That is exactly what Justin Davis did. Justin has become the youngest solo driver to ever win the Baja 1000 in a class one car and the youngest to take home a class one championship. “I am just really lucky to have this chance and be able to drive these race cars, without my family and my crew this would have never been possible,” Justin said after the win. Justin started the 44^th annual Tecate SCORE Baja 1000 dead last and drove through the pack of twenty-four  well talented class one car drivers, beating some of the best there is in the business. “Our plan was to really pace ourselves, all we had to do was finish and we would take home the championship,” said Justin. “When we found out our time splits we just went for it, I was in it to win it. “

After losing the Baja 500 this year by a few minutes it was evident that Justin was on a mission the last 150 miles of the race.  “The San Matias pit told me that John Herder was behind the wheel of the Wilson’s car and coming fast, so I tried to focus on no mistakes and drive my own race. I have to say through the beach section my new ridgid lights really worked great.  At the final pit at the meadow my team really got me in and out fast and the Wilson’s car was right behind me as I pulled out.  We had a great run to the finish and after sixteen hours in the car I was excited to see my whole team at the finish line to cheer me on”.

Justin started his 2011 season with a bang with the debut of his class one car.  He became the youngest to win in his class at the SCORE Laughlin Desert Challenge taking first place. This was just a start to a winning season.

Justin stated, “This Baja 1000 was by far the toughest race I’ve ever raced and to be able to solo it and win the race was a huge success for me. I have not had a flat all year, thanks to my General Tires. I don’t think any tire company can top that, but General Tire.”

I really want to thank my crew chief Josh O’Neil he has really nailed it since being in charge of the car, and my whole GreenArmy crew. I would like to thank my sponsors General Tire, King Shocks best in the business, Sunoco Fuels, DST, Jamar Performance Products thanks for letting me stop all year, Fast-Aid , CBR Radiators, Clint you’ve  been such a good friend and supporter , Ridgid Led Lighting for lighting up the desert so we could go for the win , PPM Ryan best axles ever ,  Slime , Dave Folts Transmissions ,  Nickhead at Kartek, Kroyer  the motor choice for champions , Mark at Straightedge for making the car look awesome. I would also like to thank my co-drivers Troy Holes and Jordan Kundert, Jordan thank you for tuning my shocks and all your help. A special thanks to my sister Ashley, my mom Kim and my dad Kevin for their unwavering support, also thank you to my media guys Scott Bridges, Greg Wetzel, and Bryan Moore.

Written By: Bryan Moore

Best in the Desert’s Vegas to Reno is the longest, most treacherous, off-road race in the United States. Starting outside of Las Vegas in the mining town of Beatty, NV, the 550-mile course winds its way across the badlands of Nevada. Racers encounter a mix of high-speed graded roads, wicked silt beds, rocky washes, mountain passes, and giant rolling hills. With more than 300 entries, this race is one of the most difficult to finish, let alone win.

The Monster Energy Off-Road Team lead by Trophy Truck Champion “Ballistic” BJ Baldwin came with guns blazing as the team managed to qualify four vehicles in the top-20 during qualifying on Wednesday. The team consisted of “Ballistic” BJ Baldwin, Troy Herbst, Tim Herbst, Larry Roesler, Jerry Zaiden, and Jerry Whelchel in Trophy Trucks. Representing Monster Energy in Class 1 was bike veteran Mikey Childress.

Directed by The Martelli Brothers, Produced by Mad Media

Monster Energy presents: On-Board with Monster Energy at BITD Vegas to Reno 2011. The Monster Energy off-road team attacked the Nevada desert at this years Best in The Desert Vegas to Reno. Experience what it’s like to ride on-board with “Ballistic” BJ Baldwin as he hits speeds in excess of 140mph across barren dry-lake beds, or through the crazy rally roads of the Nevada hills with Mikey Childress. Ride shotgun as race legend Larry Roessler battles brutal rocky washes and blinding silt beds that make up this insane course. Strap in and check out the insane desert racing action presented by Monster Energy.

Directed by The Martelli Brothers, Produced by Mad Media

This weeks stop on the Race-Dezert.com shop tour is Freitas Offroad Motorsports. Thanks to Dan at Hostyle Racing we were able to setup a tour of the shop right before the team departed to the BITD Parker race to kick off their season. Freitas Motorsports is owned by the Father/Son team of Danny and Garrick Freitas. They have a class 1 Jimco Champion and a class 1400 prerunner truck. Their shop is located in Fresno, CA. The shop has been recently finished and is filled with only top of the line equipment. It is kept very VERY clean and you have the feeling you could eat off the shop floor!

