TMW - 11-28-2004 at 10:36 AM
This is car 1733s story. As the ABC announcer says " The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat", sometimes they are closer than one thinks.
Well its been one week to the day, and I am still in recovery mode. what a trip..............
This prep did not feel as good as the others as we were up till 3am tues getting the car prepped. not the way its been all year at all. race car was
always prepped and ready weeks before, but last minute changes kept us up all night. second fuel cell for better range (we now have 44gals instead of
22), and a bigger rear diff made for some long nights in the garage before the long nights on the road that were about to come, that's for sure. so,
fell asleep 3am wed, up 4am wed, man, what the hell are we doing????? I plan to leave for the border by 6am. yea right. at about 9am we leave my
house. I needed to get there extra early so I could hunt down the Class 3 racers to let us race in their class for the money ($4000 to first place if
they let us). well, leaving early did not happen. got across the border with no incidents. got to Ensenada, headed to my buddies shop (Amato Boats)
just before Estero Beach and finished some prep work that still needed to be done. hit contingency about 2pm. no problems. head to the shop again to
do some last minute prep. me and rob Norris (second co-driver) were the advanced party so we were the only ones there. we hit the tacos stands, along
with a couple of beers and headed to Amato's house for what I knew would be the last time I would sleep in a bed for a while. crashed and woke up
about 6am. the remainder of the guys went straight to registration. (Brett Frederickson, first co-driver). we all met at Amato's shop to issue
assignments and a quick prayer. none of us had ever done this one. the BIG one. we had done this on quads before, but going from 400 lbs to 3500lbs
seemed like quite a change for all of us. we were always worried about smuggling 100 gallons of fuel into Mexico, now try 400 gallons!!! sent the
chase crew to El Crucero (about an 8 hour drive before they got to their pit spot!!!) and told them to take it easy. lots of bad stories with chase
trucks would be told by the end of the race. lets not be one of them.
ok, time to race. head to the start. Brett heads to the first road section. that is where he will be jumping in. I wanted to get the driver of record,
me, out of the way early on in case whatever chase car I was in had problems I would get the points regardless if I made the finish or not. staged up.
the smell of race gas and the ground shaking from the 800hp trucks will wake any race junkie up. record entries did not let us see the start till
12:15pm!!!! and the first car started at 9:30am!!! we were last in the pack of class 3's (which by the way, all agreed to let me race in their class
for the cash). knowing that we were about to hit 1017miles, I planned to take it easy. green flag, take it easy?, chit, lets go!!!!! off the rev
limiter in all the gears minus 4th. surprisingly pass two cars already. get to the highway section, change drivers with Brett in record time. awesome.
I jump in the chase truck and off to the first road crossing, ojos negros. we get radio that 301 just rolled in front of us. call weatherman and
report it. 301 is an entry from Japan, and the guy is a paraplegic who runs his car with hand controls. might have a hard time getting out of his car
while it is upside down. Brett comes screaming by, in second place!!!!!! still too early to race, still have 960+ miles to go. we head to the next
spot. get to K78, reminds me of my military days....."hurry up, and wait!". we get radio after a while. running good. running in second at this point.
then that awful sound. whenever you hear the radio, but no engine in the background, you know its not a good call. "1733 race, engine died!!!". I had
installed circuit breakers in place of fuses, so it took about 5 min for it to trip back on. not cool. long enough for us to loose a spot. back on the
road. we head to the next highway section. Brett passes one more in class by then and we were back in the game. completed the hwy section with no
problems. getting ready to go towards san Felipe. they hit the dry lake bed and we hit the pavement into town. about 15 miles before we get to san
Felipe, we get the same radio call, doing 90+ on the lake bed and engine dies. it takes almost 10 min for the breaker to reset. not cool. get going.
dies again at morelia junction. same story. I get on the radio and tell Brett to bypass the breaker after he traces all the wires to make sure nothing
is stripped. that fixed it at a cost of about 25 min. so, sadly a friend who was going to pit for us in san Felipe (Dave Ahles) had his garage broken
into and all his race related items stolen. this was all last minute. so no pit crew in san Felipe. I got to our co-rider change (Brett Richardson was
to get out of shotgun and I was going to hitch the ride to El Crucero). so, where was this rider change? hell at the best NASCAR style pit crew
available in san Felipe. the PEMEX gas station by the race course!!!! I told the crew that was working that we were going to have a race car pull in
for fuel. they were jazzed!!! "si, si, no problemo" out of the night you see 4 HIDs lighting up the pemex and pull in with 4 tires locked!!! it was
great to see those guys at work. I could only imagine the story they told their friends afterwards. passenger Brett jumps out, and I get in with
driver Brett. we hit it. night time. no problems. get onto the highway section. the potholes on the highway were worse than the race course
itself!!!!! hit the dirt and Brett calls out that the brakes are not working. I'm calling out all the turns on the GPS. I radio into BFG and let them
know we are coming in with no brakes. tore the drivers rear brake line off. capped it, filled with fluid and we are off. 3 brakes strong. long dirt
highway section. then the lights start to dim. hhmmm, that's funny, the volt meter is reading 11, now 10.5, now its reading 10. lights are fading.
