Technically, the Parker 400 was the second race for the American Off-Road Racing Championship since last year’s Laughlin Desert Classic was jointly run by BITD and UNLTD. Of course, Parker was the first official event under the AORC banner.

Robby Gordon and his son Max were eager to take part, and showed out in style as they beat Tracy Graf by a minute and 42 seconds to win the Unlimited Race. Max started the race in the #5 Geiser 4WD truck, fourth out of the gate, before Dad took over for the second half. The two came close to winning the 2025 edition when they split Mark Post’s Black Diamond truck and finished runner-up to Adam Householder.

“I knew what I had to do because I knew where Graf was,” said the older Gordon. “We had our stopwatch on, and we knew we were within a minute and a half. Right at the end, we pushed pretty hard, and we got within ten seconds of them before we got dusted out, but we knew the most important thing was not getting a flat tire, and we didn’t get any. We worked on the car in the pits, but we didn’t get out of the car, and that was the key to the whole thing.”

Although Kyle Jergensen set the fastest time of the Unlimited trucks, he received a 300-second penalty for missing his stop check and was relegated to third overall. Still, he beat Cole Hardin for the SPEC Truck win by two minutes.

The Limited Race was a battle of UTV nemeses Polaris and Can-Am as the latter’s Phil Blurton and Dustin Jones squared off against the Anderson Brothers’ RZR. Blurton passed Ronnie Anderson 50 miles in and kept him and brother RJ at bay, clearing them by 16 and a half minutes. Jones rounded out the overall podium.

Shane Logan won the Motorcycle Race after beating his former teammate Ciaran Naran. Logan departed HERO Racing after finishing second in the 2025 SCORE Pro Moto Unlimited standings, signing with Norman Racing to race their Husqvarna.

Meanwhile, HERO switched from Honda to a Ducati Desmo450 with Naran and Lyndon Snodgrass. The team will also bring the bike in SCORE, marking the Italian manufacturer’s return to Baja; Ducati won the inaugural Baja 500 in 1969 with Doug Douglass and Jim McClurg.

Eric Lee, the only UTV Sportsman driver, was disqualified for an illegal fuel sample.

Winners

Unlimited Race

ClassOverallNumberDriver of RecordLapsTotal Time
Class 1DNFN/ANo FinishersN/ADNF
Class 1 UnlimitedDNFN/ANo FinishersN/ADNF
Unlimited Truck 2WD627TSteve Olliges35:52:49.533
Unlimited Truck 4WD15Robby Gordon35:38:49.115
Unlimited Truck LegendsDNFN/ANo FinishersN/ADNF
Unlimited Truck SPEC3222Kyle Jergensen35:42:10.091

Limited Race

ClassOverallNumberDriver of RecordLapsTotal Time
Class 5 Unlimited30504Kyle Krepsz38:19:19.392
Class 1041077Brody Aikins36:22:04.948
Class 11DNFN/ANo FinishersN/ADNF
Class 1450DNFN/ANo FinishersN/ADNF
Class 3000473008John Winn25:40:43.711
Open Sportsman448127Colton Brenthel25:03:14.078
Stock Production Truck Full48851Chris Woo25:41:01.905
Stock Production Truck Mini/Mid457330Chad Hall25:28:53.738
UTV Pro1T44Phil Blurton35:49:38.358
UTV Pro Normally Aspirated21R112Wyatt Cotter37:38:15.514
UTV Pro Stock20S1Justin Von Metal37:35:37.945
UTV Pro Stock Modified22Z916Brandon Kilgore37:44:49.212
UTV Pro Turbo31B14Shane Hale38:25:33.941
UTV SportsmanDNFN/ANo FinishersN/ADNF
UTV Stock51U926Luis Herrera25:53:37.083

Motorcycle Race

ClassOverallNumberRider of RecordLapsTotal Time
1983–1995 Sportsman28VM269Victor Borg35:16:34.081
399 Expert12X152Teddy Miller34:21:57.155
Adventure Bike Sportsman38A73James Johnston24:31:48.105
Family Expert19F11William Markley34:38:14.333
Hooligan Sportsman37H69Ryan Edwards24:07:50.455
Ironman Amateur20O55Joshua Ricciardi34:43:19.686
Ironman Expert13O40Nate Anderson34:24:54.773
Ironman Pro10J27Remington Mathews34:17:09.839
Lites Expert31K135Jeffrey Wells35:28:24.438
Open Amateur22392Austin Matula34:44:16.316
Open Expert4312Caleb Tate44:55:53.970
Open Pro1N1Shane Logan44:30:36.909
Over 30 Expert15M555TJ Boutwell34:30:33.716
Over 30 Pro18P77Stephen Helms34:35:50.675
Over 40 Expert27M799Steven Kamrad35:04:43.614
Over 50 Expert9M809Rick Mianecki34:06:46.312
Over 60 Expert29M901Dick Wilk35:19:12.584
Women’s Expert40W42Felicia Gaither24:41:13.595

Featured image credit: Manwelder Fabrications

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