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Posts: 10659
Registered: 9-1-2003
Location: Bakersfield, CA
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Baja 2000 Remembered
This is from Mark Dorman, co-driver in this years Baja 500 in the 805 truck. This is his race report on the Baja 2000 race and their adventures before
and after the race.
Baja 2000
Race Report, Mark Dorman
We were ?hired? or ?enlisted? by Nick Vanderwey to drive the third leg of the one time 2000-mile version of the Baja 1000, slated for the year 2000.
We went to Gila Bend before the race to practice, and get familiar with the truck. Mike liked the coil-overs and later switched his own truck from
quarter-ellipticals to coil-overs, so impressed was he. We drove the truck around the bowl several hot laps, and were excited for the race. Mike is
very easy on equipment, and this was never more apparent than when, that same day, I took a couple hot laps with Kevin Patrick. Kevin may be fast,
but he?s hard on the truck. Mike and I laughed about it later, but it was actually pretty scary.
We went to our quarter of the course a week before the race and pre-ran all but the last section in Ellen?s Toyota 4Runner. On the first day, we got
the 4Runner stuck on the beach, with the tide coming in. I was chuckling to myself and Mike looks over at me and says, ?It?s not funny!? I know, I
know, but it IS funny! Anyway, the beach was made up of golf ball size? no, more like baseball size round stones; and when we tried to move, they
would just roll out from under the tires, and down we went, deeper and deeper. We needed something under the tires, I thought. Like when you?re
stuck, you put brush or branches under the wheel to give flotation. Well, we were on the beach, no branches. Nothing growing anywhere bigger than
sprigs of dune grass. Seaweed! That?s it. It?s like branches, right? No, it is not. Seaweed is slimy. When you spin your tires on seaweed it
expels slimy sauce all over your wife?s prize possession and it doesn?t come off for a month, even with gasoline on rags (we tried). Because of its
sliminess, it is like untraction. It?s like spin lubricant! And it gets in your hair too, but then suddenly turns from slimy to sticky like honey,
but only in your hair. I thought about inserting my head under the wheel for some sticky traction, but thought I might need it later. Think Mark,
think! I looked down the beach a quarter mile and there I saw the answer, salvation in the form of a sign, made of plywood! I hiked down there and
began pushing the sign back and forth to loosen it and soon I was hauling it back to the scene of the interment. A half sheet with two 4X4 posts.
Heh, heh, heh? soon we were making progress! 4? at a time, but we worked our way out of that predicament and on down the road to the next one, but
first, I dutifully replaced the sign to it?s original location, none the worse for wear other than the BFG All-Terrain tracks across the lettering,
which said, in Spanish, ?Ecologically sensitive area, do not disturb the little round rocks. No Driving on the Beach?. Ah, life?s little ironies.
In another of our stops during pre-running, a little town called San Jose de Comundu, we met up with a couple of locals who had some interesting tales
to tell. We stopped to ask directions of an elderly woman, in her sixties and an even more elderly man, her father, in his nineties. They spoke only
Spanish, so I was translating for Mike a sentence at a time as they related their life histories by the roadside. The man was bitter and resentful of
us, because we wore clean shirts. ?You see this shirt?? he asked, actually we didn?t need or want to see it, we could smell it! ?This is the same
shirt I have been wearing for over two years now,? he continued, ?Only shirt I got.? His teeth were gone. His eyes squinty, as if his eyesight were
failing and he struggled to focus on us well enough to evaluate our American gluttony. ?Around here? we haven?t got any money? he said, in his
staggered campesino Spanish, ?I ain?t seen a peso in over ten years.? ?What do you do instead of money?? I asked him. ?We barter.? He replied. ?Old
Jose over there, he has sheep, and Jorge next to him, he has goats. I grow corn.? He proudly stated. Ninety somethin? and still working? Well, yes,
there?s no pension plan here, and no Mexican Social Security. ?We just all trade back and forth for what we need.? He explained. It seemed so
simple, so obvious. I felt stupid for even asking. ?Wasn?t always that way though,? he interjected, ?back when I was young and strong, we had a lot
of money in this town. But that was before the Padre.? ?The Padre?? I asked, interested. ?Yeah,? he knew he had me now, so he got a little closer,
oh that shirt! ?When Graciela here was a little girl, she came home one day with a gold nugget she found back in the canyon over there. She hid it in
her little keepsake box and after a few days, it was Sunday, and she went in for confession and told the Priest what she had found. She asked him
what she should do with it. He told her to bring it in to him, and God would bless her.? ?He asked the same of us all, bring in our gold and our
coins, and God would bless us. We didn?t hardly have food to eat or curtains on our windows, but in the Church there were gold candlesticks and fine
linens.? Oh, wow, this is getting good. Mike looks at me, shaking his head, anxious to hear what happened next. ?So did she take it in?? I asked.
