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Braving Baja: 1000 Miles to Glory Exhibit at the Peterson Automotive Museum

Aug. 20, 2013 By Josh Burns
This 1960 Volkswagen was raced by Doug and Don Robertson, winning more than 30 races and earning the title of SCORE Overall Points Champion in 1977. It was actually found in a San Diego junkyard and restored to its current condition.

For the past few months, The Peterson Automotive Museum in Los Angeles has hosted an amazing collection of vintage and historic off-road vehicles that have traversed the Baja peninsula. Braving Baja: 1000 Miles to Glory is an exhibit paying tribute to the early days of Baja off-road adventure riding – whether it was early U.S. explorers of the area or some of the legendary racers who tackled races such as the Baja 1000.

Larry Roeseler’s legendary status in Baja was cemented during his time as a factory Kawasaki rider in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. He and teammates Ty Davis and Danny Hamel rode this KX500 to the overall victory at the 1994 Baja 1000, which was the seventh straight win for Kawasaki at the 1000.

The summer-long exhibit was kicked off by a tribute dinner and off-road show featuring off-road legends Dave Ekins, Bill Robertson Jr. and Parnelli Jones back in May. The show will be wrapping up shortly (it is on display until September 2nd), so if you’re unable to attend the exhibit before it comes down, check out some of the highlights here on Off-Road.com. For more information on this exhibit and others at the Peterson Automotive Museum, visit http://www.peterson.org/.

This 2004 Honda XR650R is the winningest bike in Baja history, earning nine straight class win and finishing in the top five overall of every race in which it competed. It was ridden by Jim O’Neal, Jeff Kaplan, Tim Withers and Jeff Sheets. Its best finish was third overall at the 2006 Baja 1000.

Ivan “Ironman” Stewart started his Baja career with Toyota and its factory team PPI Motorsports in 1983, going on to earn six class victories and two SCORE championships in the first two years. His “Ironman” nickname came from his historic run in 1993 where he was the first driver to solo, or ironman, the Baja 1000 and win it.

The brother duo of Kent and Scott Pfieffer piloted this 1981 Yamaha YZ250 to a number of victories in 1981 – enough to earn them the overall motorcycle points championship. They won their class at the Mexicali 250 and Baja 500 and finished second overall at the Baja 1000 that year.

The Aermacchi factory in Italy built the 125cc Harley Davidson Baja 100, but this Italian street bike was heavily modified in its racing form compared to the street version on which it was based. With larger off-road tires that made it ideal for taller riders, the bike propelled the 1971 Harley-Davidson Baja team to eight out of 10 wins in the Baja 1000. The bike won 47 out of the 51 races in which it competed. It was also said to be the favored starter bike of Bruce Ogilvie, Mitch Payton and Mitch Mayes.

This is a replica of the C&J 440 Honda ridden by Al Baker Jr. and Gene Cannady. The four-stroke Honda is an accurate replica of one built by Bill Bell that propelled Baker Jr. and Cannady to the overall victory at the 1975 Baja 100.

Drino Miller built this single-seat buggy in his garage with the sole purpose of creating a lightweight race vehicle with plenty of power. After testing it and getting solid results in the 1969 Mexican 1000 and the Mint 400, he and Vic Wilson rode it to the overall win in the 1970 Mexican 1000.

This 1975 Rokon Automatic was considered unique due to its snowmobile-type Salsbury CVT (continuously variable transmission) drive and dual disk brakes. Ron Bishop raced the vehicle in 1975 after becoming a factory rider for the team. Bishop had a profilic career south of the border, as he raced in every Baja 1000 from 1967 to 2007.

Built as a tribute to the “Big Oly” Ford Bronco that was owned and raced by Parnelli Jones in many off-road races, this 2011 was built to modern Trophy Truck specifications as a modern-retro vehicle. The “Big Oly” tribute Bronco is actually street legal in spite of its 723 horsepower motor.

Gunnar Nilsson and J.N. Roberts earned the overall win in the 1969 Baja 1000 on this ’69 Husqvarna. A few years earlier, Husqvarna engineer Ruben Helmen built the horizontal twin-cylinder engine powering the “Husky” out of a production 250cc motor. This prototype engine was finished in 1968 and was later tested and proven by Nilsson when he won the 1969 European FIM Cup on it. When it was raced in the ’69 Baja 1000, the bike reached speeds over 110 miles an hour. The motor never went into production, and there were only 10 built – two for road racing, seven for sidecar racing and one for this off-road bike, the only of its kind.


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