bob91yj
Resident **************
Where to start in the story of our 2012 Baja 1000 adventure?
Some back info…we have worked the BFG Pits for the Baja 500/1000 races for the last 7 years or so when not chasing with Dust Junkies Racing. At this year’s Baja 500 we were informed that our BFG crew drew the Bahia de Los Angeles (BofLA) pit for the Baja 1000. Machelle and I were thrilled, we’ve been to BofLA a couple of times in the past and enjoyed the area.
We decided we’d make a vacation out of the trip, arrive a couple of days before the race, stay a couple of days after. I now had a case of Baja/BofLA fever brewing…it was crushed in August when our BFG Crew Chief called and said the rest of the crew didn’t want to go that far south, yada, yada, yada, so we were taking pit 1 at Borrego, a wide spot in the road in the middle of nowhere north of San Felipe.
I already had the time off, Machelle and I decided to go to BofLA anyway. A friend has a place at a fish camp a few miles south of town; he’d offered it up as a place for us to camp. About a month ago, Scott Hartman, team owner of Dust Junkies Racing, called and said we were running the Coan Racing Jeepspeed car on the northern half of the course, and he could use a guy in BofLA.
And the rest of the story goes something like this…
The truck was prepped and packed, the time was finally here, Perry Coan had called, the team caravan was getting into San Diego. We met up with them on the highway and headed south. The border crossing went smoothly, next stop was Ensenada to pick up a couple of drums of fuel for the race car. It took a couple of hours to get the fuel delivery coordinated, but we got it done.
Machelle, Ensenada, waiting for fuel.
The crew.
Fuel loaded, we were headed south again. Machelle and I said our good byes over the radio at the BofLA turnoff. We were on our own until race day when we would see Chris from Coan Racing to assist with pitting the car.
My buddy Steve McKay’s property at the Gecko fish camp is 4.5 miles or so south of town, down a pretty rough dirt road. It was dark, the truck loaded heavy and the tires aired up made for a slow ride, but we got there. I’d looked at a Google Earth view of the camp, so I had a general idea of the lay out, we found Steve’s spot with little difficulty. It had been a long day, cranked up the camper and went to bed.
We were up with the sun to start our vacation. The sky was cloudless, but the wind was blowing a bit. Steve has a cinder block outbuilding that was perfect for getting us out of the wind without feeling like we were inside.
Tuesday was windy as well, but we still had a great time walking the beach and meeting some great folks at the camp. We ended up at Beach Bob’s Monday night for a get together with some other locals. We got to meet the gentleman that actually owns the fish camp property. What an interesting guy, he’s a PhD, studying whale sharks in the area. The actual bay at BofLA is a hot bed for whale sharks in the fall. Their numbers taper off in November, but Doc said they were still finding 15-20 per day. They get in the water with them, measure them, sex them, all the typical stuff you see on TV. Swimming with a 40+ foot long shark has got to be a thrill.
Some of the sights around camp.
Wednesday morning was a perfect day, mild breeze and lots of sunshine. We'd brought an inflatable kayak with us, but I’d seen several hard shell kayaks on the beach, I asked the gringo that seemed to keep an eye on things if we could use one of them. He didn’t see a problem with it. We spent the morning kayaking around the bay.
Machelle really wanted to go snorkeling. I’d seen some snorkeling gear in Steve’s outbuilding. There was a mask and snorkel, but no fins. I found a length of rope, tied it to the back of the kayak, and spent the next hour or so pulling Machelle around in the water. She had a blast, I have a blister to prove it!
Race day finally came. We had never pitted at BofLA, all we really knew was it was on the main road in town. We decided we should get there early to assure a decent pit location. I was hoping to be near Baja Pits, they are contracted with General Tire/Jeepspeed, we could get help from them if needed. We got lucky, they were just starting to set up their pit when we got there, so we set up next to them. The paved road through town is a restricted speed zone for the racers, things still happen. I felt pretty safe with my pit location, there were a couple of telephone poles protecting the truck if things got bad.
It was now a waiting game. The first race action you ever see at a Baja race is the helicopter following the lead bike rider.
