Class 1 unlimited Openwheel Buggies driver quotes after the 45th running of the Baja 1000

Luke McMillin, No. 103 (First in class and ninth overall four-wheel vehicle. McMillin shared driving duties with Justin Smith.) -- To win the three Tecate SCORE Baja races in my rookie year, I couldn't even dream of that, especially the Tecate SCORE Baja 1000 La Paz run... Unreal, I think I'm dreaming right now. I started the car and went to race mile 350 and we got to San Felipe and we had about a 20-minute lead there. That is where I decided to back it off and go for the class win and not try and chase the trucks. The whups were just nasty. I got it to Justin (Smith) with a 16-minute lead and he brought it back to me with an hour lead. About 100 miles before the finish we had a heartbreaker when the car just shut off. It was the wiring to the fuel pump. We hooked up my Parker pumper to the fuel pumps and got going again. I thought we were done right there.
Ronny Wilson, No. 102 (Second in class. Wilson shared driving duties with John Herder and Randy Wilson.) -- We rolled over at race mile 107 and we lost all of the lights and tore the right side and front arms off the car. We were down a little over an hour and after that everything worked okay. We were trying to pass a SCORE Trophy Truck and we moved to the right a little bit and hung a wheel in a ditch and flipped the car over.
Clyde Stacy, No. 106 (Third in class. Justin Davis drove start to mile 550. Justin Matney drove to the finish.) – Co-Driver Justin Matney said: We had some belt issues and lost a rear rotor. We got stuck with Herbst at race mile 595. We came around a corner and we slid into him. We helped pull him out. We worked together to get our car out and then we helped pull him out. We lost about an hour. That really killed us when we got stuck.

Jon Walker, No. 107 (Fourth in class. Walker drove the entire race) -- We rolled it at race mile 100 and I walked about two miles. We missed a turn and I decided instead of backing up, to take a motorcycle line. We got stuck in the tide. It was the complete Baja experience. There was some wicked silt.

Nils Castillo, No. 145 (Fifth in class. Castillo shared driving duties with Nils Castillo and Joe Custer) -- Co-Driver Joe Custer said: The tires were awesome. We had one flat but other than that the course was fast. It's the first time in our buggy. It was fabulous. Gene Haas did great, he put the car out front. We had a rear start and we were running fourth when he got out. We are going to have a nice off-season now. The last two years we broke. A new truck and it didn't break so we had a good run.

Tony Miglini, No. 105 (Sixth in class.) -- About four hours into it I got super tired. We had brake issues and we stopped and then we capped off our right rear caliper and decided to run with fronts and one rear. Before, we only had fronts. We were in a killer spot earlier in the race for a long time. We relinquished first during the first stint with Armin Kremer. Andy’s whole job was just to be cool and take it easy. He did everything he was supposed to. He brought the car in, in one piece. I think we were seven or eight spots back and then when the sun came up it was game on. Once I stopped being tired it was killer. We were flying. It's a big thing for my first year in Class 1.

Travis Chase, No. 113 (Seventh in class. Chase shared driving duties with Don Chase and Ryan Plowman.) Co-Driver Don Chase said: Ryan (Plowman) got stuck for about two hours in the silt. Travis (Chase) had two flats in San Felipe but only one spare. That kind of slowed it down. He had one flat and then 20 miles later, before he got to our pit he had another. We had a sticking throttle, flat tires and stuck in the silt but I had no problems at all, but the young guys struggled day and night.

Content credits SCORE - Image credits: Monica Bulong & All German Motorsports