In 2016, Rod Hall placed 59th overall and second in Pioneer 4×4 at the Mexican 1000 in his restored 1968 Ford Bronco. Amy Lerner followed his race as part of her documentary One More Win detailing Hall’s efforts to become the only person to finish the first fifty Baja 1000s.

A decade later, Lerner will run the Mexican 1000 herself in a Polaris RZR Pro R Factory in the Pro SxS class.

“I almost can’t believe I am going to race 1,400 miles down the Baja Peninsula 10 years after chasing Rod Hall and his granddaughter, Shelby to film for One More Win,” said Lerner.

“We had no idea at the time that would be the last race Rod would be behind the wheel of a race car so it will be so special for me to follow in his footsteps.”

Hall was a desert racing trailblazer and 2005 inductee into the Off-Road Motorsports Hall of Fame who competed in the world’s biggest races from Baja to Dakar. He took part in the inaugural Baja 1000, when it was known as the Mexican 1000, in 1967 and started every edition after that until the 50th running in 2017. He set the latter as the final goal of his career, and it wasn’t an easy effort as he was nearing 80 years of age and dealing with health issues.

Lerner, who later raced the inaugural Dakar Classic in 2021 and won a stage the following year, befriended Hall in 2015. Hall, who long disliked the thought of having biographies about him, allowed Lerner to cover his Baja pursuit in the form of a documentary. While Lerner had no filmmaking experience outside of being a consultant for a documentary on women rally drivers, she enlisted Top Gear‘s Richard Heeley as co-director.

Over the next two years, Lerner interviewed and worked with Hall, Shelby, sons Chad and Josh, and wife Donna. She and Shelby even raced Rod’s 1968 Bronco together at the 2017 Mint 400 and finished third in Vintage. Others in the off-road community like Curt LeDuc and Cameron Steele also contributed to the project.

The 2016 Mexican 1000, the first race covered in the documentary, proved to be a challenging project since desert races and rally raids are extremely difficult to film. In an interview with 131 Off-Road‘s spiritual predecessor The Checkered Flag (incidentally the same week as the 2022 Mexican 1000), Lerner explained the plan was to hire as many camera crews as the budget would allow and do extensive research into the course to see which points were most likely to have exciting moments. Sure enough, while it was “super fortunate happenstance”, the camera outside Loreto caught Hall’s Ford getting stuck in the sand.

Besides filming, she had plenty of positive takeaways from NORRA’s atmosphere too.

“They call themselves ‘The Happiest Race on Earth’, but it really is,” Lerner told TCF. “It’s just a fun time, and competitive. It’s a competitive event, but everybody’s got a great attitude and they’re there for fun and because they love it and they love their vehicle.

“I was completely unprepared for what was going to happen when we walked into the convention center in Ensenada, and I was next to Rod. As soon as somebody noticed he was there, we could not walk two steps without someone coming up for a photo, for an autograph, they have to tell Rod a story, they have to ask Rod a question. I was blown away. I had no idea. Even having known him for so many years and been already deep into the dive of his history and the sport and seeing the headlines and the newspaper articles, I had no idea.”

Hall would ultimately achieve his goal of “one more win” at the 2017 Baja 1000, topping Stock Full and finishing 143rd overall. He passed away in 2019.

One More Win was released in 2022.

Since then, Lerner has continued to race in events like the NORRA 500, Rally Jameel, and RallyClassics Africa. She was the highest-finishing woman at the latter in 2025.

TCF interview with Lerner

Featured image credit: Richard Heeley