DEVEAU - 12-7-2007 at 04:00 PM
I have asked each guy to give me a report on his section, Colin did such a good job I am posting it un-cut!
Team Dirt Dogs do the Baja 1000
So, its 12:30 at night, I’m in a Ford van doing 80 mph on a two lane road in the middle of Baja, the gal driving is visibly shaking and other gal is
staring at me when she finally says “You are the craziest SOB I’ve ever seen”. Funny, I thought to myself, they should have seen what I had been doing
for the last six hours, if they thought that just getting them to pull over was crazy. Racing the Baja 1000 is like that. There are a million wild
things that happen in course of the event, so many that you kind of get numb to it and throwing your bike out into oncoming traffic so that they will
stop and take you and your bike down to the next pit seems perfectly normal.
This is the story of the 2007 40th annual Baja 1000. This year’s race goes from Ensenada to Cabo San Lucas, 1296 miles of zig zagging from the Pacific
Ocean to the Sea of Cortez down the peninsula. Our team consisted of five riders, we had a great support crew, the latest in communications and GPS
tracking and even had our own blog site that kept family and friends up to date on our progress during the race. All of which, as it turned out, was
absolutely necessary for us getting to the finish line.
PRERUN
Thursday Nov. 8 8:00 pm - With everything loaded into my truck. Howard Womack, Buster Seder, Gary Rossi and I leave Petaluma and set off on a 12 hour
drive to Ensenada.
Friday Nov 9 8:00 am – Arrive at our camping spot in Ensenada. We rearranged the load, dropped off Gary so he could continue down to the southern part
of the course, ate breakfast and headed south with Howard and Buster. Our plan was to get to Race Mile 428 where I was going to take over in the race,
unload the bikes and prerun the 60 mile section that ends at the Highway to Bay of LA.
Friday Nov 9 5:00 pm – We unload the bikes at Race Mile 428, it’s the turn off the highway to go to Coco’s corner. Its dark, but that’s OK, if
everything goes right on race day this will be about the time I will get on the bike, so prerunning at this time of day should work.
Friday Nov 9 8:00 pm – Race Mile 488, meet up with Howard and the chase truck. Well that took longer than it should have. I got a front flat five
miles from the start and had to replace the tube at Coco’s and it turned out the lights on our prerun bikes were none too bright, hopefully the race
bike lights will be better.
Friday Nov 9 10:00 pm – We check into a room in Bay of LA. Get a quick bite to eat and although I shouldn’t speak for Howard and Buster, I was a
little tired. I recall the mattress seemed hard for about 15 seconds. It’s been a loooong day.
Saturday Nov 10 8:00 am - The plan was to prerun the 180 miles from Bay of LA to Vizcaino today. After getting the bikes ready, I had to fix another
flat tire, this would be a recurring theme that stayed with me even through the race, and strapping on two one gallon gas jugs, we were off.
Saturday Nov 10 2:00 pm – Wow that was cool, all really fast stuff, no one for miles, we took our time, looked for good lines and the miles rolled by
quickly. No problems except I got another flat tire. But that didn’t even bother me, in the loose gravel with an XR650 it’s easy to do 70 on a front
flat. We were where we were supposed to be, but where was Howard and the truck?
Saturday Nov 10 3:30 pm – Howard and the truck arrive. It seems that the roads are not that much faster then the trails.
Saturday Nov 10 7:00 pm - We have driven from Vizcaino to Catavina where we will spend the night. Now there are two hotels in Catavina, one is really
nice and is full, the other is the pink hotel, not so nice but half the price and they have a room, we stay there.
Sunday Nov 11 7:00 am – Our intention was to go back to Race Mile 428 and ride that section in the daytime, but I was tired of fixing flats and we
were out of tubes so I changed the plan and decided to drive back up to Ensenada. We hadn’t checked in with the others since Friday morning and they
might be wondering how we were doing.
Sunday Nov 11 3:00 pm – Back at the campground in Ensenada, everybody was glad to see us. Since we forgot to get the Sat-phones, we had been
incommunicado and no one knew if we were dead or alive. Rich and Dave Deveau had checked in, they were pre running the southern part of the course and
were having a great adventure of there own. The distances involved with this race are so vast that it was kind of weird, the last we saw of those guys
was Friday morning and we would not see them again until after the end of the race, hopefully on Wednesday night.
Monday Nov 12 – Today we were able to relax a little. We still needed to put some finishing touches on the race bike, take it through tech and check
in at Score registration too get our wrist bands. The tech inspection line is also called contingency row, it’s like a very slow parade through the
middle of town. Every car and bike in the race has to go through this long line packed with spectators. At the end of the line Score checks your
vehicle, mounts the GPS data logger to the rear fender and checks your helmet for a Snell sticker. The data logger gets downloaded at the end of the
race, mainly they use it to make sure you stayed on course but also they use it to make sure you didn’t go over 60 on the paved parts of the race.
