Dual Wins for Honda in 2024 Baja 1000

ENSENADA, MEXICO – November 19, 2024 – (Motor Sports NewsWire) –

• SLR Honda takes sixth Pro Moto Unlimited victory on CRF450X
• Honda Talon Factory Racing tops Pro UTV Normally Aspirated class

Honda teams enjoyed remarkable success in the 57th SCORE International Baja 1000 this weekend, highlighted by SLR Honda taking their sixth win in the Pro Moto Unlimited class, and Honda Talon Factory Racing earning victory in the Pro UTV Normally Aspirated division. This year’s grueling course for the legendary off-road event started and finished in Ensenada, with a 864-mile counter-clockwise loop circling the northern half of the Baja Peninsula.

The SLR squad’s first win came back in 2018, and it was followed by four more in a row, before last year saw them taken out by a hard crash while fighting for the lead. This year’s lineup of Justin Morgan, Tyler Lynn, Brandon Prieto and Ryan Surratt was not to be denied. Lynn was the first rider off the start at 1 a.m. on Friday, and he 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 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 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.”

Comprised of drivers Michael McFayden and Zach Sizelove, along with codrivers Saydiie Grey and Jimmy…