Cycle News Staff | November 21, 2021
The Slam Life Racing Honda team led by Mark Samuels won the 2021 Baja 1000 in the pro motorcycle class. Samuels teamed up with Justin Morgan, Kendal Norman, and Brandon Prieto. Their time of 23:07:18 with an average speed of 53.04 miles per hour placed them sixth overall among all the cars and trucks. This was the 54th running of the Baja 1000 and the 24th time that the “peninsula” course was used to go to the tip of Baja. The event started in Ensenada and ended in La Paz with a total distance of 1226 miles.
Morgan started the race and rode the first 444 miles. Samuels took over and raced to mile 816. Norman took over and rode the motorcycle to race mile 1000 where Prieto jumped on and cruised it to the finish line and a victory margin of over one hour, 15 minutes.
The second overall motorcycle went to the Derek Ausserbauer and Colton Udal team with a time of 24:22:47. The team wrapped up the 2021 SCORE championship with their second-place finish and will run the 1x for 2022. That also earned them sixteenth overall among the 206 vehicles that finished.
Jason Alosi, Wyatt Britner, Ross Neely, and Ray Dal Soglio finished third overall on a Husqvarna with a time of 25:33:21.
“We had a good battle,” said Samuels. “Justin had a lot of dust to deal with at the start. He made some passes and put it into second place when he handed it to me. I had some dust to deal with over the whole Bay of LA; I sat in dust for over one hundred miles. Then I was finally able to get a pass, made a little bit of ground, then handed it over and let the boys finish it off.”
For Samuels, this was his sixth Baja 1000 win. It was Morgan’s fifth win. Noman now has seven wins and this was the first win for Prieto. The victory earned Honda motorcycles its race-record 31st overall motorcycle victory in the SCORE Baja 1000.
2021 SCORE Baja 1000 Motorcycle Overall Results
- Mark Samuels. Justin Morgan. Kendall Norman Brandon Prieto. Honda. 23:07:18
- Derek Ausserbauer. Colton Udall. Honda 24:22:47
- Jason Alosi. Wyatt Britner. Ross Neely. Ray Dal Soglio. Husqvarna. 25:33:21
- Greg Bordonnex. Shane Esposito. James Justin Shultz. Francisco Septien. Shane Schorno. Sean Kepler. Mogan Crawford. Chris Brown, Yamaha. 26:19:56.
- Shane Redline. Chris Phillips. Phillip Herrera. Larry Serna. Carlos Pardini. Javier Salazar. Mauri Herrera. Honda. 26:49:44
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