Race Report: 2015 SCORE Baja 500

Score switched up the racecourse for the 2015 Baja 500 slightly, as instead of taking the traditional route over the summit, the course headed further north through the pine forest and then down the Rumarosa grade- a steep, technical decent- before joining the more familiar terrain through Borrego, Mike’s sky ranch and then taking the pacific coast back into Ensenada.

Max Eddy started the race for the 1X Monster Energy, THR Motorsports, Precision Concepts, Hoosier Machining Kawasaki- Max was bouncing back from his crash, and broken arm, in San Felipe. The team was seventh off the line, with the 5X Honda of WFOx motorsports team of Justin Jones, Mark Samuels and Ray Dosoglio leaving the line first. There were quite a few speed zones in the first miles of the race leaving Ensenada, making overtaking more difficult with fewer miles at full race speed. Max had a great run, passing his way into third place physically, and staying right on time with the 5X team by the time he handed the bike to Justin Morgan at race mile 44- the 19X entry of Scott Myers was in between.

Justin was fighting some physical troubles of his own, as an unfortunate pre-run crash had left him with a broken knuckle on the middle finger of his right hand, along with some serious scrapes and cuts to his fingers, which required stitching. While changing riders in the pit at RM44 the team dropped to fourth place on the course, but Justin was able to make the pass back relatively quickly and began to real in the leaders. Around race mile 95 the leading 5X Honda suffered a severe crash- Justin Jones was riding- and was unfortunately unable to continue, leaving the 19X entry as the only bike ahead of the 1X team.

Justin was able to close the gap to the leader down the Rumarosa grade, and just after a pit at the base of the decent he made the pass for the lead. From there Justin quickly pulled out a gap, stretching to around fifteen minutes before handing the bike over to Ian Young at race mile 267. Ian had a long stretch ahead of him- 158 miles- and put in a very solid ride, stretching the lead even further to over thirty minutes, allowing the team to relax and maintain a safe pace to the finish. Max jumped back on the bike at race mile 425 for the final miles of the race and was able to ride safely in to the finish to take the overall motorcycle victory.

---