Spectating the Baja 1000

I like Baja California.  I started going there for camp trips with my dad in the late '50s.  I entered my first off road race, the 'Baja 1000' in 1970 building and driving a dune buggy.  Racing was my life for the next 20 years, but now I'm a spectator and have been for some time since I quit racing offroad cars.

    I like Baja's remoteness.  I like the challenge of getting out there and getting back again with only what you've brought with you.  To this end I loaded up my '94 Dualsport DR350 in mid November to go see what I could see of the Baja 1000 race.  You see, I live a little north of San Diego, Ca so it within easy riding distance for me.

    I met a couple riders from Colorado at the Tecate border crossing.  We planned to ride down thru the Mountains east of Tecate, and eventually end up in San Felipe, Mexico, where I would hook up with a Pit Crew that was there to assist an Trophy  truck and watch the action.  I would even help out if necessary.  My specialty is holding the fire extinguisher during fueling.....very important.  Ha.

    About 20 miles east of Tecate We took off south into the Mtns, mostly scrub brush.  We stopped at Rancho Veronica 7 mile from the pavement.  RV is a delightful motel with restaurante and swimming pool.  It was a rancho that raise fighting bulls that had been converted and added onto.

We had sodas and I showed Bruce and Ian the layout, then we got back on the trail.  About an hr into the ride I took a wrong fork.  And another half hour later we knew that we were headed back toward the border.

Huh, where the Fugowe

   That was alright because the riding was good, and we had come too far to head south again to the next gas source.  We would just go north to the Border road, gas up, get a bit to eat,  and head south again.

   A funny side note is that when we were having a plate of Taco at 'Sandra's Cafe' in La Rumaroso, I noticed that I had a little difficulty swallowing.  What's up with that??  Oh well.......

   We were back on the dirt road heading south again along about 4pm.  It was 70 miles to the next towm of Ojos Negros which meant that we weren't likely to make that tonight, so we'd mostly be camping in the hills somewhere.  It was beautifull weather this particular Nov, but at 4000ft it would get cold (mid 40s) overnight.

   We only got about 40 miles or so before dark was closing in on us.  I picked a small dry wash and led us off the road about 50 yards, and out of sight.  We set up the tents in twilight, built a campfire, and settle down for the night.

    Of course the night sky was spectacular to look at while we told stories around the camp fire, along taking shots form the bottle of Tequila that I had on board for snake bites.  As the night unfolded, we decided to take the long route to San Felipe as we had a few days before the race started.

   As we expected the night was brisk, but it warmed up quickly in the morning.  Just up the road a few miles is a lodge/hotel out in the middle of nowhere about 5 miles north of Laguna Hansen where we had breakfast because they were open, and we hadn't had dinner last night.

   This lodge isn't like any other in Baja.  It shouldn't be there, but somehow they have kept it together for the last 5 or more years.  The ambiance is a heavy wood building for a restaurant with chicken, cats, and dogs to keep the customers company.  The hotel is a stone 2 story building with a dozen rooms 50 yards to the south and all this set in a great pine forest.  Meals are a little expensive, but not as much as I'd charge if I was running that cafe........the hard swallowing thing was still there, hummmm....

Rocky shoreline at Dry Lake Laguna Hansen

We stopped to jaw with a pre-runner who was taking a break,

    After eating we headed toward the Pacific Ocean.  We rode thru the beautiful pine forest of Laguna Hanson, and on to Ojos Negros where we gassed up, then on to Santos Tomas.

Trail/road to Santo Tomas

Pre-runners aplenty at Santo Tomas

We rode out to the beach from there, after refueling again, and south along the coast to the Coyote Cal's Hostel for the night at Erendira.  Coyote Cal's is a great place to spend the night especially during race week.  There's always a bonfire in front of the bar to swap stories with real racers.

From Coyote Cal's Hostel

My cheap suite for the night

    The next Day we rode south some 30 miles along the Beach exploring all the beach access arroyos to ride the sand a bit.

We found one of these roads took us down to the remains of a stone wharf or something.  I've never talked to anyone who knew about this place.

An old boat launch ramp ruin

 It was interesting to try and figure out what had gone on there.  Baja is a place where an old defunct adobe building/casa of any kind has a name and is probably on a map somewere, but there is no mention of this place anywhere.  It was very mystifying

Further south a few mile .....

