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Baja Designs’ Team Enlightened Shine Bright in the 2013 Baja 500

admin — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 15:51:31 +0000

Baja Designs’ Team Enlightened Shine Bright in the 2013 Baja 500

San Marcos, CA – June 12th, 2013 - Congratulations to all participants in this year’s 2013 Tecate Score Baja 500 and a special thank you to Baja Designs’ Team Enlightened. Notably one of the toughest off-road races in the world, this year’s Baja 500 was an invigorating new format that stirred up the race right from the start.

New course sections, new series owner and new rules made for an especially exciting race. The 500 course was very technical, compared to recent years, which meant most race teams had no choice but to turn on their lights and drive through the night.

Baja Designs’ Team Enlightened earned a total of 19 podium finishes in 16 classes.

Trophy Truck

Menzies Motorsports – 3rd
Terrible Herbst – 4th
Galindo Motorsports – 6th
RPM OFFROAD – 8th
Terrible Herbst – 10th
McMillin Racing – 11th
Vildosola Racing – 12th
Greg Nunley – 17th
Mastercraft – 18th
All German Motorsports – 19th

Class 1

RPM OFFROAD – 1st
Corey Keysar – 2nd
Parkhouse Racing – 4th
Lyle Bask – 6th
Edge Motorsports – 7th

Trophy Truck Special

RPM OFFROAD – 1st
Mills Motorsports – 2nd

Class 10

Mike Johnson – 1st

Class 8

RPM OFFROAD – 1st
Rick Sanchez – 2nd

12 SCORE Lites

Rafael Navarro IV – 1st

Class 1/2 1600

Jose Ruvalcaba – 4th
Jorge Sampietro – 5th

Class 5 UnLtd

Cody Kellogg – 1st
Jose Lopez – 3rd

Class 5-1600 LTD

RPM OFFROAD – 1st

Class 7sx

Elias Hanna – 1st

Class 30

Team Arredondo – 1st

Class 22

Kurt Caselli – 2nd

Class 21

Adam Neuwirth – 1st

Class 20

Mark Bradford – 2nd

Sportsman 1500 UnLtd Buggy

Jorge Valdes – 1st

M-A 25 ATV

Adolfo Arellano – 2nd

Red Bull Trophy Truck racer Bryce Menzies qualified 3rd and finished 3rd in class, only minutes behind the first place team. Bryce’s co-driver Pete Mortensen had this to say, “This was our first race with an all LED setup. We had them at the Mint 400, but we didn’t get a chance to use them for more than 20 minutes. Bryce and I were very satisfied with how they performed and I like the fact that they are easy to package on the truck.”

Last year’s release of the Baja Designs OnX LED light bar brought a new technology and experience to off road night racing, allowing for high speed night driving with only LEDs.

Alan Roach, founder and head engineer of Baja Designs raced with Mills Racing in a Spec Trophy Truck finishing 2nd in class. “I drove the entire night section – I saw the sun go down and come up again from the driver’s seat. The LED setup is so much easier on the eye and with the projection of the OnX, I barely noticed it was night time.”

Cody Parkhouse, 4th place finisher in Class 1, said, “The Baja Designs OnX is by far the best light we have ever used on a race car. We came back into Ensenada after more than 120 miles at night with the OnX, not once were we concerned.”

Thank you again to all of our supporters and Team Enlightened for another amazing display of skill, sportsmanship and athleticism at this year’s Tecate Score Baja 500. The Scientists of Lighting are here for all of your lighting needs – no matter what vehicle you choose – ensuring that bright ideas are always made better.

Media Contact:
Trent Kirby – Marketing Director
Baja Designs, Inc.

Bright Just Got Brighter

admin — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 16:25:12 +0000

Bright Just Got Brighter

San Marcos, CA – June 4th, 2013 -
Baja Designs LED lights are now 20% brighter. The Scientists of Lighting are installing the newest versions of the XP-G and the XM-L manufactured in North Carolina by CREE. Baja Designs OnX, Squadron, and SII led lights are made with CREE’s new XM-L2 (10 watt) and the Stealth LED light bars contain the new XP-G2 (5 watt).

“We have written many white papers and spoken countless times about LED efficiency over the years, but it never ceases to amaze us how much room there is for improvement from LED manufacturers. CREE, like us, is an engineering based company and once again their engineers have not only improved their efficiency, but have used new technology to increase the brightness of these LEDs.” – Alan Roach

These are the kind of improvements that allow Baja Designs to make night time driving as comfortable as driving in daylight. The Scientists of Lighting are proud to work with other U.S. manufacturers such as CREE that strive for endless perfection and bring you bright ideas made better. If you are looking for the brightest LED lights available or if you would like to upgrade an existing product to the new 20% brighter XP-G2 and XM-L2, please call the Scientists of Lighting at Baja Designs.

Media Contact:
Trent Kirby – Marketing Director
Baja Designs

Baja Designs – Built to Weather the Perfect Storm

admin — Mon, 06 May 2013 23:42:47 +0000

Built to weather the perfect storm.

San Marcos, CA – May 7th, 2013 - Baja Designs’ Scientists constantly research the latest technologies for ways to make their LED lights better. Their new Moisture Block cord is an innovative new technology that solves one of the biggest problems that plagues LED lights – water in the light. Moisture Block completely stops water from wicking its way up the cord and into the lights.

