Here in the U.S. the biggest off-road race of the year is about to unfold. The 38th SCORE Baja 1000th
This year the race course starts and ends in Ensenada Baja Mexico. It's a non-stop 709 mile race with a time limit of 30 hours. Competitors will start in last 30 second intervals starting at 6AM until the one is off the starting-line. Vehicles are grouped by class. There are motorcycles, quads, stock Volkswagen bugs (beetles) and unlimited Trophy Trucks. A record high of over 350 vehicles entries is expected.
The racecourse is well known to the teams and drivers have been pre-running the course over the last 4 weeks. Most of the race is held on public dirt roads and the few rules call only to stay within the dedicated race course. Vehicles have tracking devices to enforce just that. Not too may sections have speed limits. A team can setup pits anywhere they want alongside the race course. Support vehicles are prohibited on the course but otherwise can roam around as needed. Some of the bigger teams even use helicopters to chase the racecars, but it is illegal to fly in spare parts.
There is one two-way radio channel that SCORE is using to organize the event. On this channel medical emergencies, race cars in trouble, status reports for the check points and anything important is handled. The operator for this service is Bob Steinberger, he runs a radio business during the week and volunteers his time on race-day. His nick name is "Weatherman" as he once tied a radio antenna to a weather-balloon in order to get better radio reception. The nickname stuck ever since. For the Baja 1000 he will be positioned high in the mountains of a national park in Baja at an elevation of 9500 feet. The high elevation will improve radio receptions.
If you want to follow the race from home this year you can as race-dezert.com will stream the Weatherman channel over the internet. Simply follow this link to listen into the conversations and read race as it unfolds. Race Starts Friday 6AM PST (GMT-8) / MET Thursday 3pm (GMT +1).
SCORE race vehicles reach top speeds of up to 140mph but the average speed is expected to be around 45-50mph. Keep in mind the entire race course is one single stage.
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1 comment so far.
1:00 Helge Siems / 16 November 2005 at 4:12 pm
Klaus, thanks for the detailed information about the Baja 1000th Because I have been calculated at just the time info for all those who like me so in my head did not: 709 Miles are loud Unit Converter : 1141 miles. And that's really a cool stream with the service. I'll listen determined regularly. Is it really true that cars after scoring a travel regulations of nearly a meter and about twice as much power such as the Race Touareg 2 (190 KW) can have? The fact that so completely different than the cars registered in Europe rally cars to FIA regulations (up to 25 cm of travel) are?
Update: marathonrally.com writes, "but limited to the details of the car magazine" Auto Bild Motorsport "now change: The organizers of the Dakar, however, want to go to a category of vehicles after a" Score "-ajar, but nevertheless permit restriktierten regulations. This means more possibilities for Gordon and Co. - because even if the "Score" may have no all-wheel-vehicles and also have a restrictor, you can make more particularly on travel, which makes for higher speeds. "Rumors that a performance of about 500 hp and a possible suspension travel cm of about 70.
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