With pre-running on the rugged race route to open Saturday, Oct. 22, official entries from 27 U.S. States and 11 countries were included in Thursday’s drawing for start positions in various classes for next month’s 49th anniversary of the iconic SCORE Baja 1000 desert race, the season finale of the four-race 2016 SCORE World Desert Championship.
Nearly 250 cars, trucks, UTVs, motorcycles and quads from 35 U.S. States and 15 countries are expected to take the green flag on Friday, Nov. 18 for this year’s 49th SCORE Baja 1000. The granddaddy of all desert races will be held Nov. 15-20 in Baja California Norte on Mexico’s majestic Baja California peninsula, starting and finishing in the seaside port of Ensenada, 65 miles south of the U.S. Border at San Diego.
This year’s SCORE Baja 1000 will be a loop race and pre-running on the approximately 830-mile course will open on Saturday, Oct. 22 with the start to Ojos Negros only allowed on Wednesday and Thursday of race week (and only in the outbound direction).
The start line and finish line will once again be adjacent to the iconic Riviera del Pacifico Cultural Center in the heart of Ensenada and the first and last several spectator-friendly miles running up and back down the Ensenada Arroyo.
SCORE COURSE SUPREME!
As it has for over four decades, SCORE has put together another agonizingly memorable race course, this one for a loop race, with all of the foreboding, unforgiving terrain that the northern state of the majestic Baja California peninsula has to offer. SCORE CEO/President Roger Norman and SCORE Race Director Jose A. Grijalva have designed and finalized this year’s SCORE Baja 1000 race course.
Starting and finishing in the heart of Ensenada in front of the historic Riviera del Pacifico Cultural Center, the course travels in a counter-clockwise direction. It includes the approximate 20 mile stretch to Ojos Negros which is used in both directions. Outgoing, the course heads south from Ojos Negros through Santo Tomas and then runs along the picturesque Pacific Ocean for over 100 miles and then back across to the center of Baja California Norte.
The approximately 830-mile course covers both sides of the peninsula and includes four checkpoints.
The race will have its normal start from Ensenada to Piedras Gordas, then out to highway 3 around Rm 20.7 and will go to Km33 and get back on the dirt. The course will go past Rancho Grijalva to El Mezcal and head to Uruapan using La Lagrima Rd, a different road than in past years.
From Santo Tomas, the course heads to the coast of the Pacific Ocean and runs down to San Quintin, Nuevo Odisea and then to El Rosario. The course will travel up the well known hill La Vivora, el Arenoso, and will loop around from San Juan de Dios at approximate Rm305 to El Metate Rm 340, Los Martires Rm 363 and go back to San Quintin on the east side of the highway and run north to Col. Vicente Guerrero, Jaramillo and Colonet.
The course will travel a new route from Colonet to Llano Colorado and across to Valley de Trinidad. The race course goes along the highway from San Matias to Villa del Sol then crossing the highway at El Chinero, north to Coabuso Junction and then climb up the summit in the opposite direction as previous races from the desert to Nuevo Junction and on to Catarina. From Catarina, it will be back to Ojos Negros and from Ojos Negros back to the finish line.
The four checkpoints will be located at Santo Tomas (CP 1–race-mile 87), El Rosario (CP 2–rm249), Vicente Guerrero (CP 3–rm457) and Nuevo Junction (CP 4–rm730).