Perfection. Batting 1.000. Flawlessness. Almost all of us strive for such smooth sailing in one or more aspects of our lives. If there is one place that reveals flaws, it's the racecourse. If your rollcage isn't built well, you're bound to see cracks. If your engine isn't powerful enough, you'll get passed by your competition. If your suspension hasn't been properly tuned, you'll get pummeled by the terrain.
At the 2005 Baja 1000, Off-Road had the opportunity to ride along with a team that had made perfection the norm all season long. From the Laughlin Desert Challenge to the Primm 300, the Holmes Racing team had beaten the odds and taken home every Class 7S victory in the SCORE series. There was only the Baja 1000 left to go. Would the perfection continue?
As we found out, perfection and Baja are two very difficult things to combine, and John Holmes and Scot Jones of Holmes Racing had successfully done so at the San Felipe 250 and at the Baja 500 earlier in the season.
The long version of the story is in the photo captions, so here's the short version: On a chilly night in November, perfection and Baja parted ways. They parted ways while the team's #739 Ford Ranger was enjoying a comfortable class lead. It would be nice to say it was easy to take the misfortune in stride and shrug it off, flippantly uttering the words "that's racing." Not so. It was a painful heartbreaker.
The silver lining to this cloud is that a season-long win streak continued into the Baja 1000, and the team earned the 2005 SCORE Class 7S Championship with the mere act of crossing the starting line. Congratulations are still in order.
"Having won the Baja 1000 three times, I know triumph, and I hate to lose," Holmes summarized. "But when we fail, we won't give up - we'll try again.
John also provided a fitting quote made by President Theodore Roosevelt nearly a century ago: Nuff said.