We worked our way down there thru another small arroyo.

   It had been a rewarding day already but now it was time to cut back across the peninsula through Mike's Sky Ranch about midway to the Gulf of California.  We ate in Colonia Guerrero and refueled, then we headed inland through San Telmo on the good paved road that goes to the Mexican observatory at 10000 ft.

A church in San Telmo

We climbed out of San Telmo on the Observatory road.  It took 25 miles to gain 3000 ft at the Rancho Coyote turnoff to Mikes

   About 25 miles in there we had to cut off of that road and take the old road into Mike's Sky Ranch.  This road used to be the main way to get to Mike's back in the '70s, but believe you me it is not anymore.  The road taxed my riding abilty to the max.  Along with the way being hard to discern, there were many 100 yard stretches of washed out helmet sized boulders.  I won't go that way again, and I'm thanking my lucky stars that I made it this time.  My 40 year old riding companions didn't think it was so tough....go figure.

   We made it to Mike's for sodas and a rest.  By 3:30pm we headed out toward Via Trinadad, some 40 miles away, and ended up camping a short ways from the the paved road that goes to San Felipe.  Before we set up camp we rode 10 miles of pavement into Via Trinidad for tacos for dinner.  The excitement of all the race activties/prerunning was in full bloom.

More Stars, a nice campfire, and talk about the things we had seen today were enjoyed that evening back at camp.



   We decide to ride the 70 miles of pavement to San Felipe in the morning.  We had fish tacos on the embarcadero in San Felipe for breakfast while we looked out over the beach and San Felipe Bay.  That was nice.

   We decided to ride the beach south of town for the rest of the day.  There's at least 40 miles of open beach to ride that is all different depending on the tides.  Now a days there are miles and miles of a beach bluff with mostly Americans living in the houses up there.  The beach riding is excellent to fascinating.  We had lunch at Percebu.....did I mention that I had more trouble swallowing.....?

We watched a geezer fish

The hard life

I wanted to make contact with the pit crew who were gathering at Pete's Camp a few miles north of San Felipe.  I had looked up the intended location of the pit stop on Google Earth, but wanted to make sure that no one had made any changes.....and they hadn't.  I thought that I wouldn't have any trouble finding the place as it was about 10 miles out of town and a few miles inland.

Back to town at Kiki RV

    We secured a campground on the beach in San Felipe, and went out for a few beers and more fish tacos for dinner.

 My lights went out by 10pm.  I noticed that I had a little chill before I nodded off.  That's strange.  I would go out to the pit point tomorrow, and my good buddies would start their trip back to Colorado as they needed a few days to get ready for work next week.

   We had breakfast in the morning and said our goodbys.  These 2 guys are a son and his friend of an old friend of mine.  They are really good guys.  I wished they could stay for the race.

   So there I was.  I gassed up and headed out the 10 miles to the pit site that I wouldn't have any trouble finding.  Well, boy, was I wrong.  I must have wandered around out there for an extra 20 miles in one canyon or another.  All of it was soft sand, and with the 40 Lb pack on the back of the bike that  I was carrying, the riding was tough.

Neither of these pictures tell the soft sand story.

    I had found the racecourse but followed it the wrong way to find our pit.  After a while I found someone else's pit.  They had the two things that I was looking for, shade and cold water.  I had water but it wasn't cold.  The cold water was heaven sent.  I rested a bit.  These folks were great.  They told me that the mile marker that I was looking for was back the other way.  I had to find my pit so I went back in all that soft sand again.

    The race course was all whooped out and I had at least 10 miles more of it to do.  I wasn't looking forward to that, but after an hour of it, I came to our pit site.  The boys were putting up light stands and getting carpet down to work on cars and getting lights and generators hooked up.  There were about 10 guys who didn't need my help.......which was good because I was already whipped.

The pit was ready.  The boys busied themselves while they waited for action.

     The fast bikes started coming thru in the mid afternoon as we were a little over halfway on the race course.  That means the bikes that were on time could be counted on your finger.  It was pretty slow that evening.  Anyone that needed a break or help of any kind would stop.  I guess that was way less than 20 cars and Bikes that stopped at our pit.

