Press Release

Robby Gordon, to whom the Toyo Tire (U.S.A.) Corp. provides tires, won the Baja 1000 held in Baja California, Mexico, from November 15th to the 18th. The Toyo Tire (U.S.A.) Corp. is a tire sales subsidiary of the Toyo Tire & Rubber Co., Ltd. (President and CEO: Yoshio Kataoka). With his remarkable victory, Gordon kept B. F. Goodrich from grabbing his 21st consecutive win.

Gordon, piloting his Red Bull Racing / Toyo Tires Chevy CK1500 pickup shod with 37X13.50R17 Open Country M/T tires, drove the first 725 miles of the race before handing his leading truck over to Andy McMillan to complete the final leg of the ultimate off-road classic in about 19.5 hours.

Andy Grider, who served as navigator, and Gordon, will team up as driver/navigator again for the upcoming Dakar race in January in a Hummer H3 equipped with Toyo's Open Country M/T tires.

Baja 1000 is a major American off-road race that takes place in November. Racers drive 1000 miles (approx. 1600 km) in the desert in Baja California. It is an open-and-shut race, where the first racer to reach the goal is the winner. The race draws about 1200 participants and some 200,000 spectators.

Robby Gordon's Comments

"I started with Toyo one year ago at the Baja 1000, and the improvements that they have made on their tires and the dedication that they have shown to the program has allowed us to be able to pull off an overall victory for them... which I am pretty proud of. It's something that we set out to do a year ago when we built this relationship. It was to be able to win races, and we have won the Parker 400 for them, we won Terrible's Cup for them, and now we won the Baja 1000 overall, so they got three great victories under their belt this year."