Honda continue their remarkable history with victory in the 57th SCORE International Baja 1000 with SLR Honda taking their sixth win in the Pro Moto Unlimited class.

Notorious for its gruelling course which starts and finishes in Ensenada, with a 864-mile course which circles the northern half of the Baja Peninsula, the Baja 1000 is legendary in off-road sport.

Equally legendary is Honda’s association with the race and with the winner’s flag and it belongs to the Slam Life Racing Honda team once again, this year with a new rider line-up of Justin Morgan, Tyler Lynn, Brandon Prieto and Ryan Surratt.

Team owner and multi-time winner, Mark Samuels, wasn’t on the pegs for the 57th edition of the race, instead managing the team for the first time.

Tyler Lynn was the first rider off the start at 01.00 am on Friday, and he quickly built a 14-minute lead before Prieto took over 260 miles later. His 200-mile section was relatively smooth apart from some wire becoming tangled in his front wheel, but the team was able to remove it at the next pit.

Despite the delay, the lead was still 17 minutes when the bike was taken by veteran Morgan (competing in his final Baja 1000 as a motorcycle racer), who added another 10 minutes to the lead during his 260-mile San Felipe section. Surratt continued the SLR dominance until Lynn took over again for the final 80 miles, finishing with a total time of 17 hours, 52 minutes, 33.799 seconds later, nearly an hour ahead of the second-place team (Arturo Salas, Carter Klein and Ciaran Naran, also Honda-mounted).

It marked Honda’s record 33rd Baja 1000 overall motorcycle win and the 17th for the CRF450X—the winningest vehicle in the history of the race. It marked the seventh time that Morgan has been on a winning team, but it was just the second for Prieto and the first for Lynn and Surratt.

“After what happened last year, it was a little nerve-wracking coming into it this year, but it felt really good to have a really smooth race, like normal,” said SLR owner Mark Samuels. “This was my first time not racing on the team, and it was cool to just focus on managing things and watch the next wave of the sport coming in. It was nice to have everything come to fruition.”

Photo Credit: Honda Racing