Jeff Gamroth has been building Porsche 911s since he was 15 years old. His shop, Rothsport Racing, is one of the preeminent Porsche preparers in the country. This year his team took the 911 way out of its comfort zone at the NORRA Mexican 1000 Baja race. Not only did two of his 911s finish, they made it back in decent…
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 VW Bus is a timeless staple of off-road racing in Mexico. It’s– wait, what? Bus? No, that can’t be right. Oh. Oh mercy. It’s a bus alright. Looks like, 50 years after its first run, the Mexican 1000 is still the best place for lunatics to become legends.
On and off-road racing legend Robby Gordon drove his V8-powered four-seat buggy in this month’s Mexican 1000 Baja race. This clip shot by a local fan gives you an idea of why he was the first car across the finish line.
You’ve experienced the hell that is Baja racing in my stories on paper, and enjoyed our off-road shenanigans on video. Now, for the next week, I’ll be at it again. But this time you can roll with me, in real time! You’ll either witness history... or a very expensive failed experiment.
Rod Hall is one of the founding fathers of off-road racing in Baja, Mexico. Over 40 years ago he made his first peninsula run before GPS, cell towers or decent safety equipment. And the mensch isn’t slowing down: next week he’s doing his 50th 1,000 mile Baja race in a truck he pulled out of a museum.
The motorstorm of retro off-road awesomeness that is the NORRA Mexican 1000 takes over Baja next week. Among this year’s competitors is this badass Bronco; it won the race almost forty years ago, ended up a derelict in a desert junkyard, and is returning with a legendary driver and a fresh restoration.
The NORRA Mexican 1000's been called "a conga line down the Baja peninsula." It's also one of the only events you see vintage, historic, and other wacky off-road vehicles really racing. Now Robby Gordon's bringing in a Pro Unlimited class, and I fear organizers made a deal with the devil in exchange for TV time.
When you think of Citroën rally cars, the last thing that comes to your mind is the lovely DS, yet that's just what someone chose to tackle the Baja in the inaugural 1967 running of the National Off-Road Racing Association's Mexican 1000. This film, "27 Hours to La Paz," chronicles that first race.
Rene Aguirre has raced this jacked-up 1964 Ford Galaxie in NORRA's vintage off-road races down the Baja peninsula, but it looks almost as amazing sitting still as it does jumping dunes. Actually nah, let's watch it throw dirt in slow-motion.
I've curated the better clips from this year's NORRA Mexican 1000 and put 'em all here for you along with the official race results. There's at least once good crash. Enjoy!