They penalize you if they catch you going over this speed limit on the highways.
THE RACE
Tuesday Nov 13 5:00 am – Over the next 40 or so hour’s things are going to get wild. The plan is for one chase truck to take the race bike and Dave
Froman to the start line, as soon as he leaves the line they will high tail it to Race Mile 204. This is where Dave Callagy will get on the bike. I
will drive my truck with Howard, Buster and his brother Brad to Race Mile 368, where we will drop off Brad, the lights and a set of wheels. When the
race bike gets here Brad will put on the lights and swap wheels then Callagy will ride 60 miles down the Highway and give the bike to me.
Tuesday Nov 13 6:30 am – Froman starts, the first part of the course is fast but has some technical sections also. It goes by Mikes Sky Ranch where
it’s really rocky and chewed up. Fromans the perfect guy for this part and he gets to Race Mile 204 in forth place. So much for just going for the
finish, it looks like were racing.
Tuesday Nov 13 11:45 am – Callagy gets on, his section is really technical. Unfortunately during the rider swap, Spot, our GPS transmitter that sends
our location to the guys running the blog site gets turned off. It seems that we really weren’t familiar enough with Spot to use it correctly. Callagy
does great until he bails in some big rocks. He tweaks his back bad enough so he can’t even pick the bike up or get it started for 20 minutes. Another
competitor comes by and helps him and he’s back on the trail.
Tuesday Nov 13 4:56 pm – Callagy arrives at Race Mile 368. They install the lights but for some reason decide not to replace the wheels. The pit guys
said the tires looked good, oh well. Now he just has the 60 mile pavement burn to get to me.
Tuesday Nov 13 6:00 pm – Well, it’s been a long wait. I told myself to chill, but I still put all my riding gear on 2 hours early. Some guys had their
gear on all day and have been dancing around with nervous energy for the last six hours. But it’s the same old story when the bike arrives it’s all
buttcracks and elbows making the rider swap. Spot gets transferred to me, Dave yells that everything is working great and they decided not to change
tires. I think, that’s weird but whatever, I am rather anxious to get going.
Tuesday Nov 13 8:00 pm – This is so cool. I’m at Race Mile 520 just leaving the town of Bay of LA. The dual headlights work awesome. I had been really
nervous about racing in the dark, but after I got going, it was a blast. One thing that struck me was, you are racing out in the middle of nowhere and
you come across a great big bonfire with 10 or 20 spectators cheering you on. You go another mile down the road and there is another bonfire and it
goes like that for the entire course, there are just people everywhere. The dust at night is like really thick fog and every time I closed up on the
guy in front of me, even though I couldn’t see him, the “fog” would get thick and I would have to back off. So I was getting kinda frustrated.
Tuesday Nov 13 10:30 pm – Race Mile 645, OK this is turning into a real race. I’d passed one guy about 40 miles ago but because of the dust I couldn’t
shake him. Every time I would back off, I would see the flicker of his lights. So my race brain took over and the whole, just finishing thing, went
out the window. I needed to get out of this dust and the only way to do that was to pass the guys that were making it. Who would have thought that 600
miles into a 1300 mile race we’d be battling elbow to elbow?
Tuesday Nov 13 12:00 pm – Damm, I passed a bunch of guys, but now I’m going to have to pay for it. I’m at Race Mile 685 and my rear tire is flat. The
last couple of miles have been wild. I’m near the town of Vizciano and there must be 5000 people standing along the course. The trail is really silty
and with the flat I can’t really tell what way the bike will go next and there are people right at the edge of the trail, I don’t know how I kept from
killing any of them. But I make to the paved road, now all I have to do is ride 12 miles down the road to get to the Honda pit where I will hand the
bike off to Froman. As I go down the road my brain is going a million miles an hour. How long will this tire last? How fast should I go? Should I go
60 or should I go 30? If I go 30, it will take me twice as long. I can feel the tire starting to come apart. What happens if pieces of the tire get
wedged in the swingarm, will I slide under that oncoming semi? Crap, something is hitting me on the back, its pieces of the tire. After 8 miles of
this, the bike suddenly slows, the bead is breaking and has cut off the rear fender and part of the seat, I have to stop.
