PREVIEW: 2022 SCORE World Desert Championship – Baja 400

The Baja 400, the youngest leg on the SCORE International World Desert Championship with just two previous editions, will kick off the run to the Baja 1000. Scheduled for Saturday, 17 September, the results from the 400 will set the starting grid for the 1000.

The Course

Like in previous years, the 393.82-mi (633.79-km) course will be a loop that starts and ends in Ensenada’s Costero Boulevard next to the Riviera del Pacifico Cultural Center. Teams will have nineteen hours each to complete the race, an hour less than the slightly longer Baja 500 in June.

Perhaps the biggest question surrounding the course concerns the weather. Hurricane Kay made landfall in Baja California in early September, resulting in significant flooding and turning parts of the course into mud rivers. SCORE imposed a two-day moratorium on pre-running on 9/10 September to wait until the storms subsided, though many still found themselves traversing large rivers of mud once it was lifted. The storm also resulted in the cancellation of the Campeonato Estatal Off Road Baja Sur Series’ Loreto 400, which had been scheduled for the same weekend as the Baja 400.

While the race is the first since the crime wave by area drug cartels in mid-August, which prompted the United States Consulate in Tijuana to warn against travelling to the region, SCORE stressed that such incidents have decreased in the weeks since and security had been strengthened with police and military assistance.

The Grid

182 entries make up the field prior to late on-site registration beginning on Tuesday. Qualifying will take place the following day for Trophy Truck, Trophy Truck Legends and Spec, and Class 1, while the order to head out for the session was set based on registration date.

Besides the usual suspects like Rob MacCachren and defending winner Bryce Menzies, entered in the Trophy Truck class are special faces such as the #47 of Paul Weel and Toby Price. Racing as Team Australia, Price and Weel first joined forces for the Vegas to Reno in August ahead of the 400 and 1000.

MacCachren’s son Cayden will be a pilot for the first time as he takes over for Christian Sourapas in the #219 TT Spec while Sourapas is on business duty.

Phil Blurton, the 2021 overall SCORE World Desert Champion, will run his first race of 2022 in the Pro UTV FI class. Also returning to SCORE in the class is Austin Jones, winner of the 2021 FIA World Cup for Cross-Country Rallies and eight months removed from claiming the SSV victory at the legendary Dakar Rally; he was the 2019 SCORE Rookie of the Year as a TT Spec driver.

The 400 will see the débuts for various teams and drivers, two of which come to Baja with extensive rallying experience but are new to desert racing. In the TT Spec class, the #203 will be piloted by Canadian Rally Championship driver Ken Stanick alongside fellow CRC racers Jamie Willetts and Jason Bailey. All three have raced in the American Rally Association, whose 2017 Production 4WD championship was won by fellow SCORE rookie Dennis Romero. Romero and his Argentinian Rally Championship peers Oscar Ibarra, Walter D’Agostini, and Mauricio Obrador will all team up for the nascent VatosLokos Racing in the Pro Stock UTV category.

Also new to SCORE is the #138A of Team Border ATV in Sportsman Quad, with Gabriel Vazquez as Rider of Record.

First starters

Follow @TCFoffroad: Twitter | Facebook | Instagram