It has been a long 5-6 days. Here is my lengthy write up
Two weeks ago I was drinking some beers at the house, watching MNF when I saw John Cox had posted on Facebook about heading out to the Baja 1000. I had a few more vacation days off work, so I messaged him, and a few phone calls later, I was set to chase for the Jeepseed #1749 for the first 250 miles. This year the race was a peninsula run, meaning that it went the full length, from Ensenada to La Paz, 1121 miles. I think they alternate years, and sometimes it loops back to Ensenada and is only 750ish miles.
Left work early on Tuesday with the F-150 all loaded down. Made it to Tucson and got a hotel for the night. No major issues. I replaced the rack and pinion earlier that week, and while it helped, I am pretty sure I have to replace the pump as well. But on the highway at 80, it didn't really matter.
Rolled through multiple interior border checkpoints. Entering California, at the checkpoint, all they asked me was if I was bringing in any house plants? WTF? And did you guys know if you have any sort of trailer hooked to your truck, you can only go 55mph in Cali? There was a long uphill section over a pass, and they had spent all this money on "Radiator Water Here" stops. Basically, a sign, small turnoff of the highway, and a big piece of RCP that I suppose collected rainwater in case you overheated. So like one of this every mile of so? No, 1 every 1/4 mile for probably 8 miles. Crazy California.
Pulled into the border check station in Tecate, Tx. The gate went up, I drove into another country. That was it. No inspections or questions, just drove right in. Mexico is ****ty. Really ****ty. Trash all over the streets. Very poor. Shanties everywhere. Drivers are absolutely crazy. I can not really explain how it is a completly different type of driving down there. Stop signs are everywhere and not easily seen, very few stop lights. Everyone hauling ass everywhere in ****ty cars.
I got through Tecate, Mexico, and drove about 65 mph down to Ensenada. It is on the Pacific, but you can not really see much of it. The town was crazy. It was like Mardi Gras.
I made it through town and to the Hotel Del Sol. Set up similiar to A&A, but two stories, with everyone congregating and working on rigs in the parking lot. Cox was out prerunning, and the other guys with the team were working on the car. So I grabbed a few brews, and walked myself back downtown to see the festivities. Crazyness. The tech inspections were beginning, so all racers have to drive/push there cars down the crazy people filled street to get to inspection. Mexicans were running up to moving trophy trucks, putting their Mexican baby on the hood, and stepping back to take pictures. Little Mexicans kids everywhere clamoring for "steekers". Skanky ass Mexican chicks peddling poorly designed and printed T-shirts.
Aside from the race teams, there were very few gringoes. Hardly any all. This race is difficult to get too, and almost impossibly to spectate. Basically, a bunch of American race teams go down there, leave the starting line in Ensenada amongst all the locals, and then just pass through a bunch of shanty towns all the way down the peninsula.
Made it through tech, back to hotel, race team meeting, bed. Woke up and took some pictures of our chase trucks.
We had 3 drivers, 3 co drivers for the Jeep
Sweet military K30 with a 6.2
Bro'd out Travis special. Not lifted, but had bypasses and 35s
Sweet Taco with glass and fancy go fast suspension.
Owner's beat up 12v with Fox Bypasses, Ford 60, and 35s
The Jeep and its first drivers headed to the start line. The bikes and quads leave first, then a couple hours later, the trophy trucks leave, then many other classes, then Jeepspeeds, then class 11. The production manager from Synergysuspenion.com/Polyperformance, rode with me and we headed down to Ojos Negros and the rain began to fall. We left way early so we could see the trophies come through. You knew they were close when you could see the choppers in the distance. Almost every one had a chopper.
Pretty crazy watching these things come though the town with all the locals risking their lives to get a picture. We waited for 1749, which was doing fine, so we hauled ass to the the next location. There were 5 chase trucks. Chase 1, the owner, and me, Chase 5, bascially leapfrogging each other for 150 miles, beating the race car there, and waiting just in case they had any problems. Only really issue was that it was puking PS fluid. SO we had to quickly pit a few times to top it off. It was pretty badass hauling ass down access roads to intersect the course.
The amount of planning for this thing is absurb. You should see the BFG book that those running BFG tires get. Most everyone runs BFGs. It is an inch thick with every single ounce of info you will need to run the race. Very detailed notes for chase vehicles on how to access the course throughout the 1100 miles. For example "To access RM 151.7, look for fence with old tire on the post at Hwy 3 14.3 mile marker, turn left, go to corral, turn right and stop before crossing course." They do this for the entire course.
We had race radios and sat phones. BFG has 7 pits set up throughout the course with full on 18wheelers. You can fuel there. They will fuel for you and even change your tire. You have to make sure though that your race fuel is there ahead of time. Lots of planning. They also have BFG relay, which is a higher power frequency that can get you intouch with your race car if you can't. There are also trackers on all cars. At one point, at BFG Pit2, neither we, nor BFG relay could access our car due to the hilly terrain around Puertecitioes. We used the Sat phone, to call a friend in the states, that then used the tracking website (I think it is racetheworld.net) and we were able to determine that our car was going 55mph and only 2 miles away. This was great news, because they were way behind schedule and we feared they broke down. Luckily they just had to stop to change a tire.
To be continued...
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