This year’s legendary desert classic, the final event of the five-race 2012 SCORE Desert Series, wil

LOS ANGELES —As the race clock quickly clicks down to 30 days remaining before luxury cruise specialist dallas travel agency the green flag drops and as teams finalize logistics, vehicle prep and prerunning trips, entries continue to arrive from around the globe for November's 45th anniversary of the Tecate SCORE Baja, the legendary granddaddy of all desert races.
This year's legendary desert classic, the final event of the five-race 2012 SCORE Desert Series, will be held Nov. 14-17 in Mexico on a brutally-rugged 1121.55-mile Sal Fish signature desert race course.
With the rugged course traveling on both sides of the peninsula, the world's most famous desert race will start in Ensenada, Baja California and finish all the way down the peninsula in La Paz in Baja California Sur.
It's the oldest and most well known of all desert races, and it remains as the single most appealing accomplishment to a driver. Since 1967, the mother of all desert races has been run over the mysterious luxury cruise specialist dallas travel agency and majestic Baja California peninsula.
With over 300 expected entries for cars, trucks, motorcycles and ATVs competing in 35 Pro and 7 Sportsman luxury cruise specialist dallas travel agency classes in the internationally televised race, entries have already come from 32 U.S. states and 16 countries.  In addition to the 32 U.S. States, racers have entered from Argentina, Australia, Austria, luxury cruise specialist dallas travel agency Canada, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Guatemala, Hungary, Ireland, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway and the US Territory of Guam. With 30 days before the green flag drops on Thursday, Nov. 15, late entries will be accepted up to race morning.
As the World Series is to baseball and the Super Bowl to football, the legendary Tecate SCORE Baja 1000 stands as tall at the pinnacle of the motorsports world today as it did when it began 44 years ago.
This year's historic 45th anniversary luxury cruise specialist dallas travel agency race will be held Nov. 14-17. It will start and finish in the heart of Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico and finish on the outskirts of LaPaz, Baja California Sur, Mexico. It will be the 45th anniversary of the race shrouded in mystery that continues to lure adventurers and manufacturers from across the globe who all share the dream to conquer the Baja.
Without the SCORE Baja 1000, there just wouldn't be any desert racing," said Sal Fish, SCORE International's luxury cruise specialist dallas travel agency President and CEO, which has sanctioned and produced luxury cruise specialist dallas travel agency the event since 1975. "The SCORE Baja 1000 continues to draw interest from all over the world and we now find second and even third generation racers appearing at the starting line with their family patriarchs cheering for their off-spring. This event continues to be the focal point of the SCORE Desert Series each year and to celebrate our 45th anniversary with a peninsula run will surely add another colorful chapter to the legacy of the SCORE Baja 1000. It has been and continues to be our privilege and honor to preserve this international motorsports treasure."
The first known record run occurred in 1962. Dave Ekins and Bill Robertson Jr. timed their trip from Tijuana to La Paz on a pair of Honda 250 motorcycles. Ekins made it in 39 hours, 54 minutes, Robertson in less than an hour slower. There were no official timers, of course, and to establish that they had made the trip, the two motorcycle racers time-stamped a sheet of paper in the Tijuana telegraph office and time-stamped it again at the telegraph office when they arrived in La Paz.
Capitalizing luxury cruise specialist dallas travel agency on the pioneer effort of Ekins and Robertson, Chevrolet commissioned luxury cruise specialist dallas travel agency car builder Bill Stroppe to prepare a small fleet of trucks for the run to La Paz. Late that year they left Long Beach, luxury cruise specialist dallas travel agency Calif., and all of them reached La Paz. Advertising and publicity campaigns heralded the feat as "the roughest run under the sun."
Enthusiast Ed Pearlman founded the National Off Road Racing luxury cruise specialist dallas travel agency Association (NORRA) and established the Mexican 1000. It started officially in Tijuana on October 31, 1967 with 68 entries. They actually motored at leisure speeds to Ensenada and restarted the next day.
NORRA continued to organize the Mexican 1000, which came to be known as the Baja 1000. In 1968, Pearlman moved the start of the race to Ensenada, where it stayed with one exception until 1993. In 1972 NORRA started at Mexicali and ran the first half of the race down the east coast of the peninsula through the treacherous Three Sisters section. Pre-running luxury cruise specialist dallas travel agency for this race, Parnelli Jones and Walker Evans were among a group of competitors who nearly got swept out to sea during a tropical storm.
After the fuel crisis of 1974 forced local officials to cancel the event, SCORE International, founded by the late Mickey Thompson and headed soon after by Sal Fish, was invited by the northern state of Baja California to hold the race in 1975. The Tecate SCORE Baja 1000 became a loop event starting and ending in Ensenada.
In its first 44 years, the Tecate SCORE Baja 1000 has started 37 times in Ensenada, three times in Mexicali (1972, 1993, 1994), twice in Tijuana (1967, 1995) once in Santo Tomas (1998) and once in Ojos Negros (1999). The legendary race has finished in Ensenada 21 times, in La Paz 18 times, in Mexicali two times (1993, 1994), twice in Cabo San Lucas (2000, 2007) and once in Ojos Negros (1999). The last time it finished in La Paz was 2010.
