Mexico's Tavo Vildosola Wins 2016 SCORE Baja 500 Josh Burns - Off-Road.com
go to original June 5, 2016

Tavo Vildosola celebrated his victory with his son Gustavo and daughter Valeria. (Off-Road.com)

Gustavo “Tavo” Vildosola was the first Mexican-born racer to earn the overall victory at the Baja 1000, and the win cemented his legacy as one of the most beloved Mexican off-road racers in the sport. Although Vildosola earned a Baja 500 victory in the Pro Truck class in 2007, he has not stood atop of the podium at the Baja 500 in the Trophy Truck class.

Until today.

It was a suspenseful conclusion to today’s race, as the top four Trophy Truck waited at the finish line for SCORE CEO and President Roger Norman to announce the top three finishers. The margin of victory for this year’s 48th running of the SCORE Baja 500 was so slim SCORE officials had to check over the tracking data before announcing the results.

Rob MacCachren, who started fourth off the line, was able to overtake Carlos Apdaly Lopez at the tail end of the race and cross the finish line first. The move meant MacCachren passed Lopez on time, since Lopez started one spot head of him off the line and therefore had a 1-minute head start. MacCachren waited patiently to see if he would finish 9 minutes ahead of Tavo, since Vildosola started mid-pack after qualifying 13th out of the 31 Trophy Trucks entered. Unfortunately for MacCachren, he again played bridesmaid at the Baja 500, as he lost last year’s race by less than a minute and lost by an even slimmer margin of a few seconds to BJ Baldwin in 2008.

...Vildosola’s day was far from easy. With temperatures reported in the 110- to 115-degree range Fahrenheit on some areas of the racecourse, racers battled Baja in more ways than one today. Vildosola had to work his way through the pack to get into contention to even have a shot at the win.

Read the rest at Off-Road.com

Check out the Baja 500 class results at SCORE International

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