The 2017 NORRA Mexican 1000 is upon us, and that means a mob of wacky off-road vehicles are getting ready to race through about 1,000 miles of Baja sand and another couple thousand cans of light beer. Ever think you’d see a Vanagon, lifted Porsches and an ancient Power Wagon go fender-to-fender?
The NORRA Mexican 1000 is not the SCORE Baja 1000. While there is some conceptual overlap, NORRA’s a standalone annual event that’s as much about celebrating Baja history and vintage race cars as it is about competition. Whereas with SCORE, the Baja 1000 is the ultimate race in a hardcore annual series.
Both races are cool in their respective ways, but the lineup at NORRA is a whole lot less... “practical.” In other words, the cars are way weirder and more interesting to look at.
Scan through the race’s entry page and you’ll see what I mean. But here are a handful of my personal favorites I could quickly screen grab:
There are so many more amazing ones! Including Porsche superfriend Jeff Zwart’s “Desert Flyer:”
Come on. What?! WHAT.
There are actually at least two of these air-cooled 3.6-liter powered 964 Porsches running in the race, and rumor has it they’ll be on display in Los Angeles next month whether they win the Mexican or not.
Regardless... they’re going to be tough to top in terms of overall-awesomeness from now until we run out of fossil fuels.
I’d encourage everybody reading to look those racers up on social media to get updates, and follow the race itself on Instagram which will hopefully be posting cool pictures of these machines in action as the event carries on.
Yeah, it’s not the most efficient way to track an event, but coverage south of the border is still tough to pull off. If you’re fiending for NORRA Baja action straight away, why don’t you watch our video from the NORRA race a couple years ago?
Hopefully we get some more high-resolution images and some stories from the sand soon.
The event kicks off today, running from April 21st in Ensenada and ending up in Cabo at the bottom of the Baja peninsula on April 27th. We chased the race a few years ago and got some amazing footage. I’m heartbroken to miss out this year, but I’ll be following as many social feeds as I can with the rest of you guys from far away.
¡Vaya con dios, corredores!