A Baja 1000 race truck on the malecón during the 2023 race (representative image; not the 2026 course). Photo: Andy Blackledge via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
Backfire’s mile-340 check-in had Bryce Menzies out front and Alan Ampudia sitting third. By the time everyone reached San José del Cabo, Ampudia had won the Baja 1000 by 13.553 seconds on unofficial timing, and the part of the race that decided it was a 70-mile stretch most people watching a timing screen were not looking at.
The result, with a caveat
By SCORE’s live corrected timing, which is unofficial, Ampudia (No. 1) won the Trophy Truck class and the overall four-wheel race in 16:47:12.814. Menzies (No. 7) was second at 16:47:26.367. Luke McMillin (No. 83) was third at 17:04:14.453, and Christopher Polvoorde (No. 94), who took pole, was fourth, 1.178 seconds behind McMillin after more than 17 hours of racing. The timing page still reads as live and SCORE had not posted its official release when I checked, so treat every number here as unofficial and provisional until it does. The course ran roughly 950 miles, and SCORE says this was the first Baja 1000 run entirely in Baja California Sur.
Seventy miles decided it
A 13.5-second margin out of nearly 17 hours is a rounding error, which makes it a poor explanation. The sector splits are better. Menzies led at every one of SCORE’s timing points through mile 700. Ampudia was never more than 3:14 off the lead at any of them, and his worst moment was sixth place at mile 220. Then came mile 700 to mile 770. Ampudia covered it in 1:00:42. Menzies needed 1:06:44. In 70 miles, Ampudia went from 54 seconds behind to 5:07 ahead.
SCORE’s timing records seconds, not reasons. A flat, a repair, a wrong turn, a dust-choked pass: any of them could produce that number, and I’m not going to guess which. Post-race quotes should say. What the numbers do show is what happened next. Menzies took back 2:42 over the following 120 miles and another 2:12 on the final stretch, running roughly two percent quicker than Ampudia in each. That is 4:54 recovered and 13.553 seconds short.
My read: this is a story about the bad stretch, not the pace. A race this long rewards the driver with the smaller worst patch, and on the evidence of the last two sectors Menzies had the faster truck at the end. It didn’t matter. Ampudia absorbed a rough sixth at mile 220 and never let it grow. Menzies led for 700 miles and lost the race in about 70.
The finish-line clock lied, politely
Anyone standing at the finish saw the two trucks arrive about four minutes apart: Ampudia at 1:48:16 a.m. Saturday, Menzies at 1:52:31. But Ampudia started at 9:01:03 the morning before and Menzies at 9:05:04, so the corrected gap shrinks to 13.553 seconds. Starting order comes from qualifying, and it turns a drag race to the line into arithmetic. If you only watched the arch, you’d have thought Ampudia won comfortably. He did not.
Behind the top two
Polvoorde and Menzies won this race together last year, then went in as rivals. They came out second and fourth. McMillin had the more expensive afternoon. He entered the finale leading Trophy Truck points with 335 to Menzies’ 309 and Ampudia’s 296, per SCORE’s standings through the Baja 400. At mile 415 he was second, 2:30 off the lead. At mile 530 he was fourth, 17:27 back. That roughly 15-minute hole is why third place sits so far from first. I haven’t seen SCORE’s final points table, so the championship math waits for its release.
Elsewhere on the timing sheet
Unofficial class leaders marked finished: Justin Davis in Trophy Truck Spec (17:45:56.8), Cameron Steele in Trophy Truck 2WD (17:45:59.5), Gustavo Vildosola in Trophy Truck Legends (17:53:57.6), Cayden MacCachren in Pro UTV Open (18:23:58.6), and Tyler Lynn in Pro Moto Unlimited on the bike side (17:42:54.8). Plenty of classes are still on course, and every entry has 40 hours from its start time to finish.
What to take from it
Baja rewards the truck with the fewest bad stretches, which makes it a reliability and consistency argument before it is a horsepower one. That is the same pitch behind Honda’s hybrid Passport Baja Spec, which we looked at before the race. Watch SCORE’s official results and post-race quotes next. Until someone explains mile 700 to mile 770, it is the most expensive hole in a very close timing sheet.
These results are unofficial. They come from SCORE International’s live corrected timing for the 59th SCORE Baja 1000 as of Nov. 14, 2026, and remain subject to SCORE’s official results.
Lead image: a Baja 1000 race truck on the malecón during the 2023 race, a representative image and not from the 2026 course. Photo: Andy Blackledge via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.
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Yet another “speed zone” violation selectively enforced by????