2024 Baja 500: Team Australia finally victorious

After two and a half agonising years, Toby Price and Paul Weel can finally call themselves SCORE International race winners.

The #46 Team Australia Trophy Truck had struggled with abysmal luck since its début in 2022 that overshadowed its strong pace, being the fastest qualifier thrice but only finishing two of seven races entering Saturday’s Baja 500. At the season-opening San Felipe 250 in April, Price was battling for the win until the control arm broke.

After starting on the pole again, Price and Weel finally got the monkey off their back as they beat Tavo Vildósola for the overall win by seven minutes. Vildósola had taken the lead through the first 100 miles before losing it to Price. As Weel took over for the rest of the race, Vildósola was left to scrap with Christopher Polvoorde and Bryce Menzies. Polvoorde easily held off Menzies, the latter the defending Baja 500 winner, for the final spot on the podium after Menzies struggled with mechanical issues.

“It’s been hard. The last twelve months have been hard,” an emotional Weel described at the finish.

Like in April, Cayden MacCachren won both his class and the UTV overall in a 1–2 finish for Polaris ahead of Branden Sims. The Can-Am of Mitchell Alsup averted a Polaris podium sweep as he beat Polaris Factory Racing boss Craig Scanlon by twenty-one minutes. Short course stars and brothers Ronnie and RJ Anderson led early but finished sixth due to a broken radius rod at the 200-mile mark; the 500 was the former’s first desert race since claiming his maiden victory in the discipline at the Mint 400 in March.

While Polaris was once again the top marque, all three UTV manufacturers scored a class win at the 500 with Can-Am’s Kaden Wells and Phil Blurton respectively winning Pro Stock UTV and Pro UTV Forced Induction. Honda’s Michael McFayden dominated in Pro UTV Normally Aspirated before retiring with a vehicle issue, though fellow Talon driver David Pedder picked up the baton to win.

Linc Day was involved in a bizarre pre-race accident when his Trophy Truck Spec t-boned a shuttle bus at a crossroad, resulting in damage to both vehicles. Day was able to continue the race anyway, but retired halfway through.

The McNeil family had a Baja 500 to forget. After a rough landing in qualifying forced Jason McNeil to withdraw his #200 Trophy Truck, his son Connor McNeil and brother Brandon McNeil‘s #242 TT Spec had a power steering pump break 100 miles in. Nonetheless, they reached the finish fifteenth in class.

Tim Herbst also pulled out his #19 TT following a qualifying rollover, and instead slid into the #242 TT Spec driven by his son Pierce Herbst and nephew Thor Herbst. The #242 finished second in class, fourteen minutes behind Justin Davis.

On the two-wheel side, Justin Morgan ran on foot with his bike in tow to the finish, but his dash was all for naught as his #7X team received a twenty-minute penalty after the SPICA tracker was found to not be on at the second checkpoint. The top six bikes were all penalised in some form, with the #11X of Arturo Salas Jr., Ciaran Naran, and Carter Klein getting eighteen seconds added for speeding.

Still, the #11X’s infraction was chump change as they were promoted to their second straight win of the year. Salas, despite falling early in the race and running out of fuel at one point, netted back-to-back Baja 500 wins.

After being disqualified from San Felipe, Javier Rubio finally got it done at the 500 as he became the first ever official finisher of the new Pro Moto Adventure class for rally raid bikes. His Kove 450 Rally was the only bike of the three entered in the category to finish as Dustin Davis exceeded the twenty-hour time limit and Scott Purcell crashed out.

The Polaris Pro Stock UTV of Yoshua Morquecho was the 111th and final Four-Wheeler to be classified as a finisher, arriving in Ensenada less than five minutes before the time expired. Pro Quad rider Danny Magdaleno held the same honour among the bikes as he finished forty-sixth overall and half an hour before Hour 20.

While finishing after twenty hours will have you listed as a retirement, many were likely just glad to reach the end anyway. Santiago Creel‘s TT Spec arrived without its hood and caked in mud three-and-a-half hours after the limit. John Marshall, the only entrant in Stock Full Size, endured a Baja 500 from hell after his Mercedes-Benz G-Class rolled during testing in May, suffered a rash of vehicle problems that required past-midnight repairs, and arrived in Ensenada just after sunrise.

Stock Full Size was one of four classes without a finisher alongside Class 3 (Ikuo Hanawa in his Baja 500 début), Class 5-1600 (Zackery Woodruff), and Class 7SX (Armando Duron and Jim Horne). Pro Moto Limited’s Adam Joslin and Pro Moto 40’s Gary Sparks were disqualified for going backwards on the course and riding on a road deemed out of bounds by SCORE.

Class winners

4-Wheelers

Class	Overall Finish	Number	Driver of Record	Time
Class 1	10	168	Cody Reid	10:20:48*
Class 1/2-1600	85	1606	Daniel Goodrich	15:01:45*
Class 10	24	1000	Francisco Vera	10:42:49
Class 11	90	1100	Oliver Flemate	15:56:41
Class 3	DNF	N/A	No Finishers	N/A
Class 5-1600	DNF	N/A	No Finishers	N/A
Class 5 Unlimited	62	500	Eli Yee	13:18:58*
Class 7	71	700	Dan Chamlee	13:36:08
Class 7F	97	700F	Justin Park	18:03:13
Class 7SX	DNF	N/A	No Finishers	N/A
Class 8	84	809	Josh Klenske	15:01:34
Pro Stock UTV	57	3925	Kaden Wells	12:37:43
Pro UTV Forced Induction	50	2944	Phil Blurton	12:05:51
Pro UTV Normally Aspirated	66	1984	David Pedder	13:28:00
Pro UTV Open	19	1821	Cayden MacCachren	10:36:42
SCORE Lites	98	1277	Mario Alcala	18:03:42*
Stock Full Size	DNF	N/A	No Finishers	N/A
Trophy Truck	1	46	Toby Price	9:20:22*
Trophy Truck Legends	5	1L	Gus Vildósola	9:51:49
Trophy Truck Spec	7	285	Justin Davis	10:06:09*

* – Received a time penalty

Moto

Class	Overall Finish	Number	Rider of Record	Time
Pro Moto 30	29	317X	Ethan Wheeler	14:48:43
Pro Moto 40	7	411X	Francisco Septien	12:13:57*
Pro Moto 50	14	547X	Mike Prunty	13:17:26*
Pro Moto 60	37	649X	Donald Lewis	15:59:58
Pro Moto Adventure	28	827X	Javier Rubio	14:43:59
Pro Moto Ironman	18	792X	Daniel Mastrude	13:41:53
Pro Moto Limited	9	110X	Armando Ortiz	12:35:23*
Pro Moto Unlimited	1	11X	Arturo Salas Jr.	10:36:03*
Pro Quad	12	7A	Eduardo Hernandez	12:56:03*
Sportsman Moto	17	259X	Jhoan Sanchez	13:34:21*
Sportsman Quad	8	124A	Erick Talamantes	12:18:26*