A recreational trail radio keeps a Saturday group from getting lost. A SCORE stack keeps a race car talking to chase when the course is a thousand miles long, the cell net is gone, and the spare is already on the dirt.
If you only needed weekend trail talk, start with why recreational UTV riders need a two-way radio and the GMRS vs. CB primer. This piece is the other job: race car plus chase truck for a SCORE desert race, written against the 2026 Baja 1000 window — Los Cabos, November 9–15, pre-run open October 31.
Do not mix bands. Do not mix connector families. Do not buy a “radio” and assume the helmet will plug in.
1. Decide the band before you spend
SCORE teams in this world run PCI-programmed Part 90 VHF mobiles on PCI’s licensed channel list (the list trail talk still calls Weatherman / stock, plus team frequencies). That is not GMRS. That is not MURS. That is not a blister-pack FRS radio from a gas station in El Centro.
PCI dealer radios on Baja Racing Gear ship pre-programmed with PCI’s licensed channels. You operate those shared channels under PCI’s license per the PCI Race Radios FCC License Agreement. Practical rules from that page, not from this blog as legal advice:
- Transmit only on approved channels in the areas the frequency list allows.
- Do not transmit channels labeled Baja inside the United States.
- Sharing is term-limited. Keep it current.
- This is not a license to invent frequencies or to key up every pre-programmed business channel you find.
If your support UTV is supposed to talk to the Trophy Truck, it needs the same service. If it only needs cabin talk plus car-to-car with other MURS/RTX radios, that is a different kit. Mixing those jobs on one purchase order is how you get a quiet pit.
2. Spec the race car as a system
The race car has three layers. Miss one and the other two feel broken.
Helmet or headset path. Driver and co-driver have to talk without yelling. That is an in-helmet wiring kit or a race headset, not a Bluetooth earbud. Trax stereo cables are 5-conductor. Elite is 4-conductor. PCI is explicit: Elite 4-conductor headsets and helmets will not connect to Trax stereo cables without an adapter, and a mono headset stays mono even with the adapter. Pick a family and stay in it.
Intercom. For a purpose-built race car, the Comlink X Elite Race Intercom is the race package: two-person intercom, driver isolation, audio in, camera audio out, volume for both seats. DSP is the switch you want with no windshield, headsets in a loud car, V8, or loud exhaust — it strips everything but voice, and you can turn it off when you want to hear the motor. Bluetooth is the wireless phone/music path. Standard / Bluetooth / DSP / DSP + Bluetooth are the four live configs. Cables and PTTs are in the package. If you are in a UTV that wants stereo music plus radio, that is the Trax Communications Package, not Comlink X. Trax Plus has Bluetooth with volume control standard; DSP is the exhaust/V8 upgrade; PTT talks to other vehicles; music ducks on receive.
Mobile radio. Cabin talk without a radio is just a loud conversation. For long-range SCORE work, the current high-power Kenwood on the dealer shelf is the Kenwood NX-5700: 110 watts, 136–174 MHz, voice playback, active DSP noise cancelling, color display, 12 watts of external speaker, IP54/55, up to 1,000 channels, Part 90 and Part 80. Race variants include the intercom interface cable. Chase variants are hand-mic. Dual and handheld-remote configs exist if the body of the radio cannot live in the dash. The TK-790H page on this store is a discontinued / out-of-stock radio that points here. Do not spec a dead radio for November.
UTV / prerunner that needs 50 watts instead of 110: the Trax package and the Elite Communications Package both hang an Icom F5021 or Kenwood NX-1700 on the intercom, with hole-mount coax, stealth no-ground-plane antenna, PTTs, and a KLF-2 line filter in the box. PCI calls out NX-1700 for dual-stator UTVs (Can-Am, RZR Turbo S) because of RF noise filtering and lower transmit current. Icom F5021 is 50 watts, 128 channels. PCI wants a magnetic cover on the Icom. Headsets and helmet kits are sold separate on Elite — count seats before you check out.
One hard compatibility note from the Comlink 6 page, because it bites people: the Comlink 6 Racing Intercom is not compatible with Kenwood NX-1700. If the radio is an NX-1700, do not force a Comlink 6 onto it.
3. Spec the chase truck like it has a job
Chase is not a second race car. Chase is the radio that has to work from a highway, a rancho, or a silt bed while the race car is in the course.
The clean SKU is the Mobile Radio Chase Package: 50-watt Icom F5021 or Kenwood NX-1700, no-ground-plane antenna, mag-mount (cigar power) or hole-mount (hard-wire). Programmed with PCI’s licensed channels; they can add team frequencies. That is base camp and chase, not an intercom. If you need the radio only, Icom F5021 Chase variants exist as radio-only, mag coax, or hole-mount coax.
If the chase UTV also needs cabin talk, do not hand them a race Comlink X and a handheld. Give them either Trax/Elite as a full communications package, or the Comlink RTX if — and only if — they are talking MURS/RTX to other RTX radios, not to the race car’s Part 90 mobile. RTX will not transmit/receive to business-band two-way radios. PCI says that on the page. Believe it.
High-power chase that has to reach like a race radio: NX-5700 Chase, not the 50-watt kit. That is a different budget and a different antenna install. Do not mag-mount a 110-watt radio onto a rental SUV and call it a plan.
Chase kit that is not electronics: the PCI Chase Jacket is the hooded, water-resistant PCI soft shell currently running as deal-of-the-day. Pre-run in Los Cabos in November is not a T-shirt job.
4. Mounts, power, and the thing people skip
- Antenna placement beats brochure wattage. A 50-watt radio with a clean no-ground-plane antenna on the roof will outperform a 110-watt radio with a bent mag-mount in the bed under a spare.
- Fuse what the spec sheet says. Trax intercom: 2.6A, 5A fuse. Icom F5021: 14A on transmit, 15A fuse. NX-1700: 13A on transmit, 15A fuse. NX-5700 is a 110-watt radio — treat the power circuit like it belongs on a race car, not a USB splitter.
- The included U-bracket in Trax/Elite packages is a starting point. Vehicle-specific mounts live in communication mounting solutions.
- Starlink is not a radio. It is how chase gets the rest of the world. If you are running Mini on the truck, use a real mount — Baja’s Star-Mount Mini Explorer PRO — and read the Academy Starlink setup and power guides instead of inventing a 12-volt story at 1 a.m.
5. A sane three-kit matrix
Trophy Truck / class car: Comlink X Elite (DSP if it is loud) + NX-5700 Race + helmet kits in the same connector family + chase on NX-5700 Chase or a 50-watt chase package that shares the channel list.
Race UTV / prerunner: Trax Communications Package (stereo, Bluetooth standard, DSP if the exhaust is a weapon) or Elite Communications Package (mono, cheaper, still radio + intercom). NX-1700 if the machine is dual-stator. Count helmets. Do not leave two seats unwired.
Chase / base: Mobile Radio Chase Package as the default. Upgrade to NX-5700 Chase only if the course and the team actually need 110 watts. RTX only for MURS support vehicles that will never need the race channel.
Most orders $300 and up ship free in the continental United States. Build it as one kit, test it in the States on legal channels, then pack it. October 31 is pre-run, not the day you discover the co-driver cable is Elite and the intercom is Trax.
The 400 already happened. The 1000 does not grade on a curve.
