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SUPER-TIGHT CLASS POINTS ENTERING SCORE BAJA 400
SCORE MEDIA CONTACT: Dominic Clark, Dominic@SCORE-International.com September 12, 2022 3rd SCORE Baja 400, Presented by VP Racing Fuels Desert racers from across the USA and around the world descending on Baja California, Mexico for this week’s race Late, on-site racer registration Tuesday-Friday at Riviera del Pacifico Cultural Center; Pre-running continues on rugged 393.82-mile course around Northern Baja California; SCORE Live, vehicle tracking at www.score-international.com, Rat Sult host; Airing on ESPN2 World of X Games-Cameron Steele intro announcer; #SCOREBaja400 NOTE: SCORE Baja 400 Race week Schedule of Events; race stats at bottom of text ENSENADA, Baja California, Mexico—Featuring astonishing parity among this season’s top point leaders, this week’s 3rd SCORE Baja 400, presented by VP Racing Fuels, launches the second half of the four-race 2022 SCORE World Desert Championship. While all racers compete to win their respective classes in a particular race, they are also always eyeing the grand prize at the end of the season—SCORE season class point championships. Racers from 22 U.S. States and 14 countries are registered entering this week’s late, on-site registration. With 180 entries to date, late, on-site registration will be Tuesday through Friday (Sept. 13-16) in Ensenada. FAST FACTS Round 3 of the four-race 2022 SCORE World Desert Championship will be held Sept. 13-18 in Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico, the race will start/finish and colorful pre-race activities are returning for the first time in three years to the heart of Ensenada at the iconic Riviera del Pacifico Cultural Center and the adjacent fantastically fan-friendly Boulevard Costero. Ensenada, ‘The Off-Road Capital of the World’, is located 80 miles South of the U.S. Border near San Diego. With over 200 entries expected, 45 competition classes are offered for Pro and Sportsman cars, trucks, UTVs, motorcycles and quads. To date, there are 182 total entries from 22 U.S. States, U.S. Territory of Puerto Rico and 14 countries. Joining the USA in the field so far are racers from host country Mexico, Argentina, Australia, Bolivia, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Denmark, England, France, New Zealand, Peru and Venezuela. So far there are 139 cars, trucks and UTVs entered and 43 motorcycles and quads. Most the world’s best desert racers will be in action at this year’s celebration of one of the newest top motorsports events in the entire world. The race will be televised on a delayed basis as a one-hour special on the ESPN2 World of X Games programming. It is scheduled to first air at 9 p.m. PT on Sunday, Nov. 6. The race show on ESPN2 is co-produced by SCORE International and the award-winning BCII TV of Los Angeles. Bud Brutsman is the Executive Producer. Intro announcer for the race show will be Off-Road Motorsports Hall of Fame Inductee and SCORE champion desert racer Cameron Steele who will again pull double duty racing in the marquee SCORE Trophy Truck class as well in his No. 16 Desert Assassins Monster Energy Ford Raptor. All four 2022 SCORE races are being held on Mexico’s magnificent Baja California peninsula for the seventh consecutive year. SCORE, the World’s Foremost Desert Racing Organization, is celebrating its 49th season in 2022. SCORE LIVE During qualifying on Wednesday, contingency on Friday and the race on Saturday, until the course closes on Sunday morning, live streaming will be broadcasting race activities, start and finish line interviews as well as live drone and land coverage from around the race course. Popular Rat Sult, who has been the voice of SCORE over the last seven seasons, will once again serve as host of the SCORE Live streaming. Assisting Sult once again will be veteran voice Dave Arnold. SCORE live may be launched from the home page of the SCORE website or from the SCORE App. GREEN FLAG The SCORE Baja 400 will be an elapsed-time race with staggered starts as the green flag on Saturday will drop first for the motorcycles and quads at 5:30 a.m. (PDT) and 9:15 a.m. (PDT) for the cars, trucks and UTVs. The total distance for the race course is 393.82 miles while the motorcycles and quads will run an abbreviated course of 270 miles for safety reasons. While the fastest vehicles are expected to finish in around eight and one-half hours, all vehicles will have a 19-hour time limit to become official finishers in the race. QUALIFYING Qualifying (closed to the public) for starting positions will be held on an undisclosed 4.98-mile course on Wednesday (Sept. 14), starting at 7 a.m. PDT. Classes that will be qualifying for start positions within their respective