After a rough pre-running month and losing his cherished dog Xena in a car accident, BJ Baldwin wins the SCORE Baja 1000 for the second year in a row. After racing the entire 883.1 mile course solo, Baldwin battled the team of Rob MacCachren and Andy McMillin down the stretch but still pulled off the win.
Of course, the results aren’t official yet and as Baldwin himself knows, things can change. Last year’s unofficial win went to Gustavo Vildosola while Baldwin disputed Vildosola’s improper pit stop.
“Compared to last year this race win means a lot more,” Baldwin said. “Last year I worked really really hard to win the Baja 1000, and my moment kind of got taken away from me with some stuff that happened last year with some other competitors, so I didn’t win the race until about three weeks later. But this year it’s pretty clear that we’re the winner. We didn’t have any rule infractions or anything like that.”
Baldwin also said that, due to his personal issues, he was not as prepared as he wanted to be and he was actually not looking forward to the race.
“..I’ll be honest with you, I have not been looking forward to racing today, just because I’ve been so depressed and I haven’t been in the right mood, you know. I just want to go home and curl up on the couch. But once I got in here this morning, I realized what I am here to do, and I realize that I’m very lucky and this is so much fun, especially beating everybody… it is very fun.”
So we’ll just have to wait for SCORE’s official results, but it looks like Ballistic BJ Baldwin has this win locked.