?Oh yes, she wanted to please God.? So later several of the men began to suspect that the Padre might be up to no good and one of the men in the
village caught his wife with the Priest in the confessional. Seems the Priest had all the ladies in town doing penance, even the little girls!? He
exclaimed. You could see the anger welling up in him as he related this story, years later; he was still very animated by it. ?We men all rushed the
Church and found the Padre stuffing the gold candlesticks and a gold cross in a sack to leave town.? ?We ran him out!? he announced, proudly. ?Since
then, we don?t have a Padre here.? Holy Priesthood, Batman!
Along the course we found a little taco stand under construction, just for the race. The whole family was pitching in to build this taco stand. It
was bamboo mats, and bamboo shoots, with a single 60W bulb hanging from a white Christmas tree cord. They were just firing up the grille when we came
by, and we stopped and ate a handful of tacos each. They were really good. We were really hungry. This place was very calm, in amongst the palm
trees, with natural water nearby. The palms were so huge; they covered the road and made a dark tunnel. Mike and I commented that this was a
peaceful place and we could see living there being something we both would consider. Of course, later we would realize there was no cable TV, and no
ice-cold beer, which totally makes the place unlivable.
We were to get into the cow truck in San Ignacio, the mid-point of the peninsula. We were there and waiting two days before the race. The night
before the race, neither of us slept; and the day of the race, we were both ready to go at 5 am. We stood around all day in our fire-suits, waiting.
We were afraid to even go to the bathroom, lest the truck would come in and we wouldn?t be ready to jump right in and go. Finally, fully twelve hours
behind the tentative schedule, the cow-truck arrived. Nick was driving. Nick had started the race, and was supposed to get out four hundred miles
ago and turn the truck over to Kevin Patrick. I don?t know what happened, but for whatever reason, Nick had either taken back over driving duties, or
had never given them over to Kevin. He made some comment about Kevin getting sick, and snipped ?Well, we all gotta do our part!? Well, so much for
running the biggest part of our section in the daylight as we had planned. The sun was going down, and we were going to be driving right into the
setting sun as we left San Ignacio and headed west to the coast. But first, the truck needed some work. A steering box, an axle, some oil, adjust
this, tighten that, and an hour and a half later, we were off.
As we left the City of San Ignacio behind, the truck began to really get up and plane. The suspension works really well, and we seemed to be floating
over the road, not driving on it. Mike was honkin? along at what seemed like well over a hundred miles an hour on the straights toward the dry lake.
GPS showed 96MPH. We ran first into the sunset, then crested a little sand hill right on the ocean and banked left and into the darkness sweeping in
from the east. I hit the flood set of HID?s. Suddenly it was day again! These lights are awesome! Mike and I had run with KC?s for years, and had
had a set of CIBIE?s for a while, but they were nothing like the HID?s. We continued on, making good time, then, up ahead we saw it, the silt bed
from hell! Mike never lifted, knowing if he did, we?d drop like flies. We charged at first, and then plowed, then out of the murkiness we saw the
target light, ?Look out Mike!? We were right on top of the Candy Cane car. There was nothing he could do. That?s it. We are up to our knees in silt
as we jump down into the talcum powdery semi-liquid like sheet of evil particles. The Candy Cane guys hardly even look back, as they continue to try
to crank their way out with the starter motor. We began jacking and digging. Minutes turn to hours, then days, then years. It seems to me we have
always been here, in this silt, when we hear a bike coming our direction. It?s a two-stroke, and it?s humming! Soon the headlight appears, and just
as quickly disappears beneath the silt, and the motor chokes immediately. This guy?s bike completely disappeared beneath the silt. All around us,
cars are stuck. People are digging. Some are cursing. We can hear far more than we can see through the dense fog-like cloud of dust. Behind us we
hear a six-cylinder. It is a seven truck. Well, Mike offered our services to help them push out if they would, in turn, help pull us out. We did,
and they did, and the Candy Cane guys did, and soon we were all on our way. Three hours had been lost in the dust.
