| Toyota driver Ivan
"Ironman" Stewart has staked
his claim for the greatest domination of
any motor sport event by one driver, with
another victory in the famous Baja 500
off-road event. Stewart claimed his 14th
outright and class victory in the Mexican
event, driving a Team Toyota T100
off-road racing truck.
Stewart – who
has shown his driving skill as a stunt
driver in Steven Spielberg’s The
Lost World, sequel to the blockbuster
Jurassic Park – clinched
overall four-wheel and trophy truck class
honours.
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Toyota driver Ivan "Ironman"
Stewart claims his 14th
outright and class victory in the famous
Baja 500 off-road event. |
The Toyota
driver crossed the line nine hours and 48 minutes
after setting out from the sea-side town of
Ensenada, reaching speeds of up to 208kmh on the
763.2 km course traversing some of the roughest
terrain in North America.
Baja 500 teams rely on
state-of-the-art Global Positioning Systems to
assist with navigation.
Stewart has competed in
off-road racing for 25 years, the last 15 with
Toyota
"As I was going
through the hills toward the finish line, the
truck was running so well I dreaded that the race
was coming to an end," Stewart said later.
The MCI/Toyota Off-Road
Team is owned by Cal Wells, part owner of
Arciero-Wells Racing which runs a Toyota-powered
Reynard in the CART Indycar World Series for
Italian ace Max Papis.
The off-road teamn will
return to Ensenada in November for the 30th
anniversary Baja 1000, hoping to repeat
Toyota’s clean sweep of the `crown
jewels’ of desert racing – the Nevada
400, Baja 500 and Baja 1000.
In 1993, Toyota became the
only manufacturer in history to clean-sweep the
three blue-ribbon events in one season.
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