Tecate SCORE Baja 2000
B y B RIA N F A RIS
PH OT O S BY M A RK K ARI YA
CABO SAN LUCAS, BAJA CAUFORNIA,
MEXICO, NOV. 10ยท16
he land's end of Baj a, affe ct lon ately known as Cabo. tu rned out
to be Fat Ci ty fo r American Honda' s
Johnny Campbell , T im Staa b, Steve
Hen geveld and Craig Sm ith , as they
overalled a millennium -specia l double -lenqth ve rsion of th e world's most
p restigious non - stop of f- road race ,
aboard a Honda XR650R .
A lso dubbed "A Race fo r the Ages "
and th e " Baj a Dos Mil ," the 2000- editi orr race featu red a 1726-mile co urse
that st arte d in Ens en ada , then wound
back and forth across th e M ex i can
peninsula as it made its way t o th e
extreme sou thern tip . Th e wi n n ers
ave rag ed 54 .3 m il es pe r hour , and
finished in 30 hour s, 54 m inutes, 12
seconds - an hour, and 51 minut es
ahead of th e runn er-up t eam of leq ends B ru c e O g i lvie , Chu ck Mill er ,
Paul Ostbo, Bob Rutten , Gary Jones
and Bob J ohnson. Both t eams fin ished in a faster time th an the fir st
four-wheel contest ant .
A lthough even the "norma l" Baja
1000 is typica ll y ha rd on bikes and
bod ies, n either squad ex p er i enced
mu ch in th e way of diffi culties. T he
vet eran runner -u p squ ad had one fla t.
but th e othe r m ec han ic al work wa s all
just du e to normal wear. Both team s
h ad sch eduled t i r e c h a n ge s and
replaced brak e pads. and Campbell's
XR rec eived a new c hai n- guide pa d at
La Paz.
"It was wheels, g as and go," said
support- cr ew member Bob Bell of Precisi on Concepts. "Both bikes were that
way . We didn't have clu tch problems
and th e m otors still feel tight. They still
start right up on th e first ki ck."
Th i s was t h e longest non -stop,
point-t o -p oint rac e ever held, and the
first time the fini sh was in Cabo. Said
finish li ne was in the Cabo Bull Ring ,
wh ich was histori cally fitt ing sin ce the
first Baj a 1000 started in th e Tiju ana
Bull Ring back in 1967. SCO RE offi cials wo rke d for five years to layout
thi s co urs e, wh ich crossed B aj a ' s
m aj or H i ghw a y I i n eig h t places .
T hey us ed 175,000 feet of m ar k in g
ribbon .
Campbell , who drew the first starting position, left Ensena da on Sunday
( No v em b er 12 ) at 6 :0 0 a .m . , after
wh i ch h i s Hond a kept the lea d t he
who le w ay . Althoug h th e Ensenada
area had ex pe rienced periodic show-
T
6
DECEMBER
6 . 2000 '
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