spare alternator is at El Crucero, MANY MORE MILES AWAY. car dies. we switch batteries while I investigate under the hood. we get passed by two cars
in our class while doing this. main power cable broke off the alternator. I tell Brett to get with it because if this battery dies, we are stuck, no
power for the radio either. not cool. just before cocos corner is where we suffered the most damage. swamp lands!!! cant get stuck here. and we know
we can get stuck because there is a bottle neck of cars stuck in front of us!!!! "go to your left Brett, no your right, now your left!!!" all while
trying to wipe all the water off our helmets that kept flying in!! man, we hit everything you could possibly hit. we must have hit every hidden rock
there was. I don't know how, but we managed to not get stuck in that Bermuda triangle of race cars. we are about 10 miles out and I am watching the
volt meter drop. I turn off the aux fans, radio, intercom, and all but 2 HID's. volt meter, 11, 10.5, then 10, then 9 not looking good. I tell Brett
to pull over so I can hold the broken cable onto the alternator to charge the battery for 5 min or so. we make radio with the pit guys at this point
also. "get ready, we are coming in injured and need service!!!" we had to do this several more times before we made it with just under 9 volts on the
meter. damage: broken shock, bent steering, broken alternator. its about 11:30pm now. almost been racing for 12 hours straight. this is race mile 330,
and we still have 670 more to go!!!!!! we replaced the steering and alternator, but we did not have a spare shock. what do we do??? I'm not ready to
quit yet. "hmm, hey Oscar, I see you brought your Toyota. the rear shocks look pretty cool." next thing you know, there are 3 guys under the 4-runner
removing a shock that was probably only designed for "mild off-road use". oh well, just don't tell Fox. it was a "mini-bilstein" with a baby
piggy-back reservoir on it. funniest thing ever. they could not take enough pictures of this one (and I have some to prove it). "here you go Rob,
have fun, try not to hit anything with the drivers side front." we sent him off at 12:30am. I jumped into the chase truck and headed to my next
driving section. Brett headed home as he was done with his duties. headed to san Ignacio, race mile 550, where I would get in and see what I can do.
rob came in good. only one flat. said he hit some heavy fog, other than that, had a blast. cool, I jump in. expecting the worst since I had never done
this section. not even pre-running. I got Oscar co-riding with me. my first time with him. got in and got on it. passing thru all the little towns was
amazing. just beautiful. hit he beach section. awesome, just awesome. then I lost brakes again. radio into BFG at san juanico for fuel and brake
check. lost the rear passenger brake line. no caps, P-nched the line the best we could and off we were. brakes felt like chit, but it was better than
nothing. took it easy on those big drop off's. kinda spooky with no brakes, let me tell ya. we pull over after a while to add some brake fluid. we see
the diff is leaking also. we add fluid to it also. then we get passed by 301 (who had rolled early on) and a class 8 Humvee. well, that's just
bullchit, get in the car guys. "brakes are overrated, they just slow you down anyway, hold on." I got my second wind at this point and felt like I
did not want to come in last. well, not only did I scare my co-rider, chit, I scared my-self numerous times!!!! we were pushing it to the limit and I
found out just how well this car can corner!! man!! what a rush!!. Oscar is doing a DAMN good job of calling out the turns for me. 100% confidence
level with no brakes. we see dust. reel in the humvee. catch him and he would not let us by. horn honking and lights in his rear-view mirror.
followed in his dust for miles with no courtesy to let us by. no brakes and tailgating in probably not a good thing. the hummer is making mistakes
under pressure and we are paying the price. finally, after almost going into a ditch that I could not see because of this, I decide to remove him,
nicely of course. Oscar call out "medium left turn, 100yards". I was about 3 feet off his bumper, backed off to about 10, and just punched it.
