AP: Rossi ends season with Baja win
Alexander Rossi white-knuckled a Honda Ridgeline through the dark and the fog, off-roading along Mexico’s Baja California Peninsula at 100 mph. Insanity, it sounds like, especially for a driver who already had a pair of close calls in both of his previous appearances in the Baja 100.
Rossi nearly had a head-on collision with an SUV and still finished second in his 2018 debut in the prestigious off-road adventure. The next year, Rossi botched a 90-degree turn and rolled his truck into a ditch.
Yet there he was last week, trusting a navigator and the GPS system to get him over bumps and jumps in the dark of night while also avoiding spectators camped along the route. At sunrise, Rossi’s clear visor for night driving was worthless and he raced the next 80 miles with one hand shielding his eyes from the light.
The payoff was worth it: Rossi’s team won its class by more than three hours in a race that spanned more than 23 hours and stretched 1,226-miles from Ensenada to La Paz.
*Rossi is the only driver to win three of North America's three largest races...the Indy 500, 24 Hours of Daytona and the Baja 1000
