After two days and two nights of racing, Joe Bacal and the JTGrey Lexus LX 570 have won the Stock Full class in the 45th Tecate SCORE Baja 1000.
While the Baja 1000 is typically a 621-mile loop that starts and finishes in Ensenada, Mexico, this year’s course took racers along the entire length of the Baja California peninsula, from Ensenada to La Paz — a 1,122 mile journey that started Thursday and ended Saturday.
The JTGrey LX finished the race with a final time of 35 hours 5 minutes 37 hours 22 minutes at an average speed of 31.8mph, and Joe Bacal was behind the wheel the entire time, driving the entire distance himself. He was assisted in the LX by co-drivers Brian “Woody” Swearingen, Paul Williamsen and Joe Nolan.
Paul Williamsen kindly provided further details on the race via email:
The LX ran flawlessly without a single mechanical issue, starting and finishing on the same four BF Goodrich “Baja” tires and TRD F SPORT alloy wheels. Nothing but fuel and drinking water at its eight planned pit stops.
The team led the Stock Fullsize class for most of the race, except for a brief period south of Bahia de Los Angeles when class champion Wes Bevly & his Ford F150 EcoTe got ahead of us between the 3rd & 4th pitstops.
Joe finished over 150 miles ahead of the Ford. There were no other finishers in our class.
Congratulations to Joe and the entire JTGrey team for a victory well deserved!
(Special thanks to Paul Williamsen for sharing race details and the photo used above!)
Update: Edited with the correction race time.
No discussion thread for this article yet.