The Icon Auto Rally Team has announced Their bid to race the 41st annual Baja 1000 in Baja, Mexico over November 19 - 22, 2008. To give you an idea about the race, the 2007 course was 1,296.4 miles long and had a time limit of 53 hours. The Icon Rally team will consist of 6 riders using Their own bikes. There are approximately 22 pit stops that occur in the middle of the desert to allow all of this to happen. It’s a logisitical nightmare, but perhaps worse, the race is described by contestants as a ‘24 hour car crash’.
Preparations have begun in earnest even though the race is 11 months away. Chris Cargill's Honda CRF450x motorcycle will be acquired in the Spring to kick off training efforts. Keep checking icon-auto.com for updates as we prepare for the mother of all races.
History of BAJA 1000
As the World Series is to baseball and the Super Bowl to football, the legendary Tecate SCORE Baja 1000 stands as tall at the pinnacle of the motorsports world today as it did when it began 39 years ago.
This year's race will be held Nov. 19-22, 2008 and will start in Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico and finish in La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico. It will be the 35th anniversary of the race shrouded in mystery that continues to lure adventurers from across the globe who share the dream to conquer the Baja.
Over 200 entries, competing in 23 Pro and 5 Sportsman classes for cars, trucks, motorcycles and ATVs will be part of this year's odyssey.
It's the oldest and most well known of all desert races, and it remains as the single most appealing accomplishment to a driver. Since 1967, the mother of all desert races has been run over the mysterious Baja California peninsula every year except 1974 when the international fuel crisis forced a cancellation.
The Tecate SCORE Baja 1000 has captured the imagination of the entire world as entries have come not only from every state in the United States, but also has attracted racers from Argentina, Australia, Bahamas, Belgium, Canada, England, Finland, France, Germany, Guam, Holland, Italy, Japan, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Uruguay, Yugoslavia as well as the host country of Mexico.
The first known record run occurred in 1962. Dave Ekins and Bill Robertson Jr. timed their trip from Tijuana to La Paz on a pair of Honda 250 motorcycles. Ekins made it in 39 hours, 54 minutes, Robertson in less than an hour slower. There were no official timers, of course, and to establish that they had made the trip, the two motorcycle racers time-stamped a sheet of paper in the Tijuana telegraph office and time-stamped it again at the telegraph office when they arrived in La Paz.
Capitalizing on the pioneer effort of Ekins and Robertson, Chevrolet commissioned car builder Bill Stroppe to prepare a small fleet of trucks for the run to La Paz. Late that year they left Long Beach, Calif., and all of them reached La Paz. Advertising and publicity campaigns heralded the feat as "the roughest run under the sun."
"Without the SCORE Baja 1000, there just wouldn't be any desert racing," said Sal Fish, SCORE International's Chief Executive Officer. "The SCORE Baja 1000 continues to draw interest from all over the world and we now find second and even third generation racers appearing at the starting line with their family patriarchs cheering for their off-spring. This event continues to be the focal point of the Optima SCORE Desert Series each year and to celebrate our 35th anniversary with another story-laden run down the Baja California peninsula, will surely add another colorful chapter to the legacy of the SCORE Baja 1000."
Enthusiast Ed Pearlman founded the National Off Road Racing Association (NORRA) and established the Mexican 1000. It started officially in Tijuana on October 31, 1967 with 68 entries. They actually motored at leisure speeds to Ensenada and restarted the next day.
