Baja California, Mexico (11/26/2013) -The 9a of team of Aldofo Arellano, Wes Miller, Wayne Matlock, and Roberto Villalobos won the 2013 SCORE Tecate Baja 1000. They finished in a time of 21:55:23 with an average speed of 40.3 mph to capture the overall ATV and Class 25 Open Pro ATV win. They piloted their Rich Morel built engine to an astounding 4th overall out of all of the motorcycle and ATV competitors. This was the highest overall finish for a quad in SCORE history. This groundbreaking performance took place on what has been deemed the roughest and most difficult Baja 1000 ever. The course was extremely rocky and had mile after mile of Baja’s infamous silt beds. This led to only 116 of the 251 starters finishing the 883 mile trek for a 46.22 finishing rate.

Coming into the race, Aldofo Arellano and Javier Robles Jr. were tied in points for the SCORE Championship with a 1st and 2nd each in the previous rounds. Setting up the Baja 1000 as the tiebreaker for the #1 plate. Prior to the race, Arellano qualified 2nd on Wednesday in the hills outside Ojos Negros. Robles would leave the line first followed 2 minutes later by Arellano.

Aldofo Arellano, Wes Miller, Wayne Matlock, and Roberto Villalobos earned the win in Class 25 on their Honda 450R ATV

The motorcycles and ATV’s started at night for the first time, with the first bike leaving at 11:00 PM. The first quad didn’t leave until 12:30 PM. As the racers left Ensenada in heavy fog, Aldofo pushed hard to close the gap on the 10a of Robles as they worked through the slower motorcycles. Visibility in the fog was so bad that riders were limited to first and second gear at some points. Arellano and Robles kept pace with each other and quickly moved up in the pack. Through Ojos Negros at race mile 35, 9a was ahead by 30 seconds on adjusted time. Arellano and Robles Jr. continued to battle with 10a ahead by 10 seconds at the first rider change. Roberto Villalobos took over at the Hwy 3 crossing at race mile 72 and headed into Los Pinos on his way to Saldania. Villalobos upped the pace and closed ground on the 10a machine. He closed the gap and made a pass for the physical lead just before JCR Pit 3 on Laguna Salada at race mile 143.

Roberto continued to pull away, but got lost in the night after pulling over to check the air filter. He lost a few minutes trying to find his way back to the course and 10a was able to get by. Villalobos again made a push for the lead and caught back up to the 10a quad. Into El Chinero, 9a was in the dust of 10a and ahead about 1:30 on adjusted time. Arellano got back on and gave chase to 10a. He closed up right on the other quad and in some big whoops heading into San Felipe, made the pass for the physical lead. At JCR Pit 5 at race mile 230, 9a had the lead by 5 minutes adjusted time. The sun was rising so they pulled the lights off in the pit. Aldofo continued to just south of the airport where Villalobos took over.

The quad raced down Old Puertocitos road with Roberto at the controls. He was able to open up another minute in this high speed rough section. Wes Miller took over at race mile 252 where the course hit the pavement just north of Puertocitos with a little over a 5 minute adjusted lead. The next 55 miles were on asphalt with a 60 mph speed limit. Battling strong winds Miller held a steady pace and got to the dirt near Gonzaga Bay, passing the 27x bike in the process. The course was really fast from Gonzaga through Coco’s Corner all the way to Calamajue Wash. Wes finessed the quad through the mud and water crossings making sure not to get stuck. Pre-running, Miller had seen a dirt bike buried to the gas tank in a mud hole there. The 9a came into the JCR pit at El Crucero at race mile 385 with an 11 minute lead on adjusted time and Wayne Matlock took over.

With a scheduled rear tire change and a fresh K&N Filter lid, Matlock left the pit six minutes ahead of the 10A quad. He picked his way through some of the worst silt beds he has ever seen, he said he was telling himself just keep moving forward no matter what don’t get stuck out here. This section had 20 miles of silt beds that were over the top of the handlebars at times. At around race mile 440 the silt beds were coming to an end and he was climbing up a hill to the top of a plateau that was supposed to have a Honda pit on top of it, luckily for Matlock it was right where it was supposed to be.

With all of the silt he had used too much fuel and ran out of gas about 50 feet short of the pit stop. If you’re going to run out that is a great spot to do so. The Honda guys ran down to where Matlock was and filled him up. He then pulled into their pit and removed the spare air filter that he was caring on his back and changed it. After that little stunt Matlock was not going to run out of gas again so he started looking for some gas about half way through his section. He pulled into the first one he saw and it happened to be a KTM pit. They were more than happy to give him fuel. The rest of his first ride went perfect. Matlock pushed hard and was able to pass three dirt bikes and hand the quad back off to Miller at RM496 in 6th overall. The team did another service there and Miller was off and running. The team waited around for ten minutes and there was no sign of 10A or any other quad for that matter. Miller hopped back on at race mile 498 near the granite boulders and cactus of Catavina. The team wasn’t sure how big of a lead they had since there was no visual contact with the course since El Crucero.