Around midnight and a ways down the course, probably twenty miles from the Satan?s silt bed we again found ourselves in silt and again succumbed to it
after plowing for a few hundred yards. This time we were aided by Mr. Hall?s Hummer who came up behind us after not too long. I couldn?t find the
tow strap! Crap! Where?d I put it? It wasn?t where it belonged. I walked around the front of the truck and looked down at the tube bumper. The
strap was still tied on it, and I pulled it and it amazingly was still all there, having been drug for twenty miles under and behind the truck.
Lucked out on that one, I did. Hummer pulled us right out like a big block ski boat popping up a skier. This time I undid the strap and rolled it up
and put it away. Won?t do that again.
A few more miles and the HID?s went out. No warning, no dimming, just phwack! ?Whatdyoudo!?? Mike yelled. ?Nothin!? I replied. There was a little
moonlight; enough we didn?t immediately drive off a cliff, but not really enough to make any speed. ?Switch the batteries.? Mike ordered. I did,
and the lights came back on. We were back at race pace, and they did it again a few miles down the road. We?d never had HID?s before, but Mike
figured out that they must be sensitive to voltage, and when the voltage dropped below whatever pre-set level the lights would just go out, rather
than dimming. In effect this is true. The HID is actually a little carbon arc light, like the big searchlights of WWII. There is no filament which
glows white hot, as in an incandescent light, but rather they actually strike a little arc, like a welder, across a tungsten electrode, which is
non-consumable. If the power drops below whatever level it requires to maintain that arc, it breaks. There is no dimming at all because the arc is
either struck or not. Well. We limped in to La Purisima, where there was a BFG pit and they changed the alternator out, as it was everyone?s
summation that the alternator had died, thus the voltage drop. So we fired up the truck after the pit, the lights came on, and we left. Not twelve
miles down the course, they went off again, and this time switching the batteries didn?t make a difference. We stopped and messed with the wiring,
thinking maybe something had gone awry there. Everything seemed fine, so we got back in the truck hit the starter, and?.. nothing. The batteries had
had enough power to run the ignition, but not enough to crank the starter. Apparently the alternator was not charging still, or it wasn?t the
alternator at all and something else was wrong. We fussed and fought for a while. We did everything we could. I wanted to get back in the race so
bad it hurt, but I didn?t know what to do. It was very frustrating. After an hour or more of totally fruitless tinkering with this and that, our
flashlights went dead. We decided there was nothing we could do until daylight, actually only a couple hours away; so we tried to sleep, but it was
too cold, and we sat, shivering in the race truck, and rested our muscles, but we didn?t sleep. At dawn, well before the sun actually came up, Mike
had an idea. Last night we had passed a pit a while back. Mike removed one of the batteries and started walking. ?Where you going?? I asked. ?I?m
gonna get us outa here.? he replied. ?We may be able to make it now that we don?t need to run the lights.? Well, he carried that battery back to
that pit. I don?t know how far it was, a mile, two? They put the jumper cables on the battery and charged it up for about fifteen or twenty minutes,
then back he came. Slipped the cables on and fired up the truck. We were off!
Half an hour later there was a crackle on the radio and we heard Nick calling us. Of course, the radio had not been working all night with no power.
We explained what had happened and gave our approximate position. Nick said they?d meet us at the road crossing at Rosarito, but when we got there,
they weren?t there, and the truck was running fine so Mike opted to go on. Shortly we had a flat. Nick?s airplane was buzzing overhead. They were
shouting out the window and waving, but we couldn?t hear them. Mike stayed in the truck and kept the motor running, as we didn?t have enough battery
to start it again. Mike said it would probably run all day on the battery if we didn?t shut it off, so I changed the tie myself. The plane came by
twice, camcorder in hand, shooting footage of me changing that tire. I never saw this movie, oh well. I got back in and we took off. On the radio
we heard Nick was peeed because they missed us at the road crossing. He was also trying to get us to use the handheld radio with airplane frequencies
he had in the bag in the truck, but I swear, I couldn?t find it. So Nick was peeed saying this radio was worth $800.00 and we must have lost it.
