Trinity Racing
Member
SCORE BAJA 500 RACE REPORTAfter overcoming a devastating fire to our brand new Black Hills UTV race car in the Baja 500 Sur, we finally got her back into racing form for the 500 north. The car was, what we thought, better than ever and we were looking forward to heading south once again. We got done prerunning, and we knew this years Baja 500 North was going to be a tough course, but we were looking forward to it!
Our plan for this race was for me to drive the first half of the course, with Jamie as my copilot, then switch roles and have him pilot us to the finish. We started the race deep in the pack of 23 UTVs. We knew we were going to have to battle thru 18 plus cars and a lot of dust.
By race mile 115 we were physically running 7th, but on adjusted time we knew we were close to the leaders. We made it safely down the treacherous La Rumorosa grade and by mile 150 we had picked off 3 more UTVs. After another 100 miles, we found ourselves in a 3 way battle for physical 2nd place. The Mystic car was directly in front of us and Jagged X in our rear view, eating our dust.
At this point in the race, everything was going just how we wanted. We were poised to do battle with my arch nemesis in ATV racing, Wayne Matlock, who was leading the race. I was excited to ignite our old rivalry again! Then disaster! First the power steering quit, and then the car just died. Our gremlins were back! After assessing the car, we came to the conclusion that there was an issue with the charging system and both batteries were drained. We were dead in the water at race mile 255! This area happens to be positioned in a mountainous canyon, so we had zero radio service, zero cell phone service and couldn't get out on the sat phone. We had a choice, we could just sit there and wait or start walking out, so that's exactly what I did. I took water, my phone, a radio and started my hike in search of anyone that could help us. Two miles into my walk I heard a siren behind me and when I turned around I saw my partner, Jamie, driving our UTV. As he got closer I could see he's holding our Dewalt impact's battery on the dash with two wire leads coming from it going to the car. He's a genius! "Jump in" he says and we were on our way to our pit in El Chinero. After charging our battery at the pit for a bit, we got back in the race. We still didn't know what was wrong with the car but it seemed to be charging the battery again, so we took a spare battery in my lap and started making our way over to the coast. A few miles out of our pit at race mile 358, we found ourselves parked once again with a broken tie rod bolt. We were able to steal a bolt from the sway-bar and get to our pit, where we replaced it properly. Amazingly, by the time we made it to Santo Tomas, we were running 4th and about to embark on the final leg of the course. The last 85 miles of the race was some of the gnarliest in Baja, housing some of the worst silt beds I've seen in my 23 years of racing Baja. Impressively, Jamie navigated the second half of the course like a pro and got us to the finish! We were happy to cross the line in 4th, salvaging what could have easily been a DNF.
The next afternoon, we went to the awards to support my quad teams victory in the race and to see the actual results. To our amazement, we hear our names being called for 3rd place in the UTV class! Turns out the Jagged X team accrued some penalties, pushing them back to 4th and moving us up to 3rd.
We want to thank everyone involved in our program. It takes a lot of effort to go down and do these races and without the support of sponsors and pit crews, we would not be racing. Also, a special thanks to the guys at Alba for helping us out! We are excited to have gotten up on the podium in such a demanding race, but our goal is to be winning and we will continue to work hard towards achieving it! See you at the next race!
Mike Cafro
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