classes for the SCORE Baja 400 are SCORE Trophy Truck, SCORE TT Legend, the unlimited Class 1 and the Trophy Truck Spec classes. DOUBLE DIGITS Leading the list of entries with double-digit lineups so far are SCORE Trophy Truck with 35 entries (including seven in SCORE TT Legend for drivers over 50 years old), Trophy Truck Spec with 28 entries, Pro UTV FI (Forced Induction) with 21 entries and Class 10 with 16 entries to date. TIES & SUPER-TIGHT CLASS BATTLES Reflecting the intensity of the raging battles in most of the SCORE competition classes, four classes have two racers tied at the top of their respective leaderboards. Further, two classes have first and second separated by three points and four more classes have the top two racers with just four points between each. The classes tied after two of four 2022 races are Class 7, Pro UTV FI (Forced Induction), Pro Moto 50 (riders 50 years and older) and Pro Moto Ironman (solo riders). With three points separating the top two leaders are SCORE Trophy Truck and Pro UTV Open while with four points between first and second place so far are Trophy Truck Spec, Class 10, SCORE Lites and Class 1/2-1600. CPR RACING ON TOP SoCal’s youthful dynamo Christopher Polvoorde continues to lead the SCORE Overall point standings and the massive Trophy Truck Spec class as well following his stunning season-opening class victory at the King Shocks 35th SCORE San Felipe 250 and a fourth-place class finish in the BFGoodrich Tires 54th SCORE Baja 500, presented by 4 Wheel Parts. Polvoorde, Hemet, Calif. may be ‘only’ 21 years old, but he has already been racing for over eight years and has evolved quickly into a SCORE Baja racing championship contender. Polvoorde has raced in many different disciplines including Short Course, Desert Racing, Rally Racing, Midget Racing, Robby Gordon’s Stadium Trucks, Kart Racing and the King of the Hammers where he won his class in 2022. When he isn’t driving four-wheel race vehicles, he also is an avid mountain bike racer in his limited spare time. Driving the No. 204 CP Racing Mason Motorsports-Ford, he has earned 255 points so far in the 2022 SCORE World Desert Championship. Polvoorde is also a full-time college student attending the University of San Diego on scholarship seeking a double major in finance and real estate through the USD School of Business. SCORE TROPHY TRUCK LEADER Every sport seems to have identified its G.O.A.T. (Greatest of All Time). In off-road racing, in a class by himself is Las Vegas’ Off-Road Motorsports Hall of Fame inductee Rob MacCachren, who has 314 career race wins in open desert racing, short-course and stadium racing. Starting the season with a fourth-place finish in the season opener in San Felipe, the perfectly patient MacCachren, 57, strategically stayed the course in Ensenada to capture the overall and SCORE Trophy Truck victory earlier this month at the BFGoodrich Tires 54th SCORE Baja 500, presented by 4 Wheel Parts. The victory was MacCachren’s SCORE record 19th career SCORE Trophy Truck race win, giving him 246 season points where he is currently tied for third in the 2022 SCORE Overall point standings. For his SCORE Baja 500 victory this year, MacCachren also earned a US$20,000 contingency bonus from race title sponsor BFGoodrich Tires for his stellar effort in his No. 1 MacCachren Motorsports Ford F-150 built by Geiser Brothers of Phloenix. TOP FIVE IN OVERALL POINTS Behind Polvoorde in first and MacCachren in third, also in the top five SCORE Overall point leaders midway through the 2022 SCORE World Desert Championship is second place Jorge Sampietro, Ensenada, Mexico, No. 297 Mason-Chevy (Trophy Truck Spec) with 251 points, while tied for third place with MacCachren with 246 points is Mason Cullen, Long Beach, Calif., No. 207 Geiser-Chevy (Trophy Truck Spec) and in fifth is San Diego’s Luke McMillin, No. 83 Chevy 1500 (Mason) with 243 points (SCORE Trophy Truck). Sampietro and Luke McMillin are second in their respective class points while Cullen is third in points in Trophy Truck Spec after the SCORE San Felipe 250 and the SCORE Baja 500. SALVATIERRA LEADS PRO MOTO OVERALL After winning the season point championship for two consecutive years in the brutally tough Pro Moto Ironman class for solo riders, Bolivia’s acclaimed Juan Carlos Salvatierra moved to the Pro Moto Unlimited class this year and has won the fastest class on two wheels in both of his first attempts in this legendary class. In San Felipe, his co-riders were Mexico’s Arturo Salas Jr, 19, and San Diego’s Shane Logan, 20. For Ensenada, Salvatierra added Argentinian rally racer Diego Llanos to his team for his second straight class win. For the year, Salvatierra now has 215 season points in his No. 10x KTM 450SX-F motorcycle. At the