Wednesday Nov 14 12:15 am – My only job was to get the bike to the end of my stint and I’ve failed. I can’t fail, so I begin to try to wave down every
truck, van or bus that is coming down the road. No one will stop. The thing is that while race vehicles are limited to 60 on the pavement, the chase
vehicles are under no such restrictions and are going as fast as they can to stay ahead of there racers. So I’m trying to wave down trucks that are
doing 80, 90, 100, on a two lane road. Of course, none of this occurs to me at the time, I just need a lift. After the fifth or sixth truck went bye I
was starting to panic. They are just pulling into the other lane and passing me bye. Well, I can fix that, so the when the next set of headlights
starts to veer into the other lane I ghost ride the bike into that lane and stand their with my arms outstretched. They didn’t have a choice, they had
to stop. After a screeching halt, I just yelled “GIVE ME A RIDE” they grumbled and groused about letting there rider get too far ahead, but in the
end, they let me load the bike and we headed off to the Honda Pit. It wasn’t until she said “You are the craziest SOB I’ve ever seen” that it started
to dawn on me just how crazy this whole deal was.
Wednesday Nov 14 12:45 am - But I didn’t have time to dwell on it, here was the pit. I jumped out got the bike unloaded and pushed it into the lights
of the pits. Dave and Brad were so surprised to see me pushing the bike in, but as soon as they saw the rear tire, or lack thereof, they jumped into
action. A quick assessment showed that the front tire was also flat, the rear fender was ripped off, and part of the seat was shredded. What we didn’t
see was that a piece of the tire had pierced the air box. This would cause major problems for the rest of the race.
Wednesday Nov 14 1:30 am - Froman was back on the bike. He rode the first 204 miles and would now get on for another 100 mile stint and because of our
delay, the trophy trucks were going to be passing him, fun times. I was way too amped up to sleep and Howard, Brad, Buster and I still had to chase
the race the rest of the way to Cabo.
Wednesday Nov 14 4:00 am – Froman hands off the bike to Rich at Race Mile 820. He reports that it’s running a little funky and he replaced the air
filter but it didn’t seem to help. The four of us in the chase truck are getting very tired, so we pull over and try to sleep. An hour later we are
back awake enough to drive some more.
Wednesday Nov 14 6:30 am- Rich hands the bike off to Dave Deveau at Race Mile 920. So much silt was going into the engine from the hole in the airbox
that it would make the throttle stick. They forget to exchange ‘Spot’
Wednesday Nov 14 12:00 am – At Race Mile 1160 Dave hands the bike back to Richard, who will take it to the finish. Dave reports the same problem with
the throttle and also it needed one quart of oil at the last pit stop. Now all the chase trucks continue to Cabo.
Wednesday Nov 14 2:33 pm – With the finish line only 50 miles away Rich sends out a call for help on ‘Spot’. The bike quit one mile past a pit stop,
so Rich pushes the bike back to the pits. Because his location was transmitted by ‘spot’ we know exactly where he is. It’s just a matter of getting
there to see if we can fix the problem.
Wednesday Nov 14 3:30 pm – Dave Deveau in the other chase truck gets to the pit and he and Rich exchange some key parts and Rich is going again.
Wednesday Nov 14 5:30 pm – Rich crosses the finish line and we have officially completed the 2007 Baja 1000. 12th place in Class 40. With our combined
finishes from the 250, the 500 and the 1000 we earn a 4th place in the season standings. Now it’s time to party.
All the crazy things you ever heard about the 1000 are true. No one could over-exaggerate any stories from this race, as any description of it,
including this one, can never do it justice.
A few people I want to thank for all the help:
Chasers: Eligh Smits,Brad Seder, Buster Seder, Howard Womack, Gary Rossi, The three Johns.
Stateside Bloggers: Scott Gordon, Tim Kelly, Steve Ginthum
Support: Jason and Nettie at Moto Meccanica, Paul Kellogg – MSR, Brian Pecore – Bell Helmets, Ted Cabral at Cycle West, Dean Joyner, Brian Manly
Oh yeah, did I mention we want to do it again next year?
By Colin Macdonald MCMA #11
Barry A. - 12-7-2007 at 04:23 PM
All I can say is, THAT IS ONE SUPURB REPORT!!!!
Thanks for posting.
barry
capt. mike - 12-7-2007 at 05:19 PM
best on here by far, 'cept maybe my 2003 "chasing the 1000 by air" reports from San Q and Gonzaga/alfi's.....
TMW - 12-8-2007 at 11:11 AM
A great report Dave. Anyone who has never been involved racing the 1000 can never imagine all that goes into preparing, prerunning, pitting, chasing
and racing it. It is also a race where people find fixes for what seem to be insurmountable problems in the most out of the way places. It's kind of
like Baja itself, once you do it you either want to keep doing it or you don't want anything to do with it.