   We had a quad rider come in who had gotten off some miles back from a big booby trap that the Mexicans had dug in the race course.  He needed someone to give him a drink and some encouragement, and off he went.

     Another rider came in and his KTM needed it's carb cleaned which the boys did in about a half hour.  He was a South American who was riding this race solo.  He said he had ridden a couple of Dakar races, and because of the whoops this was a harder course.

   Airborn Andy was riding another solo ride.  He stopped to take a break.  I didn't hold that against him.

     A few buggies stopped for encouragement.  Our race truck came through.  They weren't having any trouble at the time so they didn't even stop.  That the way it is when you're racing.

   One old Nissan truck/spectator came though going the wrong way.  It was a Mexican guy and about 5 gals just out for a look see.  They stopped to see if we could blow up one of their tires that was getting soft.  The boys took care of that little problem, and they went on their way.

    All in all, it was a typical race night out on the big Baja.  Some racer did good, some did bad, but everybody learned what they would need to know to win the next race.  So life as a racer goes on.  I'm sure that most of these guys will be back next year......and I'll probably be there to watch them.  My hat is off to young men that go fast.  I remember those days fondly.

I got back from Baja after about 1250 miles on my
Dualsport seat.  Prolly only 400 of that was dirt, but some of it was
hard riding.

Speaking of Dualsport seat.  I can't spend a day on my DR350's seat and ride again the next day.  So I built myself a padded and shaped seat that I strap to my butt.  It makes 8 hrs in the saddle a walk in the park.

   Hard riding can be described as 'difficult to get up or down the
terrain',  Or can be lots of hours in the saddle.

   We had some of all that on the second day of riding.......and I
think I bruised some of my innards by shaking them around too hard.
(and, of course, I'm horribly out of shape........broken
record...........got to do summit about that.

     I started having tenderness in my stomach at the bottom of
my sternum, and I noticed soon that I was having difficulty
swallowing.  It wasn't a big issue but I needed to keep an eye on
things.

      A day before the race we made a 'Bonzai' run down
to Gonzaga Bay and back for fish tacos.........bonzai, for me at
least.  That didn't help.

Puertocitos Bay...on the other side of that poit there is a hot spring with pools that mix with the incoming tide.  It's great for a body that's been beat up riding.

There was a flat tire out there

And another flat tire

A plane lands at Alfancina's dirt strip.  At an extra high tide the strip can be under water by a foot or so.

Cold sodas on the way back to San Felipe

Whale vertebrae (or a pelican tail) at the entrance to the soda place

Continuing north

   The race was on Friday.  And Saturday I spent with Old Man Bud at
his place below San Felipe.  There was a crowd there for the Baja Race. Normally I'd party the evening away with everybody and ride home the next day. But I wasn't feeling like partying, but I wasn't feeling bad either. So I left Bud's house about 3pm and got across the border then on another 60 miles to Ocotillo Wells and bedded down in the shadow of Blow Sand Hill at the ORV Park. Again, I had a chill before I went to sleep. I couldn't figure out what that chill was all about. 😕
that night as well.

Out Bud's back door

Drinks were had with a post race gathering

     and at home with a thermometer I was running a fever of a degree or so.  I was still uncomfortable at the bottom of the esophagus.........no diarrea,
no vomiting, and still difficult swallowing, even water was hard to swallow.

    So I felt like shit, really.....soggy and hard to light. 

    I waited another couple of weeks for my internal injury to get better.  Instead of getting better I finally came to a point when I couldn't swallow my own saliva.  I think that triggered a survival response.  I knew I wouldn't live long without water.

    My wife took me to the emergency room.  They jumped to the conclusion that I was having heart trouble, but soon got tuned in to putting me in a hospital that was next door.

   I got all the scans that are available and the conclusion was that I had a lymphoma tumor at the bottom of my esophagus.  That scared the crap out of me.

   I got a feeding tube put in a hole into my stomach and 6 cases of an Insure kind of drink that tasted so bad it was only suited to be poured into that tube.  I don't think the taste would allow anyone to swallow it.

   I spent 6 months on Chemo, and another month doing radiation treatments, and voila I was a new man.  That was 12 years ago when I was 67 years old.