Wes rode smooth and consistent past the silt beds of Guayaqui and into the rockiest section of the race. He maintained their fast pace and the 9a was now in contention for a top 5 overall finish. In the high‐speed rocks, Miller got a puncture in his left rear tire. Luckily since the team was using Tire Blocks, he was able to ride the next 20 miles without loosing much time. At El Arenoso at the JCR pit at race mile 567, Matlock waited for Miller. They had the lights ready to go on the quad even though it was only 1:30 in the afternoon. Matlock planed on his ride taking about 3 hours, but the team did not want to take any chances so they were going to mount the lights just to be safe. When Miller came in they changed one tire Mounted the lights and looked over the quad and Matlock was off and running. He said that he was having an absolute blast in this section. He cleared his first Honda pit and things were going good. About 20 miles after his first Honda pit he started to look for fuel because he was worried about running out on the longer section in between pits. He pulled into a Mag 7 pit and they looked at him funny because of all the JCR Honda logos on the quad but they gave him a little fuel and that is all he needed. About that time Matlock noticed his right rear tire started to go flat, but he did not think much of it as he was running Tire Blocks. With the extreme conditions that he was putting the tire through the Blocks started to give way to Baja and he ended up running on that flat for about fifty miles. At the end of his section he came in to mile 660 feeling real good about his ride and how he did, he was able to pass one more dirt bike and moved the team into a top five overall standing.

They had a five minute pit stop to change out the flat tire, change the air filter and check everything else out on the quad. When Miller took off the whole team was feeling very confident about the race and their chances of winning. Wes took control of the throttle with a 2 ½ hour lead and rode through another 60 mph pavement section through Guerrero and Camalu. Local traffic made things interesting for Miller as he tried to maintain 60 mph in the busy towns. Once on the highway, he opened it back up. The sun set as he speed down the high‐speed sections to Colonet. After Colonet, the course ran backwards on this year’s previous Baja 500 course to Coyote Ranch, Mike’s Sky Ranch, and on to San Matias. The track was really torn up from the 500 and all the pre‐running from the 1000. Knowing they had a huge lead, Miller took it easy and rode safe and conservative. There were several deep‐water crossing, washouts, and deep silt beds that could instantly end a race.

A faulty switch caused Wes to loose one of the HID lights. This limited his vision in the Baja night. Once through the toughest part of his last leg, Miller passed by Mike’s and thought he was home free to the rider change in Valle De Trinidad. As he raced down the high‐speed roads out of the mountains, the quad started popping and running bad. It continued to worsen, so Miller started looking the quad over as he was riding. He finally noticed that the nuts on the header had backed off and the header had come out of the head. Wes pulled over to some spectators that had lights set up and tightened the one nut that was left and was able to get the header to reseat. He rode it into Valle T race mile 770 where they put another nut on and gave the entire quad a once over.

Villalobos rode the next section up the Goat Trial to El Alamo race mile 800. Roberto brought it into Aldofo without any problems. With only 83 miles to go, Arellano rode the final leg to the finish. Passing through Ojos Negros, it started to rain as the temperatures continued to drop in the night. As he made his way towards the checkers, the rain subsided and Aldofo could now see the lights of the city.

The entire team waited anxiously at the finish for the 9a quad. Finally the SCORE officials announced that a quad was about 10 minutes out. The crowd erupted as it came down the wash and turned on the pavement towards the finish. Arellano crossed the finish line in Ensenada just before 10:30 PM for 1st ATV and 4th overall out of the bikes.

The team would like to thank all to their crew and sponsors: the Arellano family, the Matlock family, Adelitas Bar Racing, Azteca Motorsports, Coldcock Whiskey, Maxxis Tires, DWT Wheels, Rich Morel Engines, FMF Racing, Roll Design, Elka Suspension, GoPro, Fly Racing, K&N Filters, Tire Blocks, JCR Pits, Baja Designs, Pro Armor, Motion Pro, Precision Racing Products, Hinson Clutches, Scott Goggles, Galfer Brakes, LSR, Axcaliber Axles, Quad Tech, Rugged Radios, IMS, CV4, and DID.

Also on behalf of the team, our condolences to the family and friends of Kurt Caselli. RIP Kurt!