Nine Years Between Three and Four

June 2023. Ensenada. SCORE Baja 500.

Bryce Menzies of Las Vegas rolls out in a Mason-built, all-wheel-drive Ford Raptor. Menzies Motorsports. No. 7 on the side. Trophy Truck, the class that runs for the overall.

He's been here before. He's won here before. Three times.

The first one came in 2011. Nine hours, four minutes, fifty-two seconds. A year later he did it again. 2012, nine hours, thirteen minutes, thirty-nine seconds. Then 2014 made it three. All three in a Ford.

Then nine years went by.

Nine years is a long time in Baja. Trucks change. Teams change. Whatever you did in 2014 buys you nothing at the start line in 2023.

So the question that June isn't whether Bryce Menzies can win the Baja 500. He answered that a long time ago. The question is whether he can go back and do it one more time.

Hundreds of miles of Baja later, he has his answer.

First in Trophy Truck. First overall. Nine hours, three minutes, thirty-eight seconds. No penalties.

Number four.

Here's why that one sticks with me. Four overall wins at one race. Same driver. Ford every time. Twelve years from the first to the fourth. Plenty of people win a big race once and spend the rest of their lives telling you about it. Winning the same one again nine years after your last is a different kind of hard.

Nine years between three and four. 9:03:38 to close the gap.

Which Baja 500 have you seen, one of Bryce's four or any other year, and what do you still remember from it?