The NORRA 1,000
Founded in 1967 by Ed Pearlman and Don Francisco, the National Offroad Racing Association (NORRA) was the first racing sanctioning body devoted solely to off-road racing. Their first event hosted in 1967 was the Mexican 1000 and it laid the groundwork of vehicle classes and rules that shaped off-road racing in Baja forever. Starting in Ensenada and ending in San Jose Del Cabo. The race typically spans 1000 miles of off-road terrain and 300 miles “in transit” (through cities \ towns to get back to the desert) over 6 days. The terrain is extremely technical and dangerous, everything from wide open lake beds where you can achieve speeds up to 140mph, to very tight mountain passes with sheer drop-offs you have to crawl through.
Everything from full-scale trophy trucks to dirt bikes participates in the race. This year, just shy of 300 entered with only 114 or so actually finishing. Most don’t finish because of how rough the course is, either from mechanical issues, electrical issues and crashes are very common. Sadly this year there were two fatalities.
Participating in the race this year is ESD’s very own Ben Croce. Ben joined the ESD team in 2023 and now runs our media department producing the content you see on our YouTube and other social channels. Prior to that, he’s assisted ESD with our off-road expeditions throughout New England. Ben is also a member of a local team that competes in the NORRA 1000 known as Team 603 as the team’s media producer and a member of the pit crew. Ben got his start with them by building the electrical system that runs all the communication, lighting, and navigation equipment on the race buggy itself.” At the time of this article Team 603 is the only Baja Racing team we are aware of in New Hampshire and possibly all of New England.
Despite their infancy Team 603 has been able to obtain sponsorships from big industry names such as Kioti Tractors, Profile PowerSports, NAPA Auto Parts of Redstone, Sutton Luxury Limousine, Lucky Gunner Garage along with many more local sponsors listed on their social media pages. This year at the NORRA 1000 Team 603 is in the stock turbo UTV class, they race a 2022 Can-Am X3 placing 8th in their class, 45th overall. This year was pretty brutal on Team 603, they rolled over once, broke multiple small components, and still finished the race better than last year. The team will be in attendance at next years race looking to continue to preform better and better every year, as they plan to upgrade their rig to a new 2024 CanAm Maverick R to achieve a more competitive edge against some of the larger vehicles.
We encourage all of our readers and customers to go check out Team 603 on all of their Social media outlets to stay up to date with the team!
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OdRpaKIN5I
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Team-603-NH/61554495920552/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/team603nh/