“Our lights have to be impervious to pretty much everything – dust, rain, snow, water crossings and collisions to name a few,” says founder and Chief Engineer Alan Roach. “Our new Moisture Block cord system is a fail-safe way to make sure that our lights are 100% waterproof no matter how harsh the conditions are and even if the customer cuts off our waterproof connector,” says Roach.

The Moisture Block functions exactly to its name, completely blocking moisture or water from working it’s way through the cord and into your LED light. Even if you cut the connector off, your light is still waterproof and you won‘t void your warranty. Moisture Block, another great innovation in lighting from the Scientists of Lighting at Baja Designs.

In other news, the Baja Designs’ Scientists of Lighting have yet another “bright” idea made better. Squadron and SII LED lights are now available in an attractive and salt water resistant white coating. These MIL-SPEC lights provide amazing light output with incredible functionality and customization.

“The Squadron and SII LED lights have been used in every imaginable condition and surpassed our expectations every time” says BD Engineer Tex Mitchell.

“I am an avid fishing enthusiast and as everyone knows, boat deck lighting can be power hungry and extremely fatiguing to the human eye,” says Mitchell. “The Squadron and SII are available in four patterns and utilize uService™ technology which gives the pattern choices and customization that has been lacking in the marine market. On top of that, the 5000 kelvin color temperature is comfortable to the eye and provides excellent color recognition.”

BD’s marine white Squadron and SII LED lights boast the same quality and construction that has been proven in off road, agriculture, and military applications for more than 20 years.

Baja Designs’ Scientists Evolve uService™ LED Lighting Systems

admin — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 19:01:02 +0000

Baja Designs’ Scientists Evolve uService™ LED Lighting Systems

SAN MARCOS, CA – Baja Designs (BD) has always engineered and manufactured LED lighting systems with replaceable lenses and optics. Amazingly enough, almost all other LED bars are silicone sealed and not serviceable. If a BD lens is scratched or scored, you don’t replace the entire light as you do with most imported products, nor do you need to send it back to the manufacturer as you would with other popular LED lights.

BD’s uService™ technology allows you to simply unscrew BD’s water and dust proof lens and seal to replace the damaged optics or lens. On top of that, the same uService™ technology means you can also change the optics of your light. When you consider that BD also includes a limited lifetime warranty on all their lights, uService™ offers the ultimate in purchase protection.

“Racing off-road for over 25 years has taught BD engineers to design products to endure even the roughest of conditions. Our uService™ replaceable lenses and optics will further guarantee a race finish while also saving you money from needing to buy a replacement light,” says Chief Scientist and Baja Designs founder, Alan Roach. Alan also added, “You wouldn’t throw out your car if your windshield cracks, would you? No, you’d just replace the windshield. So why would anyone design a disposable LED driving light? That’s crazy!”

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Baja Designs has also evolved the uService™ technology to permit “customization.” Replaceable lenses and optics allow you to customize your pattern for any application on the fly or make repairs quickly and easily. BD’s uService™ products are uniquely o-ring sealed and carry an IP69K rating – that means they are submersible up to 9 feet and pressure washer-safe up to 1450 PSI. Catch the company’s YouTube video featuring Zog the Caveman attempting to rebuild his disposable lights while the Baja Designs Scientist easily breezes through his rebuilding process in minutes.

Look for the uService™ icon on all applicable LED products from Baja Designs. More product news from Baja Designs in the upcoming months will reveal a complete series of innovations designed to continually bring you a re-evolution of bright ideas made better.

Why Baja Designs outshines the competition…literally

admin — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 18:41:58 +0000

We would argue that color temperature and optics are as important as lumen output in determining your choice of an LED light. Today we want to talk about Color Temperature. In the simplest of terms, color temperature indicates the color of a specific type of light source.

Let’s keep it simple and take the sun at its highest and brightest point in the sky: high noon. At noon, assuming no additional effects from weather and atmospheric conditions, the sun has a perceived color temperature anywhere between 5000K and 5400K.
Since the sun is our only external light source, our eyes have evolved to see best at this color temperature.
So, doesn’t it make sense to use LEDs that mimic this color temperature, thereby allowing our eyes to perform at their optimal level of receiving and processing light? We sure think so. In fact, once the color temperature surpasses 6500K, which many other LED light companies use, it now actually looks like twilight or the light that the sun would produce through cloudy conditions.
At Baja Designs, we not only select LEDs out of the highest lumen output bin but also accept only those LEDs with a color temperature of 5000K, thus producing a light that truly shines like the sun at midday.

Now, this selection doesn’t come without a price (literally). LEDs come in a wide array, and one of the sorting criteria is by color temperature. 5000K is more expensive than the bluer LEDs used by most other lighting companies. Here is what Chuck Hovey, BITD and SCORE champion has to say: “When driving at night, fatigue is certainly a factor. With a bluer LED, it is more difficult to process terrain at speed. Baja Designs has the perfect color temperature, therefore making it easier on the eyes and brain. When doing 120MPH down a dirt road at night, you need every advantage you can get.”

Bottom line, a light with the proper color temperature allows for optimal terrain recognition and less driver fatigue.

1) http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/color+temperature
2, 3, 4) Kip, Arthur. Fundamentals of Electricity and Magnetism, McGraw-Hill Series in Fundamentals of Physics