Los Barriles 300 2016 was a spectacular start to what we expect will be one of the best Southern Baja Off-Road seasons ever!
Thee week end of the 5th & 6th of February had the small town of Los Barriles buzzing amongst race teams, race engine roaring and the sweet smell of race fuel filling the air. ProBaja was organizing this event, and it definitely got a lot of local attention.
Contingency was fantastic as always at this location, with Hotel Palmas del Cortez lending their beautiful green lawn for the occasions, where thousands of fans and venders all got together to see the racers go through contingency and sign poster!
On Sunday morning, a total of 166 teams saw the green flag, as they started to battle it out in the 300 kilometers of desert, with plenty of technical mountain trails, and tons of heavy, heavy sand-washes.
It was very nice to see that the bigger classes had a good turnout also, as Sandy Hall had to face four other strong Trophy Truck contenders whilst Andrea Tomba was part of the list of 9 starters for Class 1.
This was the first day race for Sandy and his TT, and his co-driver Roberto Ruiz and he were eager to give her a good test in some pretty tough conditions, as cooling would be a big issue in this race. “ The truck feels great”, said Sandy after the race. “ The suspension is great, and it drives really well in the tight and technical stuff for such a big truck.” Sandy was in the fight for first position for most of the race, however, the last 30 miles of the race trail were the same as the first 30 miles, and the organizers were obviously going to make sure that there were not going to be any oncoming race vehicles at the time that the first TTs would come through. However, somehow, a couple of cars that had pulled over to work on the vehicles were missed, and Sandy got very close… no, make that very, very close, to an oncoming Class 1, after having been dumbfounded of seeing a Class 5 Open stopped, opposite them. Once they figured out that there was still oncoming race traffic, and realizing that this could be a recipe for disaster, he slowed down, after which Rody Amaya overtook him and won first place. Rody is an spectacular driver in a great truck and is always the man to beat.
Andrea started second in Class 1, and got in the lead after 30 miles, and physically stayed in the lead to the finish line, however finished in 3rd place on time. “ This was a great, and fun race”, smiled Andrea. “It was definitely a race, and the pressure was always on, which shows with Victor and Edgar getting better times. There are some great cars and even better drivers out here, and Class 1 is definitely going to a be tough, competitive and fun class for this season!”
Click here for the results, and if you want to see the oncoming Class 1 at full race speed… watch out for the coming video soon!