As in recent years, it was the JCR Team Honda helicopter. Closely followed by the lead bike.
The waiting game is merciless for riders/drivers. After the first bike comes through, every minute that goes by is miserable while waiting for your bike.
We were at Race Mile 395, the trucks start 5 hours after the bikes, so it would be well after dark before the first trucks started coming through.
The scardest guy on the course is the last guy on a bike/quad, he’s the first guy the Trophy Trucks catch.
BofLA is really “off the grid” by most standards. There is no cell coverage at all, not even within 100 miles. That was great for us the last three days of doing nothing, not so great when trying to communicate with the race team. There is an internet café in town, it was a couple of blocks from our pit. We went up there several times to check for any e-mails, and to check the race car position via the tracker. We seemed to be doing well. Two of the guys from Coan Racing met us a couple of hours before the car got to us. They were going to pick up the chase from BofLA south.
The race car finally got to us, dumped 5 gallons of fuel in the tank, looked everything over and sent them on their way. We couldn’t beat the car to Vizcaino, so our work for the race was done.
The plan was for Dust Junkies Racing to turn the car over to Coan Racing at Vizcaino, then the rest of the crew would rally with us at the Hwy 1/BofLA Hwy intersection, and we would caravan to San Felipe via Coco’s Corner/Gonzaga Bay.
It was around 1AM, Machelle and I decided to go to the rally point about an hour away rather than trying to sleep at the pit location. On our way out of town we saw car 1702 pulled over next to an RV. They were the competition, but this is Baja, everyone helps everyone. We turned around and went back to see if they needed any help. It was a scheduled stop for them, all was good.
When we got to the rally point, we parked at a taco shop/truck stop, went in to see if it was OK to sleep there for a few hours while waiting for the rest of the crew. There was a family travelling south inside, the son came over to me and said his father didn’t feel that well, had almost fainted. He wanted to know if we had a blood pressure cuff/could check him out. What a crazy request, but, my wife is a CPR/First Aid instructor, we have a cuff/stethoscope in our first aid gear. She checked his blood pressure, it was a little high, but not bad, pulse was strong. The family seemed relieved with the news.
We were up with the sun once again.
The Mexican family was still there. The son asked us if we would check the father’s blood pressure again. Machelle checked it and it was better than it had been earlier. The son wanted to pay Machelle, we assured him we would have no part of that idea. He gave us his business card, told us if we were ever in LaPaz to look him up.
The waiting game was upon us once again. I’d never seen vultures roosted in the desert, I assume they spread their wings to catch the morning sun and warm up.
After a few hours of waiting we discovered that there is a telephone land line at the junkyard/market on the northbound side of the highway. We went there, tried making contact with the team to no avail. We then called our daughter in the states, had her check the race car position on the internet. It was still moving (and making good time) it was 100 miles or so south of the driver switch, so we should see our group any time now.
I finally made a command decision that we needed to head north at 12:00PM. The next decision was where to go. I’d been over the road from Hwy 1 to Coco’s Corner before, knew it was pretty rough. If we went that way and something went wrong it could be trouble, especially if the rest of the crew was having problems and decided not to go that way. We decided that Coyote Cal’s Hostel in Erindira was our best option.
We had an uneventful drive to Erindira, arriving there around 7:30PM. Coyote Cal’s is a great place to unwind and do nothing. I’m exceptionally good at doing nothing.
We camped in the truck with a view looking over the Pacific Ocean at the hostel rather than getting a room.
With no real plan, we played it day by day, ended up staying there for three nights. We also finally made contact with the rest of the team. We were Class 1700 Champions once again, finishing time was a little over 33 hours. One of the Coan chase trucks was towing a broken race car off the course and blew a transmission. The DJR guys went in to get him, tow him back to Guerro Negro for transmission repairs. They got to the rally point about 1PM. We missed them by an hour.
The sun was finally setting over our Baja Adventure!
The only crappy part of the trip was the three hour wait at the Tecate border crossing on Monday morning. My theory that it would be a piece of cake at that time/day was sadly mistaken!
