Yokohama to compete in Mexican off-road race

ERJ staff report (TP)

Tokyo – Yokohama Rubber announced it will enter an original SUV in the 2014 Tecate SCORE Baja 1000 off-road race to be held in Baja California, Mexico, 12-16 November.

Yokohama Rubber will also support one of the top US off-road teams participating in the race.

Yokohama’s original SUV racing machine features a proprietary design based on the concept of “an SUV created in the image of the next generation of SUVs”. The machine is equipped with Yokohama’s Geolandar A/T-S tires, an all-round tire designed especially for SUVs.

With Ikuo Hanawa, a “veteran of many Baja 1000 races”, in the driver’s seat, the Yokohama team is “targeting victory” in the SV6 Class for cars with engines in the under 3.7-litre/6-cylinder class.

Yokohama is also supporting the husband-wife team of Cameron and Heidi Steele, “two of America’s top off-road racers”. The couple has been competing in the popular US off-road series, the SCORE Series, with the support of Yokohama. The Japanese company has been supporting teams competing in the Baja 1000 for many years.

Held each November, the Baja 1000 is one of the world’s leading desert races and the final race in the popular SCORE series of off-road races put on by SCORE International, a US-based off-road sanctioning body.

A time-based, non-stop endurance race run over a rugged, off-road course of some 1,000 miles (1,610 km), the Baja 1000 tests “drivers’ skills and stamina while also demanding the highest levels of steering stability, durability, and overall performance from participating machines and the tires they run on”.

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