SCORE Baja 500, Salvatierra and his team gave KTM its first overall moto win in the 54-year history of the iconic race. Salvatierra, 40, Santa Cruz, Bolivia, has raced nine years in the Dakar Rally, also mountain biking and triathlons. Considered the most important athlete in the history of Bolivia, in 2011, Salvatierra became the first athlete from Bolivia to race in the Dakar Rally. He is also a nine-time Bolivian National Motocross champion. TIED ON TOP OF ALL UTVs Tied with 229 points each at the top of all Pro UTV classes as well as their own Pro UTV FI (Forced Induction) class are Justin Lambert and Edgar Garcia Leon. Lambert, Bakersfield, Calif., won in San Felipe and finished 14th in Ensenada in his No. 2918 Polaris RZR XP4 Turbo S while Garcia Leon, Trabuco Canyon, Calif., finished second and eighth in Pro UTV FI in the first two races of the year. In San Felipe Pro UTV FI had 29 starters and in Ensenada, the popular UTV class saw 24 vehicles take the green flag. There were a total of 50 starters in the five UTV classes in the SCORE Baja 500. FOUR CLASS LEADERS IN TOP 26 OVERALL Including Polvoorde in Trophy Truck Spec, MacCachren in SCORE Trophy Truck, Lambert and Garcia Leon in Pro UTV FI, four classes have at lease one racer in the top 25 SCORE Overall 4-wheel point standings following Round 2 of the four-race 2022 SCORE World Desert Championship. The fourth class is Class 10 where Ivan Tagle, Chula Vista, Calif., leads his class and is tied for 24th overall after a third place in his class of 19 starters in San Felipe and eighth place out of 26 starters in Ensenada in his No. 1087 Alumi Craft-Chevy open-wheel desert race car. The classes among the top 26 in the current 2022 SCORE point leaders are Trophy Truck Spec (10), SCORE Trophy Truck (8), Pro UTV FI (7) and Class 10 (1). TWIN WINS Besides Salvatierra in Pro Moto Unlimited, also opening the season with two straight wins to lead the point standings in their respective classes are five other Motorcycle and Quad classes. With twin wins to start the campaign are Jano Montoya, Winter Garden, Fla. (Peru) (Pro Moto 30, No. 325x KTM 450EXCF), Fernando Beltran, Ensenada, Mexico (Pro Moto Limited, No. 180x Honda CRF450X), Ryan Liebelt, Reedley, Calif. (Pro Moto 40, No. 400x Yamaha WR450F), Faelly Lopez, Puerto Rico (Pro Quad Ironman, No. 83a Honda TRX450R) and Fidel Gonzalez, Vizcaino, Mexico (SPT Quad, No. 111a Honda TRX450R). TIES AT THE TOP This season has four classes where two racers in each are tied for the lead in points in their respective classes. In Class 7 with one race win each, tied are Daniel Chamlee, Montecito, Calif. (No. 700 Ford Ranger) and Scott Brady, Gerber, Calif. (No. 703 Ford Ranger). In Pro UTV FI with one win and a 14th is Justin Lambert, Bakersfield, Calif. (No. 2918 Polaris RZR XP4 Turbo S) tied with Edgar Garcia Leon, Trabuco Canyon, Calif., with a second and an eighth (No. 2987 Can-Am Maverick X3). With one race win each and a second in Pro Moto 50, tied are Giovanni Spinali, El Cajon, Calif. (No. 500x Yamaha YZ450FX) and Vance Kennedy, Peoria, Ariz. (No. 522x Husqvarna FX450. Also with one win and one second place finish each in Pro Moto Ironman, tied are Aaron Richardson, Canada (No. 739x KTM 500EXC-F) and Brandon Wright, Oak Hills, Calif. (No. 750x Husqvarna FE501). PRE-RUNNING Official practice, or pre-running, on the official 393.82-mile race course for this year’s 3rd SCORE Baja 400 has been underway since Saturday, Sept. 3, starting at race mile 33.08 and finishing at race mile 360.82. The first 33.08 miles, which will be used in both directions during the race, will be available for pre-running only on Thursday (Sept. 15) and Friday (Sept. 16) and only in the outbound direction. The Racer’s Brief, Penalty Bulletin, Course Notes and GPS files are available on the SCORE website under Race Info. QUICK HISTORY Inaugurated in 2019, the SCORE Baja 400 was not held in 2020 because of the global pandemic and in 2021 started and finished without spectators Northeast of the central city. The two defending overall and SCORE Trophy Truck champions in this new race are Ryan Arciero, Foothill Ranch, Calif. (2019) and Las Vegas’ Bryce Menzies (2021). Both are entered again this year. A HAPPENING… Colorful race week festivities will start on Tuesday, Sept. 13 to help celebrate this youngest SCORE Baja race. They will be held in or adjacent to the landmark Riviera del Pacifico Cultural Center in the heart of Ensenada. Chassis inspections and pre-tech/Stella devise check and installation will be held on Wednesday (Sept. 14) from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. PDT by appointment and on Thursday (Sept. 15) chassis inspection/pre-tech/Stella bracket check and installation will be held at a location to be