In what will likely go down in history as one of the most classic battles in desert racing history, B.J. Baldwin of Las Vegas drove solo for 441.15 miles and captured the Overall 4-Wheel victory Saturday by a mere seven seconds over the veteran team of Mark Post and Rob MacCachren at the 40th Tecate SCORE Baja 500 in Ensenada, Mexico. Driving the No. 97 Baldwin Motorsports Chevy Silverado SCORE Trophy Truck, Baldwin covered the grueling desert race course in 9 hours, 10 minutes, 47 seconds and averaged 48.06 miles per hour to win the closest overall 4-wheel vehicle finish in the 40-year history of the second-oldest desert race in the world. Post, of Laguna Beach, Calif., and Las Vegas’ MacCachren, the reigning SCORE Trophy-Truck points champions, finished first in the elapsed-time race but the adjusted time revealed their second-place finish. Baldwin started 60 seconds behind Post/MacCachren No. 1 Riviera Racing Ford F-150 SCORE Trophy Truck, but came to the finish line just 53 seconds after MacCachren had crossed it. Here are some post-race comments:

Trophy Truck

B.J. BALDWIN, No. 97 (first overall)

It was tight. The truck is hurt. It’s been hurt since the beach. The brakes on this thing are shot. When I rev it out really hard, the power steering belt slips. It’s been a lot of hard work to get it here. I’ve really sucked it up. I’m going to have to go back to the hotel for some beer and some painkillers. For 60 miles I was stuck behind Ron (Whitton). We had a little bit faster pace than him, but I couldn’t get around him because of the dust. Every time we got close, I just didn’t want to take the chance. I was getting the times from my chase crew. This win is massive. It’s very important to me. I have a handful of trophies, but what I don’t have is that Montezuma thing, the first overall, and I don’t have a Baja 500 one. That’s what I always wanted.

MARK POST, No. 1 (second)

I’d like to have made it here seven seconds faster. I was 40 seconds behind B.J. when I gave the car to Rob, so we got back on the pace. I had three flats, otherwise we would have had a nice car. That was a hell of a run. It’s the Baja 500, a technical race, it’s a great race. Co-driver Rob MacCachren said: We’ve been running hard ever since the beach. He kind of had the advantage because he could just stick to me and follow me. The last 30 miles we tried to pick it up and put time on him. We did the best we could. We tried to get away from him. We just couldn’t. We had some flat tires, but it doesn’t matter if you get them or not. Ultimately, it’s like a chess game. You’re cruising along trying to stay somewhere near the front of the pack and pick your battles at the end. (The course) was torn up a little bit.

BRIAN COLLINS, No. 3 (third)

I slid into a tree and messed the jack up. If we changed the tire and didn’t stop, we would have been right in there, but we got stuck and it took us 15 minues to get it out. The truck was phenomenal, a couple driver errors, but that’s racing. We got a podium finish. To get the three-peat was going to be tough. It was all going against us. We wanted to win it. We all did our homework, unfortunately, that’s just part of racing. Co-rider Chuck Hovey said: We had some mistakes out there and we had some flats out there. The jack didn’t work for Brian and that cost us a lot of time. The podium is good. We got in the truck about 14 minutes down. Brian just said cruise it in. The last 80 miles was very technical.

Class1

LUIS RAMIREZ, JR., No. 109 (first)

We went with no brakes from San Vicente to the finish. I’m very happy. I just got in the pace. We passed everybody before Borrego. I just had to find a way to pass guys. It was a really nice course. Some parts were really fast, but it was really technical. With no brakes, it was really hard. We’re just really happy to be here. A month ago we wanted to race, but we didn’t have money. We got a bunch of sponsors and they’re awesome.

ARMIN SCHWARZ, No. 108 (third)

Co-driver Martin Christensen said: We had nothing but troubles. We had problems with the GPS. He was working on the GPS for about 20 minutes. We just weren’t going the same speed. We were driving super slow. It was hard coming into the sun with all the dust. You feel like you’re going backwards.

Race results of the 2008 Baja 500 can be viewed on the Puro Offroad Desert Race Blog where you always have the racing news on Mexico Baja Desert Racing. Result list here…