Alan Ampudia is in the midst of a historic season. After claiming the San Felipe 250 and Baja 500, he became the first Trophy Truck driver to win three consecutive SCORE races to begin a season when he beat Toby Price and Paul Weel for the Baja 400.

Ampudia and Team Australia were far away the best trucks on Saturday. Price put his and Weel’s #46 on the pole in qualifying with Ampudia right behind, and they stayed in that order for the first half of the race.

Mechanical gremlins helped swing the race in Ampudia’s favor. During Weel’s stint, the truck got stuck in sixth gear and could not downshift. A flat tire at RM 390 ultimately sealed the Aussies’ fate as Ampudia took the lead, going on to beat the #46 by three minutes.

While the win keeps Ampudia atop the Trophy Truck standings, the Aussies still have a shot to steal the title with one race to go. Of course, they do face an uphill battle given Ampudia’s streak.

“Alan and Kyle (Craft) and the whole Ampudia family are doing a great job,” said Weel. “Alan’s on a roll at the moment. We want to give this Red Bull #46, up and winning. We want to win the 1000, there’s no doubt about that. We want to take that from him, and we will be dogfighting the whole way. Has been every race with him this year.

“We’re a small team and you know we punch above our weight.”

For Ampudia, he is now three-for-three with only the Baja 1000 remaining. That is obviously not a race to take lightly, but it is one he’s overalled before in 2019. He finished fourth in the 2024 edition.

With two months until the 1000, though, he’s content with celebrating with his brothers and family. His father Rodrigo Ampudia Sr. had his birthday on Friday, and his mother was also in Ensenada to join the post-race festivities.

“It was super fun battling with the boys Toby and Paul all day,” said Ampudia. “Honestly, thank you very much to my dad, to my mom. Yesterday was his birthday, so this is for my dad. To my entire family, to Team Papas, they had a blast in the pits.”

The race took a massive toll on the trucks. Robby Gordon’s race went belly-up because of a broken tie road and getting trapped in a ditch. Larry Roeseler was airlifted out of the race after reporting back pain on a hard landing, though his partner David Payne continued on and brought the #61L to a third in Trophy Truck Legends.

TT 2WD in particular suffered heavily as only six of the 18 drivers reached the finish. Points leader Cameron Steele was leading until a part on the top of the engine broke off with 70 miles remaining, forcing him out. 2WD driver Roberto Romo Jr. only made it about 45 miles before the engine expired.

RJ Stidham inherited the 2WD lead after Steele’s retirement and scored the win. He was initially disqualified for colliding with a bike, but SCORE concluded it was accidental upon hearing the team’s protest and restored his class victory

Similar to their four-wheeled counterparts, the motorcycle battle was a duel between the two Unlimited title contenders. Much like Ampudia, Tyler Lynn’s team has now overalled the bikes at all three races so far.

The #1X of Shane Logan and Ciaran Naran were short a man since their rider of record Arturo Salas hurt his knees during pre-running; while Salas remained on hand as a backup, his services were not needed in the end. Even Naran would encounter trouble when he was hit by a car going the wrong direction on a crossover road, though he avoided injury and reached the finish. This incident along with some other issues like a flat tire put the #1X in a deeper hole.

As the gap on their rival grew, Lynn and Carter Klein brought the #7X to the victory without much issue.

RZR Factory Racing enjoyed a podium sweep for UTVs led by Brock Heger, who beat Cayden MacCachren and Max Eddy Jr. Heger and MacCachren were also the only UTVs to finish in the top 20 overall, the former in 13th and the latter 19th.

The win was a nice return to form for Heger, whose historic seven-race UTV win streak was snapped by a mechanical issue at the Vegas to Reno in August. He was the first UTV off the line, briefly lost the lead to MacCachren before reclaiming it and pulling away. Eddy raced without any issue to join his comrades in third. The team’s fourth driver Justin Morgan started at the back and rolled at RM 80, but recovered to place sixth in Pro UTV Open.

