What is it about off-road racing that draws the world's top auto manufacturers? It certainly isn't traditional racing glamor. Forget about glass-smooth racing surfaces and corporate VIP suites at the track. Forget about viewing races from a Monaco balcony while sipping vintage wines. On a practical level, off-road racing isn't likely to impress government regulators or activist groups that perpetually target the auto industry.

Everything about off-road racing is dusty, sweaty, and bone-jarring. It's the MMA of motorsports.

And yet almost all major OEs participate, most with considerable enthusiasm and resources invested. What's the motivation? According to our sources, off-road racing is the ultimate proving ground for both machinery and people. The lessons learned in the dirt have wide-ranging application. To mangle a famous Frank Sinatra lyric, "If I can make it at Baja, I can make it anywhere."

Dirt Club

As a manufacturer of motorcycles, dirt bikes, and side-by-sides as well as cars, SUVs, and trucks, Honda has been racing in the dirt for decades.

"In general, Honda is involved in racing because it's part of our DNA as a company," said Chuck Schifsky, manager, Honda & Acura Motorsports, a division of American Honda Motor Co., Inc., Torrance, California. "We use racing as a proof point of our engineering prowess, and to help show that Honda products are youthful, exciting, innovative, and fun to use and drive. For off-road racing itself, this helps Honda demonstrate and communicate to customers the rugged abilities of Honda's production cars."

That investment is paying dividends for Honda and influencing product like never before. The company debuted a new Baja Passport race truck in the Mint 400's Unlimited Truck 2WD class in March. Driver Ethan Ebert had the Baja Passport up to P2 in class before a mechanical issue sidelined him. He rebounded at the SCORE Baja 500 on June 8, winning the pole and finishing second. Corbin Leaverton captured a class win for Honda in the Pro UTV Normally Aspirated class in a Talon.

These race vehicles serve another purpose for Honda. The company has been positioning its street SUVs in a more trail-ready direction with the Passport and Pilot TrailSport models. Part of that push included entering a near-stock Passport TrailSport in the Stock Production Truck class at the Mint 400 and other races. Honda long ago developed a reputation for rugged off-road performance with its two-wheel offerings and now seeks to build that reputation around its SUVs and Ridgeline truck.

At Ford Motor Company, with headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan, the off-road roots run deep. Ak Miller and Ray Brock won the two-wheel drive production class in a Ford Ranchero in the inaugural NORRA Mexican 1000 Rally in 1967 (the forerunner of the Baja 1000). A Bronco prepared by Bill Stroppe won the famed 1,000-mile race in 1969, the only stock 4x4 to do so to this day. Parnelli Jones and Bill Stroppe won the 1970 Baja 500, and Stroppe's "Big Oly" Broncos went on to achieve off-road racing immortality in the 1970s.

The Raptor models are today's off-road standard bearers for Ford, and Baja was an integral part of their development. "Going to Baja and proving Raptor is something we've done since the beginning of that brand and those trucks," said Brian Novak, Ford's off-road motorsports supervisor for North America. "Baja has been a huge part of that. We go to Baja almost every year now and have for many years, and proved our different products. The 3.5-liter went down there; the aluminum body went down there when we went to the aluminum body. And obviously, a lot of different Raptors have gone down there and raced, including the current ones—the Ranger, the Bronco, and the Raptor R. That is where we go to prove the product and get the data and learn."

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