Blasting Through Baja
JUNE 10, 2016
San Felipe, Baja, Mexico; home of one of the most grueling races on the planet. For the last half-century, the Baja 250, 500, and 1000 have put vehicles of all kinds to the test. This is the setting for Pennzoil’s latest film: JOYRIDE Baja.
Precision driver Rhys Millen is a veteran of both the Baja 500 and 1000. You’ve seen his performance before in JOYRIDE Circuit and Airlift Drift. Pennzoil unleashed Rhys behind the wheel of the Jeep Wrangler Rubicon Hard Rock Edition and set out to push the limits in the same extreme environment he’s faced in the Baja 1000. The sand can reach temperatures of 131 degrees Fahrenheit. Beyond the challenges of scorching sand, there were large dunes, salt flats, and technical, rocky climbs to really test the performance of the car and the engine oil.
“This is the environment that tests every vehicle, every driver, to the extreme,” explained Millen.
The choice of location was no accident. Pennzoil set out to find one of the toughest destinations on earth to test the performance of Pennzoil synthetics—specifically as it relates to two key benefits of modern oil technology: performance in extreme temperatures and unsurpassed wear protection.1 The rigors of the terrain actually proved too difficult for the 4x4 pursuit vehicle used in filming as it got stuck and had to be pulled out by the Jeep Rubicon’s wench. Every Jeep® vehicle that comes off the assembly line in North America is factory filled with Pennzoil.2 So, the Jeep itself had no such trouble bashing through the dunes even as its engine temperature clocked out at 207 degrees Fahrenheit. The unrelenting heat and barren landscape of Baja would have claimed victory over most, but both car and engine oil were able to sustain the highest level of performance in the most dire of conditions.
1Based on Sequence IVA wear test using SAE 5W-30.
2Jeep is a registered trademark of the Chrysler Group, LLC