Honda's motorsport history is ripe with championships across all forms of racing. Everything on two wheels, four wheels, and, heck, even lawn mowers bearing the Honda H have all competed and won at various levels of competition.
Now, Honda has its sights set on a victory on one of the grandest stages of the desert-racing calendar: the Baja 1000.
The automaker has competed and won here in multiple classes in the past. But the Trophy Truck class presents an elusive challenge for Honda. They don't have a vehicle designed to compete at this level... until now.
This is the Honda Passport Baja Spec, and it plans to take home the top trophy thanks to 1,300 horsepower and one hell of an all-wheel-drive system.
Honda isn't playing games with this one. The automaker has partnered with a top-tier Trophy Truck chassis builder, Mason Motorsports, and a winning Baja champion, Bryce Menzies. Honda Racing brings its tremendous knowledge of motorsports technology, honed over decades of competing in IMSA, IndyCar, and Formula 1.
The truck is obviously not a modified Passport. Instead, we have a Passport-like body shell bolted to a Mason Motorsports Gen 2 chassis. You might not be surprised at the amount of wheel travel this setup delivers: 25 inches up front and 32 inches out back.
But you probably aren't familiar with the unique twin-angled five-speed transmission developed by Mason.
There's a transfer case set ahead of the engine, which routes power to the front and rear tires. For the rears, there's a separate driveshaft for each hub, with a high-pinion spiral bevel gear set at each rear wheel.
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