(sorry for the crappy pictures, apparently my camera lens can use a good cleaning!)
Some back info…we have worked the BFG Pits for the Baja 500/1000 races for the last 7 years or so when not chasing with Dust Junkies Racing. At this year’s Baja 500 we were informed that our BFG crew drew the Bahia de Los Angeles (BofLA) pit for the Baja 1000. Machelle and I were thrilled, we’ve been to BofLA a couple of times in the past and enjoyed the area.
We decided we’d make a vacation out of the trip, arrive a couple of days before the race, stay a couple of days after. I now had a case of Baja/BofLA fever brewing…it was crushed in August when our BFG Crew Chief called and said the rest of the crew didn’t want to go that far south, yada, yada, yada, so we were taking pit 1 at Borrego, a wide spot in the road in the middle of nowhere north of San Felipe.
I already had the time off, Machelle and I decided to go to BofLA anyway. A friend has a place at a fish camp a few miles south of town; he’d offered it up as a place for us to camp. About a month ago, Scott Hartman, team owner of Dust Junkies Racing, called and said we were running the Coan Racing Jeepspeed car on the northern half of the course, and he could use a guy in BofLA.
And the rest of the story goes something like this…
The truck was prepped and packed, the time was finally here, Perry Coan had called, the team caravan was getting into San Diego. We met up with them on the highway and headed south. The border crossing went smoothly, next stop was Ensenada to pick up a couple of drums of fuel for the race car. It took a couple of hours to get the fuel delivery coordinated, but we got it done.
Machelle, Ensenada, waiting for fuel.
The crew.
Fuel loaded, we were headed south again. Machelle and I said our good byes over the radio at the BofLA turnoff. We were on our own until race day when we would see Chris from Coan Racing to assist with pitting the car.
My buddy Steve McKay’s property at the Gecko fish camp is 4.5 miles or so south of town, down a pretty rough dirt road. It was dark, the truck loaded heavy and the tires aired up made for a slow ride, but we got there. I’d looked at a Google Earth view of the camp, so I had a general idea of the lay out, we found Steve’s spot with little difficulty. It had been a long day, cranked up the camper and went to bed.
We were up with the sun to start our vacation. The sky was cloudless, but the wind was blowing a bit. Steve has a cinder block outbuilding that was perfect for getting us out of the wind without feeling like we were inside.
Tuesday was windy as well, but we still had a great time walking the beach and meeting some great folks at the camp. We ended up at Beach Bob’s Monday night for a get together with some other locals. We got to meet the gentleman that actually owns the fish camp property. What an interesting guy, he’s a PhD, studying whale sharks in the area. The actual bay at BofLA is a hot bed for whale sharks in the fall. Their numbers taper off in November, but Doc said they were still finding 15-20 per day. They get in the water with them, measure them, sex them, all the typical stuff you see on TV. Swimming with a 40+ foot long shark has got to be a thrill.
Some of the sights around camp.
Wednesday morning was a perfect day, mild breeze and lots of sunshine. We'd brought an inflatable kayak with us, but I’d seen several hard shell kayaks on the beach, I asked the gringo that seemed to keep an eye on things if we could use one of them. He didn’t see a problem with it. We spent the morning kayaking around the bay.
Machelle really wanted to go snorkeling. I’d seen some snorkeling gear in Steve’s outbuilding. There was a mask and snorkel, but no fins. I found a length of rope, tied it to the back of the kayak, and spent the next hour or so pulling Machelle around in the water. She had a blast, I have a blister to prove it!
Race day finally came. We had never pitted at BofLA, all we really knew was it was on the main road in town. We decided we should get there early to assure a decent pit location. I was hoping to be near Baja Pits, they are contracted with General Tire/Jeepspeed, we could get help from them if needed. We got lucky, they were just starting to set up their pit when we got there, so we set up next to them. The paved road through town is a restricted speed zone for the racers, things still happen. I felt pretty safe with my pit location, there were a couple of telephone poles protecting the truck if things got bad.
It was now a waiting game. The first race action you ever see at a Baja race is the helicopter following the lead bike rider.
