Polvoorde Has Baja 1000 Pole, but Menzies Is Only Two Seconds From Third

Christopher Polvoorde will leave the line first in Friday’s 59th SCORE Baja 1000 after a 2:34.868 qualifying lap in the No. 94 Trophy Truck. Bryce Menzies, who co-drove that same No. 94 to last year’s win, starts sixth in the No. 7 at 2:42.092. That is 7.224 seconds back, and it makes a tidy headline. It is not the number I would circle.

The number I would circle is 2.019. That is how far Menzies sits from third place. Polvoorde and Alan Ampudia pulled clear of the field on Tuesday; behind them, third through sixth are packed inside two seconds. My read: pole is a genuine pace statement for the top two trucks, while sixth is barely a deficit at all. And none of it is likely to survive the first big mistake in a race that, by SCORE’s own estimate, takes the fastest trucks around 15 hours.

The grid, and where it bunches up

Polvoorde beat Ampudia by 1.610 seconds. Ampudia then sits 3.595 seconds clear of Adam Householder in third. From there it tightens: Householder, Kevin Thompson (2:40.605), Luke McMillin (2:41.701) and Menzies are separated by 2.019 seconds from first to last of that group, and just 0.391 seconds separates McMillin from Menzies. Menzies also had an off-course moment during his qualifying run and still finished in that cluster, which says something about how much speed was in hand.

Why 7.224 seconds disappears

Last year’s winning No. 94, shared by Polvoorde and Menzies, covered 835.52 miles in 15 hours, 48 minutes, 24 seconds, an average of 52.86 mph. This year’s course is 943.09 miles. SCORE expects the fastest finishers to need about 15 hours, which works out to an average near 63 mph. That is my arithmetic, not a SCORE figure, but it tells you something: either the course is considerably faster than last year’s, or the estimate is optimistic. Either way, 7.224 seconds against 15 hours is about 0.013 percent of the race. One minute lost to a tire change is more than eight times that gap.

What pole is actually for

Pole is a traffic position. In a point-to-point race where trucks leave in order, the starting spot decides who spends the early miles in clear air and who spends them looking for somewhere safe to pass. That is analysis, not a SCORE statement, but it is why Polvoorde’s spot has real value in the first stretch and shrinks the longer the race goes on. It also carries a cost: the lead truck gets no taillights to follow and nobody ahead to show where the course is chewed up.

For Menzies, sixth is a manageable start rather than a handicap. The five trucks ahead of him are all within about seven seconds of him, which is the sort of order that reshuffles itself in the first hours without anyone doing anything dramatic.

Cabo to Cabo, with a new map

The geography is the other story. The race starts and finishes in San José del Cabo on Boulevard Centenario, and SCORE says it is the first Baja 1000 held entirely in Baja California Sur. Cars, trucks and UTVs start at 9:00 a.m. Mountain Standard Time on Friday, Nov. 13, with 274 vehicles officially entered as of Nov. 8 and a 40-hour limit. It is also the finale of the four-race 2026 SCORE World Desert Championship. We were already tracking that run-up in our Baja 1000 countdown.

The top class is changing around the drivers, too. Honda has revealed a hybrid Trophy Truck planned for SCORE competition, which we broke down in our look at the Passport Baja Spec. That truck is not in this field, but it is a reminder of how much engineering now sits behind a class that still gets decided by tires, navigation and attrition.

Former co-drivers, now rivals

Polvoorde and Menzies won last year’s race together and enter this one in separate trucks. Nothing in the official record suggests that is anything other than a competitive decision, and I am not going to invent a feud. What it does mean is that each now knows exactly how the other drives and how the other’s truck was built to be driven. Backfire Racing will be speaking with both before the green flag, and what they say about it will shape our follow-up.

What to watch

Watch how quickly the third-to-sixth group sorts itself out, and whether Polvoorde’s clean-air advantage lasts or just becomes the burden of leading. Watch Menzies’ progress through the trucks ahead of him. And treat any qualifying gap measured in seconds with suspicion until the first few hundred miles are done.

Race times and the qualifying order are from official SCORE International results and event information.

Lead image: Photo: Andy Blackledge via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0. Representative image from the 2023 Baja 1000; not the 2026 course.

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EL Puckett

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Elle Puckett covers Formula 1, IndyCar, and endurance racing, with a focus on championship analysis and long-form storytelling.

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