Casey Currie Conquers Baja

Casey Currie Conquers Baja
CORONA, California (June 8, 2015) – Casey Currie knew that committing to running the Baja 500 was going to be more than a challenging race, it was going to be an experience of a lifetime. He and his co-driver, his uncle, John Currie, had set a goal to finish the race and did coming across the line 18th in the Trophy Truck class. Ultimately, Casey, and his crew accomplished what they set out to accomplish and created one of the best memories in his racing career.

For this Baja 500 experience, Casey started it off by pre-running to get familiar with the Baja terrain weeks before the actual race. They took their Currie Equipped Jeeps and added the new K02 Bfgoodrich tires to be able to handle all they encountered on their runs. Casey, his father (Ray Currie), uncle (John Currie), and Savvy Off-Road owner, Gerald Lee, took the Jeeps down to Baja and pre-ran the complete course, doing over 1500 miles in the dirt. They started in Ensenada, then travelled down to San Felipe for the night, then finished off the course ending back in Ensenada. Having no problems with the Jeeps and perfect weather, they were all excited to get to Baja back for the race in June.

When race week arrived, Casey and his team started it off with 3 days of more pre-running before qualifying. Casey’s plan for qualifying was to run cleanly – not make any mistakes and not push the too hard where they cause damage to it. Thursday, in their qualifying run, they ended up qualifying 20th out of 30 Trophy Trucks. Tech and contingency was Friday and wow what an experience! Casey had never seen so many people at a race…and the energy from all the fans was exhilarating. They handed out over a 1000 posters and over a 1000 stickers at contingency/tech alone.

On race day the green flag dropped at 10:20 am for Casey and John and they had a smooth run for the first 140 miles. Then at race mile 140 Casey’s uncle John got in the Jeep and drove it brilliantly to 300. Through this second section, they had lost some time making some suspension repairs due to the huge whoops. Casey got back in the Jeep at mile marker 300 and drove it to the finish, crossing the line around 11PM.

Casey Currie’s Trophy Truck was the first to finish with a straight axle front suspension in over 10 years. He and John finished 18th in one of the toughest classes in the sport. They proved to themselves and to the race community that they can succeed in this grueling race – they look forward to coming back for next year’s Baja 500 and achieving an even better result in a new Jeep.