"slam!!!!!!" "hey Oscar, is that our bumper I can see over the hood?? it wasn't there a minute ago". the hit kicked him to the outside of the turn
and we passed him on the inside. just awesome. it was great. sorry guys, but I believe you should have let faster traffic by. we are back on our
mission. pass 301 on the side of the road. the tranny is starting to wine in 5th gear. then 4th gear. we are about 75 miles out. I radio as we get
closer "we need to either change the oil or just add some if low. the tranny is getting loud." we pull into our pit at cuidad insurgentes. the crew
gets under the car to find bad news. "not the tranny boss, the differential." the pinion gear nut came completely off, lost all the oil and that was
the noise we were hearing. "can we fix it???" we try. tighten the nut back on. fill with fluid again. while doing all this, both the 301 and humvee
pass us again. maybe he'll move over this time, huh? we top off all fluids, bleed the brakes one more time, and send off rob. "hey, are those hood
pins I see on the trailer????" radio calls out "1733 race, we just lost the hood, again, we just lost the hood, over." nice. we send in one of the
chase cars to get it. it is a custom hood I had made and I would really like it back. it flew off about 2 or 3 miles in, so it should not be a big
deal to find. chase car: "we cant find it, where did you loose it??" race car: "right where the big crowd is!!" me: "flockin great, that hood
never even hit the flockin ground!!!! its already in someone's garage by now!!!" oh well, my present to the locals. merry Christmas, you bastards!
were off to the next and last pit. race mile 911!!!. we get there. about 15 min we see the humvee, rob cant be too far behind. he radios in. "the rear
end is noisy, but still running strong!!" I get ready. me and Oscar jump in. 100 MILES LEFT TO GLORY!!!!! its about 4:30pm now and just starting to
get dark. we have been racing for 28 hours non stop now, and we are awake as all can be. 100 miles to go!!! yee ha!!. we get 20 miles or so down
course when we see Fontalli's F-150 class 8 truck upside down in the middle of the course. we stop (didn't have a choice) and see what we can do to
help so we can continue. "get the tow rope and flip us over!" "sure, why not." somehow, those words, those simple measly words, would come back to
haunt me strong. it takes about 15 min of jerking back and fourth to finally get him on all 4's. we get in and take off. only to destroy the ring and
pinion 2 miles later. AAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. I should have waited for the next car and let them do it. my diff was hurting as it was, much less
with trying to pull a car out in reverse!!! that probably outweighed me by 1000lbs!! no spares to repair either. this was a new rear end and we did
not get a spare in time. well, with 11 hours left before we time out, we try. I sent in the chase crew into La Paz to try and find a 3rd member. good
luck. if anyone was at the finish, they were drunk because they did finish!! we timed out right there. 930 miles behind us and a mere 70 miles to go.
we pulled the car off the race course. found some firewood and set up camp till the morning. wow. the fatigue kicked in and we were out. no energy
left. our chase crew showed up later that night and we drank our celebration beers, in the middle of BFE. wow, what a journey that was. I had nothing
but the best of times and cant wait to do it again. on a side note: what I will NOT do again..... I will never drive home at night. those semi trucks
are not f'ing around!!!! almost lost the trailer off into the ditch, almost did the head-on with a semi (who must have thought he needed more than
just his lane!!) got rained on, and who knows what else. NEVER AGAIN. Oscar and the other chase crew headed to la paz as they had the week off, f'ing
bastards. he came to my house with pictures of all the beaches they visited and all the fish they caught. that is how I will do it the next time.....
I really need to thank all you guys. not just my chase guys, but everyone involved. the comradery was just top notch. BFG Support is priceless. Oscar,
hell of a co-rider. rob, you kept the car in one piece this time, good going. Brett F, sorry you missed all the action, but hey, thanks for the broken
car!! (J/K). Donn Moss, and all the class 3 guys for taking my money, it made for a good race. all the chase crew....Polli, Bernie, Jose, Naked Steve
(that's another story), Brett Richardson of American Muffler, Amato's family, and all the people helping that we did not know at the pits. thanks BFG
Real-time for letting our loved ones at home know our status via internet (helped calm down my worried wife who bravely stayed home to deal with our 3
screaming kids!!, thanks honey). sorry Mike Hice you could not make it, but you did help out greatly with your sponsorship. well do it all again.
soon. till the next race, see ya
ricardo ramirez
ramirez motorsports
Corky1 - 11-28-2004 at 03:36 PM
TW,
Great story. That's Baja!!
Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.
Best of luck next time.
Corky 
