Madison team in big bad Baja
http://www.madison.com/tct/news/index.php?ntid=59521&ntp...
By Doug Moe
October 28, 2005
THE NIGHT before the start of the 2002 Baja 1000 car race through the wild Mexican desert, the race organizer, a man named Sal Fish, addressed the
drivers in a big barn set up near the starting line outside Escanada.
The Baja 1000 is a rip-roaring, pedal-to-the-metal, five-alarm fire of a race that does not employ certain niceties, such as roads. For enthusiasts it
is raw but exhilarating, perhaps the ultimate adrenaline rush. In the past it has drawn professional driving legends like Mario Andretti and Parnelli
Jones, as well as the speed-loving actors Steve McQueen and James Garner.
In 2002, it drew two brothers from Madison, David and Jeff Stone, and they were in the barn on the eve of the race, listening to Fish.
"You're about to experience a most incredible adventure," Fish said. "You must expect at all times to encounter oncoming traffic. You must be alert
that there are many cows, calves, bulls, horses and goats roaming freely on and around the course. All competitors are reminded that off-road racing
is an inherently dangerous activity that can result in serious injury or even death. Due to weather, animals and people, we do not guarantee that all
course markings will still be up on race day. Be advised that spectators on or near the racecourse may engage in malicious activities by building
ramps, digging ditches and/or placing objects onto the course."
Fish smiled, and said in conclusion, "Once the race starts, it's out of my hands. You're on your own, or, in other words, the lunatics will, indeed,
be running the asylum. Good luck and have fun!"
Recalling it Thursday, David Stone laughed and said, "He wasn't wrong."
Stone is president of Kelly-Moss Motorsports of Madison, perhaps the most comprehensive Porsche race shop in the country. Kelly-Moss maintains and
stores Porsches and produces race-trip packages for Porsche owners, a kind of fantasy weekend that allows clients to drive and hobnob with pro drivers
and feel like one themselves. Kelly-Moss also has a paint and repair division for European cars.
But before coming to Kelly-Moss in 1988, David and Jeff (David is general manager and Jeff is race service and projects manager) were professional
drivers themselves. They stopped driving professionally a decade ago, but in 2002 they decided to take on the Baja 1000. It was such a rush that they
have entered again this year, bringing a couple of other Madisonians, Prime Quarter Steakhouse owner Al Sanger, and M&I Bank Vice President Jim
Pope, with them. The four were in Mexico on a scouting mission for a few days last week. The 2005 Baja 1000 begins Nov. 17.
"It's like a Wild West adventure," David Stone said. "Once you're past Tijuana, well, things change. There's not a lawyer on every corner."
The Baja has a block party atmosphere in the days leading up to the race, with great food and abundant boasts and toasts. There may be an element of
whistling past the graveyard to all that since a critically acclaimed documentary about the race, Dana Brown's "Dust to Glory," new on DVD, calls the
Baja 1000 "the most notorious and dangerous race in the world."
There are more than a dozen divisions in the race, and you're placed in a division based on your vehicle. They range from motorcycles to
million-dollar race cars. In 2002 Stone competed in the Baja Challenge division and described the car - provided by a company called Wide Open Baja,
which hosts and handles all the details for Stone's team and many others - as a tube-frame, purpose-built race car with a Porsche engine surrounded by
a fiberglass body - and the best shock absorbers they can find.
You want good shocks because you never know when you might find yourself in the middle of a dust cloud at night, unable to see your hand in front of
your face but with the pedal all the way down because if you slow at all you will get stuck in a silt bed, when suddenly the course turns 90 degrees
but you don't, you don't turn at all, and instead you jettison off a ledge and remain airborne for three, four, five seconds and then land with a thud
and a bounce and - well, you want good shock absorbers.
"The crazy thing is you have a GPS system in the car but you really can't use it because half the time there's so much dust and dirt flying you can't
see it," Stone said. "You wind up trying to see these little 8-by-11 sheets of paper that are posted along the course with arrows telling you to go
left or right. But those things fall down or people change them just to mess with you. My brother was driving and we came up on one that had arrows
pointing both ways. So he went straight, into some bushes."
That must have been scary, Stone was told.
"We couldn't stop laughing," he said. "I'm telling you, we had so much fun."
The Stones' team finished second in their division in 2002. This year they will have six drivers: the four from Madison, along with two other friends,
Johnny Mitias, a surgeon from Mississippi, and Colin Dougherty, a racing parts dealer from Virginia.
They convened in Escanada for three days earlier this month. They checked out the cars and a bit of the course, which was still being determined. The
early rumor buzz has the golfer Tiger Woods and actor Tom Cruise competing this year.
Pope and Sanger, the two first-timers from Madison, were a bit wide-eyed as they took it all in. "I think they were a little overwhelmed and blown
away," Stone said.
Just wait till race day. This year's event is set for a little more than 700 miles over 30 hours. Teams race two drivers to a car. The Stone brothers
will lead off, with the others waiting at two checkpoints roughly one-third and two-thirds of the way along.
There are few certainties other than that, although the dust and the dark and those darn directional arrows along the way figure as certainties too.
Once in a while, Stone said, there is even an arrow pointing down.
What does it mean?
"Something bad," he said.
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