“Wins like this are why we race,” said Polaris racing director Alex Scheuerell stated. “Our team refuses to settle and every time they hit the desert, they raise the bar higher. Sweeping the UTV overall podium not once but twice is more than we could’ve asked for.”

While Polarises ruled the day, they lost a handful of drivers to the desert as well. Kristen Matlock retired after a broken rear driveshaft forced her to drive on front-wheel drive until the transmission gave way, while her husband Wayne bowed out too.

Kaden Wells and Mitch Alsup of Can-Am prevented Polaris from going 1–2–3–4 as they both beat Blake Wilkey by just three minutes, with Wells scoring the Forced Induction win. Their compatriots were a mixed bag too, notably Phil Blurton being knocked out by vehicle issues after 67 miles. Noah Wright was the lone disqualification of the race after going backwards on the course, while Michael McFayden never got a chance to race due to illness.

In their SCORE debuts, Monster Energy Girls Janey Lee and Kylie Walton were among the last UTVs to reach the finish, placing seventh in Pro Stock UTV with their Maverick R. Fellow Can-Am driver Ricardo Zaragoza was the last four-wheeler in general to be classified as a finisher as the 88th and final.

Tavo Vildósola missed the race for personal reasons, but his brother Juan Pablo briefly filled in since the truck had to start the 400 to be eligible for the Baja 1000. Juan Pablo Vildósola drove the truck from the start to Ojos Negros before retiring. While Tavo was unavailable, his dad Gus won in TT Legends for a 15th time in a row.

Class winners

4-Wheelers

Class	Overall Finish	Number	Driver of Record	Total Time
Class 1	14	127	Cody Parkhouse	9:06:57.944*
Class 1/2-1600	71	1697	Abraham Marquez	13:03:45.711
Class 2	61	2081	Grant Ingram	12:13:40.684
Class 5 Unlimited	57	500	Eli Yee	12:02:16.460
Class 7	51	702	Dan Chamlee	11:45:48.121
Class 8	66	800	Josh Klenske	12:36:15.876*
Class 10	28	1000	Francisco Vera	10:04:09.526*
Class 11	DNF	N/A	No Finishers	DNF
Pro Stock UTV	41	3921	Francisco Beltran	11:06:03.141*
Pro UTV Forced Induction	29	2935	Kaden Wells	10:04:51.442*
Pro UTV Normally Aspirated	54	1900	Ricardo Torres	11:51:59.088*
Pro UTV Open	13	1896	Brock Heger	9:05:27.602*
Trophy Truck	1	1	Alan Ampudia	8:12:29.377*
Trophy Truck 2WD	10	78T	RJ Stidham	8:56:29.083
Trophy Truck Legends	9	1L	Gus Vildósola	8:51:45.926
Trophy Truck Spec	7	234	Jason McNeil	8:43:00.834*
Sportsman Buggy #	DNF	N/A	No Finishers	DNF
Sportsman UTV #	DNF	N/A	No Finishers	DNF

Moto

Class	Overall Finish	Number	Rider of Record	Total Time
Pro Moto 30	6	308X	Jason Alosi	10:29:21.635
Pro Moto 40	4	400X	Shane Esposito	9:49:43.071
Pro Moto 50	18	500X	Mike Prunty	12:04:17.657*
Pro Moto 60	21	600X	Harold Harris	13:10:04.548*
Pro Moto Adventure	16	844X	Merril Campbell	11:56:40.390
Pro Moto Ironman	7	716X	Angel Aguirre	10:34:36.870
Pro Moto Limited	5	127X	Bhaskar Ramani	10:03:02.971*
Pro Moto Unlimited	1	7X	Tyler Lynn	8:28:07.065*
Sportsman Moto	17	237X	Edmund Naranjo	11:57:16.541
Sportsman Quad	8	116A	Mario Joaquin Navarrette	10:58:11.608*

Featured image credit: mg___0056