Honda wins 2010 BAJA 1000

Etching their names on the granite history of the world’s most legendary desert race, Kendall Norman and Quinn Cody became part of motorsports history by capturing the overall two-wheel victory in the 43rd Annual Baja 1000 — the granddaddy of all desert races.

Kendall Norman and Quinn Cody were the top motorcycle finishers in this year’s Baja 1000 race, which saw the race start in Ensenada, Mexico, and finish up in La Paz with rides racing a grand total of 1708 kilometres.

Norman and Cody gave Honda its 21st overall motorcycle victory and 14th consecutive win of the event. They completed the race in 19:22:22 with an average speed of 87km/h.

With 292 starters leaving the Ensenada starting line Thursday morning, competitors from 37 states and 19 countries battled the rugged terrain in cars, trucks, motorcycles and ATVs in 33 Pro and 7 Sportsman classes. Massive crowds reaching nearly 250,000 lined the historic Baja peninsula to gain a glimpse of the competitors. Vehicles left the start line in 30-second intervals and all vehicles had 45 hours to become official finishers of the race.

Of the 292 official starters 197 finished the race, which is the third-highest finish rate seen for 18 years and the fifth-highest in the 43-year history.

Kendall Norman said: “The fog was really thick for about 100 miles [160 kilometres] — it was as bad as I’ve seen it. It really tested me and what I had. It took everything I could to keep the bike moving and keep my goggles clean and just keep going.”

“I can’t say enough for my teammate Quinn, he did an amazing job. It was flawless. It has been a helluva long year, waking up every day thinking of this race. We finally made it and made all my dreams come true this year. We pretty much had a flawless day. Quinn got a rear flat tire and other than that we really didn’t have a problem all day long.”

“That was our strategy: Ride within ourselves, where we are not going to make mistakes. You really can’t screw up in this race. You’ve got to have this perfect race. Man, this is the toughest single day of off-road racing in the world and to win five? I can’t even fathom it.”

“Off the start, there were a lot of spectators. Our competition (the 7x bike) was on point – they were really riding good in the morning and they were there waiting for me to make a mistake. I just did the best I could. For a second, the KTM 7x actually ended up passing me on the highway when I pitted but when they pitted I was able to pass them back. I kept the rhythm going and got the bike to Quinn and he did an amazing job on his section.”

Quinn Cody says: It went really well. I got the bike and our 8x team was right behind us. I kept it pinned through the whole Bay of L.A. section and all the way to San Ignacio. I just tried to keep it clean and smooth. We really didn’t have any problems. We made it quite a way without having to put the lights on.”

“We ended up putting our lights on about 30 miles [48 kilometres] from San Juanico and from there it was clear sailing. We had a big lead by that time and then it was just control the race from there. I got one flat tire a couple miles from the pavement at Vizcaino but we had a guy that was right there at the pavement just for that and we did a wheel change. It was a minute and we were back going again.”

“They said we were stupid for doing it with just two guys but we managed to pull it off. I feel great. It was really no different than any other one. The course was good, it was really fast. We were ahead of our ETA all day — 10 to 15 minutes ahead so we were probably averaging about 60 [96km/h] all day and then we got into the fog in Ciudad Insurgentes and that slowed the average down quite a bit because you just couldn’t see through that. That’s when Kendall was on the bike so he had to back it off a bit.”

The full results can be found on the Score-International website.