So after 28 hours where are the competitors from our favorite class?
Eric Solarzano- Car number 1102 is currently at Race mile 510. Eric is the 9 time champion of Class 11 with many other titles under his belt. I am certain that he is fighting hard to make the cutoff.
Mark Murrell- car number 1149 is at race mile 550. Currently his tracking shows him stopped and it has for a little bit now. We are hoping that he is getting his car sorted out so he can get back on the road soon.
Alfonso Lacarra- car number 1101 is currently at race mile 645 and is cruising along at 41mph as I type this
Giovany Alucano – car number 1103 is currently at race mile 720. He is cruising at 63 MPH! He is the current leader in class 11.
The course this year is 1120 miles long and the finish line closes at 10 am tomorrow morning. This leaves our fearless friends only 17 hours to finish this race. This means that Giovany needs to average 23mph to finish, Alfonzo must average 27 mph, Mark needs to average 32mph and Eric needs to average 35mph in order to cross the finish line in time. They are all clicking on their lights again for another painful night driving through the worst terrain that Baja has to offer facing that feeling of isolation as your field of view sharpens to only that spot that your lights are able to illuminate.
For most of class 11 just reaching the finish line is an accomplishment in and of itself and this is definitely the case for these guys. We have our fingers crossed for all of them. If you want to follow along check out our previous post on How to follow the Baja 1000
UPDATE: Mark Murrell just had to pull out due to a blown transmission. It looks like it is down to 3 cars now.