2005 38th Tecate SCORE Baja 1000
ATV Race Report
story by: Harlen Foley
photos by: Levi Merriman

Sand Whoops stretched for miles		The loop included plenty of rocks

Only half of the over 350 teams would complete the extremely rough and treacherous course, which was exclaimed by many to be the roughest ever. Of the over 300 teams, there were a total of 28 ATV teams including both the Pro and Sport classes that started the race at 6:30 a.m. Friday Morning with each team leaving the starting line 30 to 60 seconds apart depending of the class. Each team would have a total of 30 hours to complete the race. To keep track of the teams and progress of the race, the racers were scored at seven checkpoints before reaching the finish line.

9A - Chad Prull aboard the winning Alba Action TRX450R

Keith Little held the early lead in the race followed by Nick Nelson and Wayne Matlock, but a section of rocky terrain just over a hundred miles into the race resulted in Little having three flat tires, which dropped him all the way back to fifth place and out of the lead. Nick Nelson was experiencing suspension problems, so he was forced to pit and swap out the suspension, which allowed Wayne Matlock to take over the lead with William Yokley moving into third place for Temecula Motorsports.

Two of the favorites to win the event were out early as Josh Frederick’s Team (Josh Frederick, Cyle Chislock, Levi Marana, Logan Holladay) began experiencing electrical issues at the beginning of the race followed by a hole in the radiator, which took them out of contention. Also, the potent Bombardier Team of Doug Eichner, John Gregory, Dustin Nelson, and Marc Spaeth ran into problems early when their Outlander 800 stock tire completely dismounted itself off the rear wheel, so the rider swapped the front and rear wheels and continued the race with just a rim in the front. The strategy worked until the Outlander ran out of gas in the middle of no where and was forced to wait until pit crew rode the course backwards to find the stranded rider and quad. With several hours lost due to the early problems and with the rear end of the Outlander making noises, the team decided to call it a day just over a hundred miles into the race.

Meanwhile, Shane Hitt was onboard for Team Alba with Dana Creech working his team back into second place right behind Hitt in one of the dusty high speed sections, and with the reduced visibility from the dust, Creech would ended up wrecking hard, which resulted in their Baja Designs light being destroyed leaving only the stock headlights for the over 6 hours of night riding. Creech would end up wrecking yet again from pushing the limits to catch the leaders with his limited visibility with the stock lights, and luckily he wasn’t seriously injured. Wes Miller would take over for the team for the final leg of the race and maintained the second place position with Temecula Motorsports finishing in third.

3A Jason Luburgh made the trip from Ohio to Mexico to compete in the Baja		7A Nick DeStoud completed his leg of the race not far from his home in Mexico

It was a great day for Honda as the TRX450R dominated the podium and held eight of the top nine positions in the Pro Class. The most noticeable change to all the 2006 450R Honda’s from stock was addition of a oil cooler, which was standard equipment until 2006. The overall winner Team Alba’s 450R had both the oil cooler and fan installed to keep their engine running as cool as possible, which worked extremely well as their Honda engine looked as good as new even after the 700 mile long race without a single oil leak. Nick Nelson’s Team decided to run without the fan and just the added oil cooler, which wasn’t enough to keep their 450R cool, so they were forced to add oil and water on several pit stops combined with suspension issues and finished out the race in sixth place and several hours ahead of Josh Frederick's team in seventh place. The seventh place finish was enough for Frederick's to secure the ATV Pro SCORE Series Championship over Nick Nelson's Team, but the results are still unofficial with possible pending protest.

The Sport Division would belong to Team Bombardier with their newly released Outlander 800 taking the win with time of 26:19. The Outlander was piloted by Mike Penland, David Bailey,Michael Swift, and Rob Ransford. The win added another milestone to the Mike Penland’s career and gave Bombardier some bragging rights for their newest model taking the win in one of the most grueling races in the world as only 5 of the 10 teams starting the race in the Sport Division finished the race.

Special thanks to Doug Eichner, Cain Smead, and Teresa Creech for providing most of the information for this article, and Jamie Bougher and Levi Merriman will be providing even more coverage with video and photos from the Baja 1000.

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