Cherry Race Team x
Meyers Manx takes Baja
May 14, 2025
There are races, and then there’s NORRA—the happiest, dustiest thousand miles on earth. We didn’t come to chase glory. We came for the stories, the people, the terrain, and the thousand chances to fall in love with the road again.
This year, we brought along our friends from Cherry Los Angeles—one of our favorite clothing brands and co-conspirators in the art of not playing it safe. Together, we formed the Cherry Race Team and entered the Safari Class with a simple goal: go fast, have fun, and soak up every single mile of Baja’s wild charm.
As title sponsor of the Safari Class, we’re proud to back a category that’s built for people who want the full Baja experience—the terrain, the towns, and the throttle. It’s for those who want to drive hard across the desert, then stop for tacos by the beach. It’s about finding the sweet spot between all-out performance and pure, off-grid adventure. No pressure, no podiums—just the kind of days you’ll talk about for the rest of your life.
We rolled out of San Felipe with the Pacific breeze still clinging to us. The early miles came easy—hard-packed lakebeds and open desert that begged for throttle. But Baja doesn’t do easy for long. Ruts, rocks, and heat built mile by mile until the only thing keeping you moving was stubborn joy.
Every day started fresh, every night ended with something new rattling loose. By day two, we cracked our engine mount—hundreds of miles of rocks and abuse finally caught up with us.
That’s where we ran into Baja legend Jim Chamberlain, who’s been in the game since building the original Baja-winning Meyers Manx back in 1967. Jim sized us up, cut a branch off a bush, and used it to replace a few of the caps that had rattled off our motor. We limped the car to San Ignacio and pulled into the Fab School. They followed soon after with grinders, a steel pipe, and the kind of spirit that built this race in the first place. That’s NORRA. That’s family.
We climbed, we dropped, we surfed cliffs and beaches, got swallowed once by silt so fine it looked like smoke. Baja used to be underwater, and it leaves reminders—floaty, powdery stuff that buries your tires and your ego. The trick? Don’t stop. Momentum is everything.
By day five we hit pavement and cut through sweeping mountain roads like we were late for something. The NORRA arches waited in La Paz, and we rolled through them with sand in our shoes and smiles we couldn’t shake.
But we weren’t done.
The last day started like all the best ones do—quiet, warm, full of promise. We aired down, dropped in, and let the Manx eat dirt. Cliffside trails turned to beach runs, and somewhere in that last wash, wide open and pinned, it all came together.
This is why we built them in the 1960s… and why we continue to develop them now.
To do Baja in a Manx Remastered isn’t nostalgia—it’s a challenge. To go. To finish. To remember what fun used to feel like before everything had a touchscreen. Available turnkey for the first time in 50 years, it’s ready when you are.
Baja didn’t break us. It just made us hungry for more.