Baja 1000 Road Trip Adventure

A Baja road trip is always an adventure, but even more so when you are going down to provide pit support for 35 race teams competing in a Baja 1000 peninsula run. As the Pit Director for MAG-7, I was tasked with staffing, placement and logistics for 18 pits between Ensenada and La Paz, so the work began many months before the first vehicle left the starting line. Thankfully, almost everything came together nicely in the weeks prior to the race and it was time to start planning the road trip to my pit location - Pit 9 at race mile 531 in Vizcaino, Baja Sur. We had a great crew joining our caravan...most of whom had never been to Baja before...Justin was from Australia, Fraser was from Canada, Elliott was from Houston, Paul was from San Francisco, and my dad drove in from Flagstaff. Our plan was to arrive in Ensenada on Monday, November 12th, get our fuel and spare tires/parts and then depart no later than noon on Tuesday for a leisurely drive south. Sometimes things just don't go according to plan though...



A gear snafu for one of the southern pits kept us in Ensenada until 3PM on Wednesday...a full 27 hours behind schedule. Knowing that the first bike was going to leave the starting line in 15 hours, we got on the road and did our best to keep a steady and safe pace, as most of us were towing trailers. By 8PM we had arrived in El Rosario and tried to get some food at Mama's, but the place was packed, mostly by the Desert Assassins team who was staying next door at Baja Cactus. After chatting with the DA crew for a bit, we headed down the street to another restaurant that had some room for us. After a quick meal, we got back on the road and pressed on.



By 12:30 we were about an hour outside of Guerrero Negro when the vehicle behind me in the caravan noticed the wheel on my trailer was c-cked at a wierd angle. I pulled off at the next available spot, which was a 24 hour cafe/truck stop in Punta Prieta. After examining the wheel, we came to find out that the bearing had been reduced to little chunks of metal and the hub was flared out. We didn't have the right size bearing in our pit gear, so we decided to overnight in Punta Prieta. By then it was 1AM and I had just finished up another cup of coffee and had consumed two energy drinks a few hours prior while driving. Needless to say, sleep did not come easy, and the sound of truckers coming and going through the night woke me up numerous times.



I was up at 6AM the next morning and felt like a complete zombie. I grabbed a cup of coffee from the cafe and then jumped in a truck with the proprietors son to hopefully find a replacement bearing in one of the local junkyards. The first two junkyards were a bust, but the third one turned out to have a bearing that was not an exact fit, but would do the job. We got back to the trailer, installed the replacement bearing and got back on the road. By now it was almost 8AM and the race had started. At this point, we were not sure how long the new bearing would last, so we rolled into Guerrero Negro and found a tire shop. For three hours they searched to find the right bearing and hub, but were ultimately unsuccessful and we were running out of time. Our pit needed to be set up and open in a few hours, so we headed to the Vizcaino road crossing and found our pit location.



Once we got on site things fell into place nicely. 100 yards to the east of us was the Desert Assassins/Yokohama/JCR pit, and 50 yards to the west was the McMillin team. Thousands of locals had also set up shop along the race course as well waiting for the action to begin. At 4:30, the JCR Honda 1X bike blasted through their pit and had a considerable lead on the second bike. By the time most of the factory bikes had come through it was already dark.



We had our generator up and running with several work lights illuminating our pit and signage, as well as holiday lights and rope lights festooning the Baja Bound pop up tent. By 2AM the race traffic had slowed considerably, so we set up a campfire a safe distance from the race fuel and sat in our chairs to shut our eyes for a few minutes. Having been up since 6AM, it was going to be a long, long day. We had a few race teams borrow our pit location to do a driver change and refuel, which kept our adrenaline pumping.



By 10AM on Friday, most of our racers had either come through the pit or were out of the race, but there were a handful we did not have a status for. Our pit did not close until 4PM, so we made breakfast and got as comfortable as we could get without falling asleep. Weatherman sent out an alert that there was a moto rider down about 5 miles down course from our pit, so I asked if he wanted us to assist and he said yes. Justin and I jumped in my dad's 4Runner with four wheel drive and headed out, monitoring the radio closely to make sure no racers were coming up behind me. The racecourse was a complete disaster as most of the vehicles had already been through. The ruts were so sandy and deep that the bottom of the 4Runner was shaving off the top of the berm in the middle (Sorry Dad!!!). Thankfully it was nice and soft...so it didn't hurt the 4Runner. I was determined to not get stuck on the course, so I kept on the gas and finally made it to the racer. He was banged up but thankfully he had no broken bones. We loaded him and his gear into the truck and Justin rode the bike back towards the pit. About a mile later, another vehicle with two team members of the injured rider showed up, so we turned over the bike and rider to them, and one of the guys jumped on the bike to keep racing. We got back to our pit without incident and continued to wait out the remaining vehicles.



1408 showed up at about 2PM and they pulled into the pit needing some assistance. Justin, who races rally cars in Australia and really knows his way around a vehicle, jumped right in and helped replace the clutch. Once we saw them off, we were pretty much done and started packing up.



We departed Vizcaino and headed north to Guerrero Negro where we looked forward to hot showers, a good meal and some much needed rest. We met up with the crew from MAG-7 Pit 9 at Hotel Malarrimo and traded stories of our race experience over cold beer and steaks. By then, most of our crew had been up for almost 40 hours straight, so we all headed off to bed pretty early.



The next morning we got up and had coffee at the Malarrimo restaurant and got on the road. We stopped in for breakfast at the cafe in Punta Prieta where we had stayed three nights before, but this time we could relax and enjoy it. After breakfast we had nice drive north to Mama Espinosas where everyone finally got to have the lobster burritos they were craving on the drive south. After stuffing ourselves, we continued north to the Old Mill in San Quintin where we had some cold beers at Don Eddies Landing before getting to sleep. Sunday morning we woke up early and had breakfast at the Old Mill.



We got on the road around 9AM and made good time getting to Ensenada where we made a stop at Los Traileros for tacos. Thankfully, the replacement bearing was still holding up and we had a nice drive along the coast up to the border. The wait was pretty long, but that was to be expected at the end of a race weekend. We were back in San Diego by 7:30PM Sunday night and had pizza and cold beers at my house to celebrate the end of an epic Baja adventure! ¡Viva Baja!

What was on the menu at Mama's?

Bwahhhhhhh