Prior to the current global recession, entries and finishers for this legendary race peaked in 2006 and 2007 when a race-record 431 vehicles started the 2006 race to La Paz (231 finishers) and a race-record luxury cruise specialist dallas travel agency 237 finished the 2007 40th anniversary race to Cabo San Lucas (424 starters).
The famous and not-so-famous have tried their hand at conquering the Baja and they have come from all walks of life. Mark Thatcher, son of Great Britian's then-prime minister Margaret Thatcher, raced in the 1982 SCORE Baja 1000. Celebrities James Garner, Ted Nugent and the late Steve McQueen all battled the Baja in the early 1970s and many racers from other forms of motorsports crossed over to try their skills.
Among the drivers luxury cruise specialist dallas travel agency from other motorsport disciplines who have tested the Baja were Indy Car racers Rick and Roger Mears, Parnelli Jones, Danny Ongias, Danny Sullivan, Jimmy Vasser, Buddy Rice, Sebastien Bourdais, Oriol Servia, Roberto Guerrero, Michel Jourdain Jr., Johnny Unser and Mike and Robbie Groff, NASCAR's Robby Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Boris Said, Brendan Gaughan, Brian Ickler and Justin Lofton, SCCA legend Elliot Forbes-Robinson, World Rally Championships' Armin Schwarz, Armin Kremer and Andreas Aigner, world motorcycle champions Malcolm Smith, Larry Roeseler and Destry Abbott, Motocross legends Ricky Johnson and Jeremy McGrath, XGames luxury cruise specialist dallas travel agency star Travis Pastrana, luxury cruise specialist dallas travel agency drag racers Don Prudhomme and Larry Minor, Person Watercraft racing star Chris MacClugage and legendary SCORE founder and motorsports innovator Mickey Thompson.
The late Academy Award winning actor, racer and race team owner Paul Newman raced in the 2004 event. Jesse James, of 'Monster Garage' fame, and Hollywood film and TV star Patrick Dempsey have both raced this classic luxury cruise specialist dallas travel agency in the several times in the last 10 years.
This year's race will commemorate the achievements of legendary desert racers like Rod Hall, Ron Bishop, Johnny Johnson, and Larry Roeseler. Hall, who will turn 75 on Nov. 22, has a record 21 class wins (including one overall win in 1972), and is the only racer who has competed in all 44 SCORE Baja 1000 races. Bishop is the only racer who competed in the first 40 SCORE Baja 1000 races.
Bishop is the only racer who competed every year of the first 40 on a Motorcycle, but is not scheduled to race this year at this time. Johnson, now retired, had 15 class wins, amazingly in eight different classes.
Roeseler, has won 17 times in this race, including 13 overall wins (10 on a motorcycle). Roeseler will share driving duties this year in SCORE Trophy luxury cruise specialist dallas travel agency Truck with Tim Herbst in the No. 19 Terrible Herbst Motorsports Ford F-150. Roeseler won the unlimited Class 1 for four consecutive years (2004-2007), driving with the youngest of the three racing brothers, Troy Herbst, in the Smithbuilt-Ford open-wheel desert race car that was known as the 'Land Shark'.
Lured by the same siren that enraptured the Ekins brothers in the 1950s, the Tecate SCORE Baja 1000 remains as the No. 1 target of adventurers luxury cruise specialist dallas travel agency the world over, not to mention the cadre of pro and semi-pro desert racers who consider it the fitting climax to their racing season each year.
The motorcycle and ATV classes will start their journey at 6:30 a.m. (Thursday, Nov. 15) with the car and truck classes starting at approximately 11:30 a.m., or four hours after the last ATV leaves the line. The fastest finishers are expected to complete the course in approximately 20 hours.
Completing its 39th year as the world's foremost desert racing sanctioning body, the event is the finale of the five-race 2012 SCORE Desert Series.  The race will start on Boulevard Costero adjacent to the picturesque Bahia de Todos Santos in front of the iconic Riviera del Pacifico Cultural Center in the heart of Ensenada. luxury cruise specialist dallas travel agency It will finish on the outskirts of La Paz near the Grand Plaza Hotel, race headquarters for the southern half of the event.
Pre-race festivities on Wednesday, Nov. 14, for the Tecate SCORE Baja 1000, including the vastly popular tech and contingency of all vehicles and the SCORE Manufacturer's Midway will be held from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Boulevard Costero in front of the Riviera del Pacifico Cultural Center.  The pre-race mandatory driver/rider briefing will be held Wednesday, Nov. 14 at 7 p.m. in the Cathedral Room at the Riviera del Pacifico Cultural Center. Racer registration luxury cruise specialist dallas travel agency will be held at the San Nicolas Resort Hotel from Sunday, Nov. 11 through Wednesday, Nov. 14. Media registration will be held at the San Nicolas Resort Hotel from Noon to 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 13 and from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 14.
Veteran Arizona desert racer Pete Sohren received the first starting position during luxury cruise specialist dallas travel agency the live drawing at the Off-Road Expo on Oct. 6. While Sohren, who lives in