Freitas Shop

Freitas Shop

When you walk in the office the first thing you notice is a huge painting on the wall with dogs driving the class 1 car! Also you cant but help notice the custom barber chair. I guess you never know when you might need a hair cut or shave!

Office

Custom Painting, Dogs Driving The Race Car

Barber Chair!

The next room you come to is the bathroom and this might be one of the cleanest bathrooms anywhere. It is even complete with a full size washer and dryer!

Bathroom

Full Size Washer And Dryer

Next down the wall is the machine shop area. Here you will find everything from mills, welders, benders, solvent tank, everything you could ever need. This area is kept so clean you would never know any work gets done here!

Machine Shop

Mill and Bender

Welders

Throughout the shop you will find multiple top of the line Snap-On tool boxes and even a brand new Snap-On BBQ, I bet you havent seen very many of those before!

Snap-On Tool Box

Custom Rug

Snap-On BBQ

The shop has enough room inside that each of the chase trucks and semi trailer can all fit inside so they dont have to be out in the elements.

Chase Truck Box Van

Chase Truck

Semi Trailer

Every part has a bin that is clearly labeled for easy access. This takes all the guess work out of finding parts and keeps everything very organized.

Part Bins Clearly Labeled

Very Organized

When they are not racing their class 1 car they have a 1400 Prerunner truck that will do various races throughout the year. This is also what they were racing before the class 1 car was acquired.

1400 Prerunner Truck

1400 Prerunner Truck

To complete the team they also have a RZR and a couple other toys.

You can catch the Freitas race team at these races this year:

BITD Silver State 300 April 30th
SCORE Baja 500 June 4th
BITD Vegas To Reno Aug. 19th
BITD Bluewater Challenge Oct. 15-16
BITD Transwest Henderson 250 Dec. 3rd

Be sure to check out the rest of the pictures of the amazing shop below. Thanks again to Freitas Motorsports for letting Race-Dezert.com stop by and take a tour of their shop!

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Today marked the first race of the season for BITD out in Parker, AZ. With over 250 entries, the desert was filled with race vehicles pushing the limits to what they are capable of. As we are typing this the race is still going on, with a time limit ending at 1am, but here are a few things that stood out from today.

- Sam Berri won Class 1500, even after losing 3rd and 4th gear halfway through the race.
- BJ Baldwin’s co-driver Jonny had to take over driving duties after BJ came ill.
- Andy McMillin was leading the race when he put his truck on its side, causing damage that ended his race.
- Word on the street was that there were 17 Geiser Trophy Trucks entered. Pistol was not one of them.
- Sam Berri’s new nickname is now “Qualifying Killer”.
- Robby Gordon reportedly out of race due to a hole in the radiator.
- Camburg Racing lost some time off the start after a Class 1500 car rolled in front of them and they tried to push them off the track, getting stuck

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Photos by HighRev Photography

For this years SCORE Baja 1000 my assignment was to chase the McMillin Racing team.   My usual cohort was the legendary Scott Smith of Paradigm Productions, and our buddy Johnny “The Slayer” Rukkas. We headed down Wednesday morning to get down there before contingency started so that we made sure we caught them rolling through tech. Luckily for us, around 5:45am Scott got a text from Beau of McMillin Racing asking when we were headed down. Beau was already sitting in line waiting for tech to start in the #31 Trophy Truck, so we knew first thing when we got there we’d be able to catch them.

One of the first things we came across when we got there was a local security guard. He also doubles as a photographer.

Our main goal for Wednesday was to get a few shots of all four vehicles (Andy/Scott #31, Mark #23, Dan #103, and Luke #1648), and a few lifestyle shots of the team and the overall atmosphere of the day.

Here is Beau enjoying his time down in Baja. Beau is a hard working part of the McMillin team who spends countless nights at the shop prepping and fabbing.

Here is a shot of Mark, Dan and Luke’s cars going through town. I got up on the PCI Race Radios trailer to get a higher vantage point so that you can get a good feel of the crowd.

While walking through contingency admiring all the T-Shirts with my stolen photos on them, we came across a life size driver cuttout for people to take photos with. Scott wanted in on the action so he made his best Tom Selleck impression.

Johnny gave it a try but he is a little height impaired, but luckily they had a pink and yellow plastic stool for kids to use.

A lot of the drivers and team members get asked by the locals for autographs, stickers, and posters. For some reason a little boy came up to Scott to ask him for an autograph, I’m pretty sure he signed it, “Thanks for liking the mustache.”

