Culminating 50 Years of SCORE Desert Racing Excellence, the desert racing ‘Super Team’ of Las Vegas’ Bryce Menzies, Mexico’s Gustavo ‘Tavo’ Vildsola Jr, and San Diego’s Andy McMillin, split the driving Thursday and Friday, to capture the BFGoodrich Tires 56th SCORE Baja 1000, presented by K&N, Friday. The race, the culmination of the 50th anniversary of pioneer desert-racing organization SCORE International, started Thursday in La Paz, Baja California Sur for the first time and finished for the 29th time in Ensenada, Baja California.
The grueling race covered 1310.94 race miles as the season-finale of the four-race SCORE World Desert Championship and Menzies and his talented team finished the iconic race with a two-minute, three-second margin over another Dream Team of San Diego’s Luke McMillin (Andy’s younger cousin) and Las Vegas’ Rob MacCachren.
Driving their amazing AWD No. 7 Red Bull Ford Raptor SCORE Trophy Truck built by Mason Motorsports, Menzies won for the third consecutive race in 2023 to also earn the SCORE Trophy Truck season point championship. Together, this talented trio covered the unforgiving course in a total time of 22 hours, 35 minutes, 33 seconds with an impressive average speed of 58.03 miles pour hour in this race.
“This one feels really special. It took me over ten years to win the SCORE Baja 100 and to win the second-longest SCORE race in history, it feels pretty special,” Menzies said. “I had a very smooth first section, with no flats or anything, Andy had one flat in his part but did a great job too and Tavo went through San Felipe and all the bumps and the cold weather. I also wanted to thank SCORE for putting on another amazing race here in Baja.”
This triple pairing started the race from the first spot as Menzies won the SCORE Baja 400 in September which determined the starting positions for this race. Except for a couple of lead changes early in the race, Menzies and his team keep a nearly 15-minute margin most of the race.
At the finish, runner-up Luke McMillin and his driving mate Rob MacCachren closed to just one minute, 18 seconds as McMillin was trying to become the first racer to win four consecutive overall victories in this race.
Menzies started and drove to race mile 525. A. McMillin drove from race mile 525 to race mile 925, and Vildosola Jr drove from race mile 925 to the finish. This trio now has a combined 30 career SCORE Trophy Truck race wins (McMillin-12, Menzies-11, and Vildosola Jr-7).
Menzies also became just the 10th SCORE racer to have earned the prestigious SCORE Baja Triple Crown award for winning the overall in all the historic SCORE Baja races—SCORE San Felipe 250, SCORE Baja 500, and SCORE Baja 1000.
