2011 Baja 1000 – Una Buena Fiesta
December 7, 2011 at 8:34pm
The plane landed at 12:45 in the afternoon at the Linberg Field in San Diego. I got out. At the age of 53, I was about to carry out a dream of a 22-year-old kid. I was going to race in Baja 1000.
There was a short taxi driver holding the sign “Mr. Harti”. Obviously, the Hartl Bend fame has not reached Mexico yet. I guess there is no way he would have misspelled Robby Gordon’s or Jesse James’ names, so maybe I should either learn how to drive or how to cheat on a movie star. Oh well, Harti is good enough for now.
I was to run Baja with a Mexican Garayzar Racing of Gustavo Garayzar. After settling in my hotel, I called Gustavo to find out when I would be able to try the car and go pre-running the course. Deep down in me, there is a great optimist who wants to believe that the day comes when a car, any car, is ready three days before the race. Yet, the world of racing has its unbending five minutes to start rule as in: “We are almost finished and everything might be OK, let me just check this.” And thus Gustavo advised me to enjoy the scenery of Ensenada for Monday. Then for Tuesday. And then for Wednesday. On Thursday we went to the technical inspection and the car was ready. Yes, five minutes before the inspection like the rule dictates.
I think that there are two approaches to Baja 1000, and, perhaps, to racing in general. One, (no offense, Mr. Schwartz) follows the “Let us go to work” approach. I venture to believe that the car is ready a full month before Baja. And the plan is executed to all the minute details. Anybody who makes an error, or comes more that three seconds late, is blindfolded and passed on to a firing squad.
The second approach is the “Let us have a Fiesta” approach. The car gets done too, but the five minutes to start rule fully applies. Also, anybody caught without beer in his hand is blindfolded and passed on to the firing squad.
Even though I realized that driving only about two miles with the car in the streets of Ensenada and not pre-running at all might put a crimp into my driving style, I also realized that I have no driving style to speak of. So I decided to go with the flow and enjoy the “Baja Fiesta.” In the end, the car was amazingly well prepared, the main hoop into which I constantly banged my head was padded by a beautiful Mexican scarf and a duct tape, and we passed the technical inspection. The sun came down, we made the last adjustments to the car, and the beer was passed around. Then the adjustments were finished, the beer cans squashed, and we were ready.
The next day was the race. I have previously raced in ice racing, rallies, hill climbs, circuits and off-roads, but never in a race like this. This was, to borrow Tom Cochrane’s expression, a big league. A big league mixed with a huge Fiesta. There were Trophy trucks with their 800 hp engines and 32 inches of suspension travel, there were women falling out of their tight dresses, huge crowds of spectators everywhere, beer and tequila and more beer. And then there were three Class 11 cars: stock, almost no modification allowed pre-1972 VW bugs. Suddenly, everybody was telling me what to do and not to do. And I just wanted to go. Go slow to give the car to the next driver.
In our last race, the 24 hours with Desert Dingos, I had the fastest time from all the Class 11 cars. I saved the team about 15 minutes. I also ripped out the shock mount which took the mechanics about 1.5-2 hours to fix.
For sure I did not want to repeat the same story here. Go slow to give the car to the next driver, go slow to give the car to the next driver…
While the motorcycles were already racing, at 11:30 the first Trophy Truck saw the green flag. We had 2 more hours and it was time to start worrying. In my mind I went though a bunch of little rules: Do not turn sharp on the tarmac because the differential may not like it; shift slowly, as the tranny may be more pleased; do not overrev the engine if you do not want to see the wrath of rest of the team, etc. Then the race was stopped for an hour or two due to a car crash unrelated to the race. Awesome! More time to worry.
Finally, we were at the start. The 1101 starting 30 seconds before us disappeared in the streets of Ensenada and we saw the green flag. Slowly getting the feeling for the car, I drove through the streets and down to the river bed. There was a huge water and mud puddle and coming to it I saw the 1101 stuck in the left side of the puddle. I was also told that the right side should be safer. So I aimed at the spectators to make them back off and drove through the right hand side trying to keep two wheels on the sloped concrete retainer wall. As soon as I entered the puddle, I could not see anything. But I was ready, for I put five tear-offs on my helmet visor prior to the race.
Well, I was almost ready. I ripped the five tear-offs in one quick swoop and was blinded by another assortment of water, mud, and possibly some dead fish. Now was the time to panic but for one reason or another I kept the steering wheel straight (as I saw the track going straight before I was blinded) and shouted at my co-driver Armando: “Where do I go?” Armando, who was able to clean his visor quickly, guided me to the left. We missed the bridge pillars quite nicely and I cleaned my visor. There was some brightness to my visor again, and there was some brightness to my life – we were leading Class 11. (See here Start).
In a few moments I was passed by 1101 and a while later by 1149. I did not worry much; I just wanted to give the car to Gustavo about 100 miles later. A few miles later we had to stop, as our radio was not functioning. Our chase crew fixed the radio and also changed the rear tire that lost its fight with the rocky terrain, gave up, and went flat.(See here Getting passed).
The next stop was in Ojos Negros, about 35 miles from the start. As we expected to start earlier and did not put on the light bar, we were to stop there and get the car ready for the dark. Coming to the Ojos, Gustavo asked me over the radio how I felt and whether I wanted to continue. I did not understand why, but obviously I was ready to go. As we arrived to Ojos, I understood. Apparently we were 50 minutes behind the leading 1149 and Gustavo was probably afraid that we will loose too much time. He urged me to speed it up a bit and I obliged.
The rest was fun. We passed 1101 somewhere (probably broken down), and judging from the 6 miles distance between us and 1149 about 45 minutes after I gave the car to Gustavo, either 1149 stopped somewhere for a while or we started to gain on them. Or not. Who knows? But we brought the car in one piece. Armando was elated. He did not have to get out of the car. I did not carry out my promise to him, specifying that when (not if) we get stuck in the middle of the mud pool, I stay in and he gets out to push all the way through the puddle. I think he might like me now.
The only problem was that my visor was fogging almost all the time; I had to keep it open most of the time with the resulting accumulation of sand in my eyes. As I got out of the car, I felt…I do not know really how I felt. I only know that I was thinking of my wife and Jim who did so much for me to run this awesome race. And I was thankful that the Garayzar Racing team took such a risk on me. It would be nice and sappy to end this by saying that after fulfilling my 30-year-old dream I cried so much that all the sand from my eyes was washed out. Sorry, I had to use bottled water and some eye drops. And it took two days to really feel that my eyes belong to me and not to the desert.
Gustavo and Wicho ran the difficult Summit climb and headed for Soldana when they found out that the front shock was broken. Possibly during my run, a rock bounced of the inner part of the fender and cracked the elbow running from the shock to the reservoir tube. They changed the shock and drove to mile 206 – Pit 2 where Felix and Silva took over for the most difficult section of the race - the south loop close to San Felipe, full of silt and whoops. The loop was about 250 miles. After getting stuck and having problems with the alternator and driving in the loop for more than 10 hours, Martin and Gustavo went to relieve them at mile 400. It was 2:30 p.m., the race cut-off time was 10:15 p.m. and there was another 300 miles to go. There was no chance to finish in allotted time. The race was over for 1148.
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