determined. Friday (Sept. 16) will see the colorful day-long, pre-race Manufacturer’s Midway and contingency festival in the start finish line area in Ensenada. From 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. PDT contingency row will be held for all classes. Tech inspection/Transponder checks/Stella/SPICA device pickup will be from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. PDT on Friday as well at the end of the manufacturer’s row. During the race on Saturday, Sept. 17 until the course closes on Sunday morning, Sept. 18, the start/finish line compound will include the massive double-sided SCOREvision LED screen broadcasting race festivities, the start, live race action from around the course and finish line interviews. Popular Rat Sult will once again serve as host of the SCORE Live streaming. Assisting Sult will be veteran voice Dave Arnold. Contingency and the race itself will be streamed live, airing via the internet on the SCORE website. Included in the exclusive race coverage, along with vehicle tracking, will be live drone and in-car camera footage from various locations around the race course. AT THE RIVIERA… The historic Riviera del Pacifico Cultural Center, in the heart of Ensenada, will again be the site of many of the activities surrounding the 3rd SCORE Baja 400, presented by VP Racing Fuels. Racer registration and media registration will both be held in Salon Rojo on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday (Sept. 13-16). On Tuesday (Sept. 13 for qualifying teams only) racer registration will be held from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. PDT. On Wednesday (Sept. 14) it will run from 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. PDT, Thursday (Sept. 15) it will be held from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. PDT and on Friday (Sept. 16) from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. On Tuesday and Wednesday, no new entries will be accepted after 7 p.m. PDT, on Thursday after 4 p.m. PDT and on Friday, no new entries will be accepted after 3 p.m. PDT. SCORE Media Registration will be held in Salon Rojo at the Riviera on Tuesday and Wednesday (Sept. 13-14) from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. PDT and on Thursday and Friday (Sept. 15-16) from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. PDT. The start/finish line for the race will once again be adjacent to the iconic Riviera del Pacifico Cultural Center on Blvd. Costero. BAJA RUTA MUY ESPECIAL! The race features another colorful, challenging course, designed, plotted and marked by SCORE President/Race Director Jose A. Grijalva, of 393.82 miles of rugged Baja California terrain (370 for motorcycles and quads). The challenging race course will be another memorable example of all that Mexico’s Baja California has to offer, including high-speed dirt trails, sandy, rocky and silty natural terrain, majestic Baja washes and canyons, stretches along the seashore with elevations from sea level to 4,972 feet. The course will be another jewel reflecting the stark beauty of Baja California. It runs in a clockwise direction from Ensenada and back with two physical, full-stop checkpoints and 170 total virtual checkpoints. The two physical checkpoints will be: Checkpoint 1 at Ejido Jaramillo at race mile 223.64 and Checkpoint 2 will be at Santo Tomas at rm312.63. There are also a total of 15 speed zones for a total of 70.15 miles of the 393.82-mile race course. START GRID-SCORE BAJA 1000 The results of the SCORE Baja 400 also will determine the start order within each class for November’s iconic season-ending BFGoodrich Tires 55th SCORE Baja 1000, presented by 4 Wheel Parts. LeDUC, GRAND MARSHAL Adding to the glamour of the SCORE Baja 400, Off-Road Motorsports Hall of Fame Class of 2015 inductee Curt LeDuc, and SCORE champion truck racer has been named as the Grand Marshal for this year’s race. Passionate to a flair with racing champion sons Todd LeDuc and Kyle LeDuc, Curt LeDuc, 67, of Cherry Valley, Calif., has been a winner in desert racing, short course racing, the Dakar Rally, the Pike’s Peak Hill Climb and elder LeDuc is like the energizer bunny…he’s still going, going and going. LeDuc has had a strong career in SCORE and has four career SCORE Trophy Truck race wins and he won the 1997 SCORE Trophy Truck season point championship driving a factory-sponsored Jeep Cherokee. SCOREscope 2022 SCHEDULE Here are the remaining two dates in the four-race 2022 SCORE World Desert Championship which is being held exclusively in Baja California, Mexico for the seventh consecutive year:
- 3rd SCORE Baja 400, presented by VP Racing Fuels—
- BFGoodrich Tires 55th SCORE Baja 1000, presented by 4 Wheel Parts—
- Schedule of Events• (all times PDT)