With all our clients through tech, and after strolling through a few times we decided to head back to the Hotel Coral so Scott could get all McMillin’s incar cameras inline, and relax before a long day ahead of us.

Our game plan for race day was to follow the lead group and catch them three times before the sun went down over the mountains.  It would be a tough thing to do in the first part of the race course because it basically paralleled the highway for the majority of the first 145 miles before they turned down and headed towards Diablo Dry Lake. After we caught them a 3rd time we were going to head down to San Felipe and meet up with our friends who were pitting for some friends.

Race morning came around and the first thing we did before heading out was to get some footage of the McMillins getting ready before they headed over to staging, and then go to the start line to get some more shots before the start of the race.

Legend Larry Ragland teamed up with Jesse Jones and was good to see him out in a trophy truck again.

McMillins crew chief Greg Williams talks with Mark McMillin before heading over to staging.

Over at staging near the start line we caught up with the McMillins to get a few more shots before we had to head out to the course. Our plan was to leave about 15 minutes before the start of the race so that we could beat the leaders to the road crossing at Ojos.

Here is an overview shot of the staging area.

A racer taking a breather before the start of the race, preparing for the long journey ahead.

Team McMillin nice and relaxed about 20 minutes before the start of the race.

Here is a shot of Andy and Dan. Dan the camera is over here.

Andy is one of the more popular drivers down in Baja, a lot of the younger fans of the sport look up to him and he always takes the time to sign autographs and receive kisses on the cheek.

11:15am hit the clock so it was time for us to get on the road towards Ojos. We wanted to get to the road crossing before the leaders went by because once they do they stop traffic for a while to let racers go by. If we were to get caught there we would miss both Andy and Mark there since they started 4th and 9th respectively, and also run the risk of missing them at our next planned spot. Luckily we timed it right and didn’t hit any bad traffic and were able to catch the leaders pass by.

We knew the photos we’d get here wouldn’t be anything spectacular, our goal was to catch them hear early because they’d still be clean, and it was at a spot where we’d be able to catch them again down the road. For this spot I just wanted to show the crowd at the road crossing to get the feel for a Baja race.

Roger Norman was first off the line and first car to go through Ojos.

Andy McMillin gets on the gas after crossing the pavement at Ojos.

After the first 10 trucks went by, we hurried back to the truck and headed to our next planned spot which was where they get back on the dirt after getting on the first pavement section after KM77. Here is a Google Earth shot of where we went. We didn’t know what the spot would be like so we just walked down the graded road until we hit the right hand turn marked by the blue dot.

It turned out to be a pretty good spot as the turn was a little soft and already grooved out from prerunning.

Roger Norman

Vildosola Racing

BJ Baldwin

We could only stay there for the first 4 trucks so that we made sure we beat them down to near San Matias for our third spot on the course. At this spot we were able to catch the leaders, and stay through the Class 10 cars. We originally planned to head towards Checkpoint 2, but the only way to get back to the highway would be to back track on the course, so instead we decided to shoot near the highway before they make the turn and head towards Diablo Dry Lake.

You can see in the Google Earth shot that the course is literally next to the highway, and that there are a few washes that the course crosses making a few good bumps and whoops.

The cars and trucks were coming at us head on at a pretty good pace, and with the highway on one side, and bushes on the other it would be hard to get a side shot, so I decided to shoot this area head on. It was another shot that you could show the spectators in the shot to get a feel for Baja.

Specators look on as Robby Gordon makes his way down the course. Some spectators didn’t know it was him after he went by because of the new Specialized, Speed Energy paint scheme. Apparently they don’t read RDC.

Troy Herbst flies down the course with Jimmy Cook of Sinister Films hot on their tale videoing the action.

Mango Racing making a clean pass on the AGM Class 1 car.

By this time the sun was getting lower in the sky, and the next spot would be in the dark. Once Dan McMillin went by us, and after the 10 and 12 cars started to pass by we hit the road another time to try and beat Luke McMillin to the Puertocitos area south of San Felipe where we would meet up with another group of friends. This was another spot where we didn’t really know what the area would be like, but since it was at night it wasn’t as important because the background would be irrelevant.

We unfortunately missed Luke there, but I was working with two other photograph friends of mine to trade out photos so not all was lost. Both Brian from Bink Designs and Art from Art Eugenio Photography were able to catch him earlier in the race.

