SCORE WORLD DESERT CHAMPIONSHIP
VOL. 51 ISSUE 23 JUNE 10, 2014 P119
Briefly...
Amazingly, the first two ATVs not only
finished a mere two minutes, 14 sec-
onds apart, they were the fourth and
fifth fastest in combined bike/ATV
times. This year, the first three Tro-
phy trucks beat the winning bike's
8:58:27 with Bryce Menzies leading
the way at 8:51:50 followed by Ja-
son Voss (8:55:17) and Jesse Jones
(8:57:21).
Ricky Brabec took three stints dur-
ing the day: start to Uruapan, Ca-
malu to San Matias and Highway
3's Kilometer 77 to the finish. "It was
three different 80-mile sections or
so. I'd have to say all the sections
were pretty similar. All the sections
had some fast, quick roads; all the
sections had some whoops, and
all the sections had really technical
stuff. Basically, I did three hare and
hounds today," he said.
Though not called on to ride, five-
time Baja 500 winner Kendall Nor-
man was ready to, having been
asked by THR to fill in if needed. He
observed the race from the team he-
licopter and warned whoever was on
the bike of anything coming up that
could pose a threat.
Of the 232 teams to start, just 126
finished in the allotted 18 hours,
among the lowest finishing percent-
age in race history. Things seemed
especially difficult for the truck and
car classes with several of those divi-
sions featuring no finishers.
Ray dal Soglio and partners Mike
Carter and Zack Vogle entered the
Open Pro class despite it being their
first Baja race. Dal Soglio had extra
incentive to just finish: He'd made a
continued on next page
STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY
MARK KARIYA
T
he THR Motorsports/
Monster Energy/Preci-
sion Concepts Kawasaki
trio of Ricky Brabec, Max Eddy
Jr., and David Pearson came out
on top of a race-long duel with
WFOx Motorsports Honda's
Mark Samuels, Colton Udall and
Ian Young to win the hotly con-
tested 46th Tecate SCORE Baja
500, round three of SCORE's
World Desert Championship.
It could have gone either way
and, in the end, it came down
once again, to who had fewer
problems. Two unplanned rear-
wheel swaps and an exhaust re-
placement for the Red I/Storm
Racing/MSR-backed CRF450X
undoubtedly put the eventual
runners-up farther back than
expected, and they finished the
448-mile course in nine hours,
four minutes and 56 seconds,
less than seven minutes behind
the 8:58:27 clocked by the win-
ners.
When the first green flag
waved at 5:45 A.M. on Bou-
levard Costero, a main street
in town, Brabec launched off
the line on the Hoosier Preci-
sion Machining/FMF/Renthal
KX450F with Udall starting 30
seconds after him.
As expected, the race quickly
developed into a duel between