As in recent years, it was the JCR Team Honda helicopter. Closely followed by the lead bike.
The waiting game is merciless for riders/drivers. After the first bike comes through, every minute that goes by is miserable while waiting for your bike.
We were at Race Mile 395, the trucks start 5 hours after the bikes, so it would be well after dark before the first trucks started coming through.
The scardest guy on the course is the last guy on a bike/quad, he’s the first guy the Trophy Trucks catch.
BofLA is really “off the grid” by most standards. There is no cell coverage at all, not even within 100 miles. That was great for us the last three days of doing nothing, not so great when trying to communicate with the race team. There is an internet café in town, it was a couple of blocks from our pit. We went up there several times to check for any e-mails, and to check the race car position via the tracker. We seemed to be doing well. Two of the guys from Coan Racing met us a couple of hours before the car got to us. They were going to pick up the chase from BofLA south.
The race car finally got to us, dumped 5 gallons of fuel in the tank, looked everything over and sent them on their way. We couldn’t beat the car to Vizcaino, so our work for the race was done.
The plan was for Dust Junkies Racing to turn the car over to Coan Racing at Vizcaino, then the rest of the crew would rally with us at the Hwy 1/BofLA Hwy intersection, and we would caravan to San Felipe via Coco’s Corner/Gonzaga Bay.
It was around 1AM, Machelle and I decided to go to the rally point about an hour away rather than trying to sleep at the pit location. On our way out of town we saw car 1702 pulled over next to an RV. They were the competition, but this is Baja, everyone helps everyone. We turned around and went back to see if they needed any help. It was a scheduled stop for them, all was good.
When we got to the rally point, we parked at a taco shop/truck stop, went in to see if it was OK to sleep there for a few hours while waiting for the rest of the crew. There was a family travelling south inside, the son came over to me and said his father didn’t feel that well, had almost fainted. He wanted to know if we had a blood pressure cuff/could check him out. What a crazy request, but, my wife is a CPR/First Aid instructor, we have a cuff/stethoscope in our first aid gear. She checked his blood pressure, it was a little high, but not bad, pulse was strong. The family seemed relieved with the news.
We were up with the sun once again.
The Mexican family was still there. The son asked us if we would check the father’s blood pressure again. Machelle checked it and it was better than it had been earlier. The son wanted to pay Machelle, we assured him we would have no part of that idea. He gave us his business card, told us if we were ever in LaPaz to look him up.
The waiting game was upon us once again. I’d never seen vultures roosted in the desert, I assume they spread their wings to catch the morning sun and warm up.
After a few hours of waiting we discovered that there is a telephone land line at the junkyard/market on the northbound side of the highway. We went there, tried making contact with the team to no avail. We then called our daughter in the states, had her check the race car position on the internet. It was still moving (and making good time) it was 100 miles or so south of the driver switch, so we should see our group any time now.
I finally made a command decision that we needed to head north at 12:00PM. The next decision was where to go. I’d been over the road from Hwy 1 to Coco’s Corner before, knew it was pretty rough. If we went that way and something went wrong it could be trouble, especially if the rest of the crew was having problems and decided not to go that way. We decided that Coyote Cal’s Hostel in Erindira was our best option.
We had an uneventful drive to Erindira, arriving there around 7:30PM. Coyote Cal’s is a great place to unwind and do nothing. I’m exceptionally good at doing nothing.
We camped in the truck with a view looking over the Pacific Ocean at the hostel rather than getting a room.
With no real plan, we played it day by day, ended up staying there for three nights. We also finally made contact with the rest of the team. We were Class 1700 Champions once again, finishing time was a little over 33 hours. One of the Coan chase trucks was towing a broken race car off the course and blew a transmission. The DJR guys went in to get him, tow him back to Guerro Negro for transmission repairs. They got to the rally point about 1PM. We missed them by an hour.
The sun was finally setting over our Baja Adventure!
The only crappy part of the trip was the three hour wait at the Tecate border crossing on Monday morning. My theory that it would be a piece of cake at that time/day was sadly mistaken!
(sorry for the crappy pictures, apparently my camera lens can use a good cleaning!)
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