For my setup I used Pocketwizards to fire a Canon 550ex flash. The flash was set to manual at 1/2 power, and my camera settings were ISO 400, Shutter Speed 1/160th, and Aperture 7.1. Because the flash isn’t as powerful as a full strobe, I had to set it right next to the side of the course, but I actually prefer the look it gives lighting up only the car.

Here car #1608 has some mechanical problems, so the co-driver sits on the front passenger side to keep weight off the rear.

The benefit of firing a flash remotely instead of having it on the hot shoe is that it gives you a more realistic shot, but more importantly it gives you the freedom to walk around.

You can shoot it from the driver side.

Jesse James

Eco-Boost Ford Raptor

You could also shoot from the passenger side, giving you a little more dramatic look.

And finally you could shoot from the driver side again, but this time from behind the vehicle.

As time went on we decided to call it a night and head back to our friends house south of town. After a few fish tacos near Miramar, and trading a few stories from the day with friends we called it a night. Overall our game plan of catching the lead group three times worked out great, we didn’t have any problems, and made it home safe. Congrats to not only everyone who finished the Baja 1000, but also those who braved to attempt it.

Before our drive home Friday morning we were rewarded with a beautiful sunrise on the beaches of San Felipe. It was a great way to top off another great Baja experience.

Story and Photos by HighRev Photography

Today marked the first day in the BITD Vegas 2 Reno race. Teams headed to Primm, NV to qualify for starting positions for Friday’s race, looking to get a top position so that they wouldn’t have to battle through the notorious Nevada dust. The qualifying loop started on the old CORR track and would use another 2 miles of desert behind the Buffalo Bills Casino.

Drivers that looked to be on top of their game included Hovey, BJ Baldwin, Andy McMillin, Sam Berri, and Rick Johnson. Who will take the pole?

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Dear friends, partners and sponsors,

Here’s a little story that I love. It might happen like this at the Baja 500, or at every SCORE race. As great news we have Andreas Aigner, the reigning Production Car World Rally Champion, onboard our team. Andreas teams up with Armin Kremer, and I share the second AGM Buggy with my friend and team boss Martin Christensen. But first, have fun reading this!

Regards,

Armin Schwarz

Start of Baja 500 for Team AGM

   Maria has done this job for many years. Without computer but with lots of fervour. In front of her is a thick file. In the file she sees whether team boss Joe has paid the entry fee for the Baja 500. He has. Bueno, then he can compete. So he pushes his desert monster to the technical inspection. In 20 years of the Baja, the gentlemen there have never seen anything like Joe’s ideas. “Hey Joe, what have you got there?” 

Sal Fish CEO of SCORE International in Media Conference

   Joe explains that he’s got a new idea for the shocks and with the weight distribution and, well, with the entire frame. “Aha,” says Carlos, as he picks up the phone and calls Sal. Sal is the boss of the SCORE International Offroad Series, with the same status as Bernie Ecclestone in F1. And he says: “That sounds okay, we just have to create a new class for Joe.” No sooner said than done. Joe rolls his monster to the start of the Baja 500 on June 6th and competes in his own class. After all, everyone deserves the chance to rocket through over 860 high-speed kilometres of desert.

   But first up we celebrate. Because if the Baja 500 isn’t reason enough to party then what is? At sunrise the Costero Boulevard comes to life – the four-lane highway of the starting place Ensenada on the Mexican Pacific coast – is buzzing with people. The mayor is, of course, a fan of motorsport and has closed the Boulevard to traffic so that fans and race teams can party undisturbed. And it’s huge. All the teams – and that’s almost 400 competitors in 2009 – have to push their race vehicles along the Boulevard, first past Maria’ desk and then to the technical inspection. If you don’t get in before sunrise you have to calculate at least six hours of waiting in the queue to reach the five-minute inspection.

Baja 500 contingency row

   For everyone, the fans, the racers, the SCORE people, this “Contingency Row” and technical inspection is like a huge Mardi Gras, a cross between the Oktoberfest and the Le Mans 24 Hours under the Pacific sun. The jamboree goes late into the night, which means not all the fans, that enthusiastically drank margaritas and cervecas all day, will make it on Saturday morning to see the motorbikes and ATV head off into the desert and 6am, followed by the Buggys and Trucks from 10am. Martin and I take off as the second Buggy team behind 24 Trophy Trucks. Andreas and Armin follow eight start positions later.

   Ten hours of driving through the desert is what the top teams calculate for this Baja 500. If you want to be classified you have to be back in Ensenada within 20 hours. And it pays to be fit. Because on Monday morning from 10am they award the prizes. And that has to be celebrated.

Follow Armin Schwarz on his website.