing & Renegade Motorsports. I quickly said yes and started planning for my trip.

SCORE Baja 1000 is an off-road race that takes place on Mexico's Baja California Peninsula in the third week in November. The Baja 1000 is part of the SCORE Championship Desert Racing Series that include the Baja 500, San Felipe 250 and the new San Felipe Challenge of Champions in place of the Primm 300 which had been the only SCORE race in the United States. The Baja 1000 allows various types of vehicle classes to compete on the same course - from such small and large bore motorcycles, stock VW, production vehicles, buggies, Trucks, and custom fabricated race vehicles. The course has remained relatively the same over the years, about every other being either a point-to-point race from Ensenada to La Paz, or a loop race starting and finishing in Ensenada.[Wikipedia]

The name of the event can be misleading as the mileage varies for the type of event ("Loop" of 600 to 850 miles starting and finishing in Ensenada, or "Point to Point" also known as the "Peninsula Run" of 900 to 1,100 miles from Ensenada to La Paz) and has represented kilometers in the past. Because the Mexican government was proud to play host, the race was initially called the "Mexican 1000" up to 1972.

Chasing is where you get ahead of the ready car and set up pit locations to fuel, fix, and change drivers, etc throughout the race. We had 2 teams, one running along the east side and my team running along the west. There were a total of 7 pit locations that we needed to service along the almost 1000 miles of race course.

The racing team carried the MTX Audio brand on their race car along with promoting MTX during contingency, which attracts a very large crowd during the race.>/p>

Due to a broken cam shaft, the race car was unable to complete the race. But the experience of Baja was HUGE.

I am looking forward to attending this race again next year and maybe joining in with our Mexico MTX partners on the event.