SCORE Legends! | Scot Harden

Photo Kris Pallesen/Centerline Images.

Portrait by Jack Wright/nMedia3.com

Scot Harden

40 Years in the Seat

By Larry Saavedra. Photo Kris Pallesen/Centerline Images
Excerpted from SCORE's "Racing Into History - Vol.1 & Vol. 2"

Three-time SCORE Baja 500 Overall Champion (1978, ’85, ’86) and four-time SCORE Baja 500 Class Champion (’76, ’78, ’85, ’86), Scot Harden, traveled the world racing motorcycles. But his best memories of racing were in Mexico.

But the ’78 SCORE Baja 500 motorcycle overall win in Class 22 on a Husqvarna 390, nearly got the better of both riders. “The ambient temperature was about 128-degrees that year and the asphalt was literally melting under our boots,” said Harden. “Brent Wallingsford and I somehow prevailed and took the SCORE Baja 500 Motorcycle Overall win for Husqvarna. During those two years, we dominated motorcycle racing. It was epic.”

It was a stretch between his first SCORE Baja 500 victory and his next, he would come back to the SCORE Baja 500 with riders Kurt Pfeiffer and Garth Sweetland in 1985 and ’86 to take the overall wins again.

While the 1986 Baja 500 Overall would be his last major motorcycle overall win on record for SCORE, Harden continued to professionally compete at SCORE events until 2007, ranking in the top ten of his class at many races. “When I first raced the SCORE Baja 500 it was a two-man team with one machine,” Harden said. “You had to ride at least half the course and it was always great to be in Ensenada in June.

SCORE Baja 1000 & 500 50th Anniversary Books!

New books celebrating the SCORE Baja 1000 & 500 50th Anniversary. Racing into History Volumes 1 & 2

  • Pictorial Celebrations of Both Races
  • Capturing the Historic 50th Anniversary race weeks from set-up to the finish line.
  • Massive 416 page & 432 page Commemorative Hardbound Books listing all entrants and finishers.
  • Race History highlights of the SCORE Legends.
  • Historic Vehicle Overview.
  • Historical Reference with SCORE Baja 1000 & 500 statistics for the past 50 years.