Impossible, I thought to myself, we never got into that bag until just now. If it was lost, or stolen, it wasn?t us. Well, We did hear though, that
we were making good time, and the airplane said we were running really fast, keeping a good pace and covering more ground than Nick expected, hence
the missed road crossing. A while further and we had, believe it or not, another flat. Same routine, but this time, for some reason, Mike lost the
motor. It wouldn?t restart. Click, click, click?? There we sat, outside of San Juan. Actually it wasn?t too bad, because we hadn?t been there long
when a rancher and his family came along in their flat bed truck, and stopped to give us a jump. Problem is, we needed more than a jump. The
batteries were not charging and were getting weaker and weaker. Rancher guy had bottled water, which we scarfed, and his kids were cute, and we
visited a minute and thanked them for their help, then we were off again. ?No more spares, so no more flats please Mike? I thought. Nick continued
to beat us up on the radio about the lost time, and the lost handheld radio, and we just kept racing. Mike was hot. He was really driving well. I
think, maybe he was a little peeed off, because he was a little more aggressive than usual. As we crossed over the highway at Santo Domingo, we met
up with Nick?s guys, but Nick himself was on the other side of the peninsula. They changed the alternator again; with one they had bought at a local
parts store, and swapped out the batteries. Dumped fuel and we were back at it again, heading west into the sun and toward the ocean. We could smell
it. This was the part of our section we had not pre-run. It was miles and miles of sandy whoops two feet deep. The track went on forever, it
seemed, and the whoops just kept getting deeper and deeper. Fortunately, Nick?s suspension was built for this stuff, and the truck just motorboats
across the tops of the whoops. It really is awesome. Mike was doing nearly 65 MPH down this fence-line with ocotillo everywhere and nothing else in
sight. Finally we emerged out onto some salt flats, and some tidal pool regions along the very coast. This area is called Isla Magdalena, and is
just north of San Carlos. Finally we came into town south of Ciudad Constitucion, our getting out point, and worked our way through the last mile or
two of course to the pit where Nick?s brother and his co-driver awaited us. We pulled up; they didn?t say much, neither did we. They dumped fuel,
changed the air filter, loaded two new spares, adjusted the belts and left. Mike and I stood there, not sure what to think. Apparently everyone was
mad at us for losing so much time. They had no idea what we?d been doing; wrestling with the devil in the silt beds, shivering through the night in
the total darkness, so upset and frustrated our veins were popping out of our foreheads? they had no idea. Mike and I walked around the trailer and
there, waiting for us was the 4Runner. One of the guys had driven it down to our pit for us. We were pretty glad to see that truck, let me tell ya.
We went back to our hotel, took showers, and went down to the corner taco shop where we put down a dozen tacos between us. We then returned to our
hotel and slept like rocks until the next morning, when there was nothing left to do but come home.
We headed home and stopped in Loretto, on the inside of the peninsula. This place is really pretty, with a little bay that looks right out of a
Corona commercial, in fact, I think it is the Corona commercial, with the little grass huts, the single-masted sailboat in the crystal blue bay with
green reeds and palm trees growing all along the banks. Yeah, it was pretty.
When we got to Santa Rosalia, we thought maybe we might be smarter than the average bear. There is a ferry there that goes across the gulf to
Guaymas, where we could then drive into Hermosillo, and up into Nogales, cutting a few hundred miles off our trip. So we arrived at the dock, and
asked when the next ferry would be leaving for Guaymas. ?Next Thursday.? Came the reply. ?You just missed one about an hour ago; that was the last
one for this week.? Doh! Oh well, we will just have to drive home through San Diego.
Well we drove and we drove, and arrived back in Ensenada around ten p.m. Had some trouble finding a hotel, but we got one. It was a dive, but the
water ran hot, so score!
Next morning it was off through the border at TJ and into San Diego? and on the overpass coming into town, we ran out of gas. Well, we were doing
seventy, and Mike actually coasted off the overpass, down the ramp, around the corner, down the street and into the gas station and literally came to
a stop in front of the first pump, just barely rolling and never touched the brake. It?s true! I was like, ?What kinda luck is that?? Of course, it
was Wally (Mike?s dad) who could walk into any casino in Vegas, pull the first slot machine he came to and win. Guess it must be genetic!
So we were driving along in the middle of friggin? nowhere (east of Yuma? cactus city) and we ran out of gas again! ?Now wait,? I?m thinking,
??.didn?t we just go four hundred miles in a race truck in the middle of the most hostile desert known to man and never run out of gas? What up with
that?? Well, we had a five-gallon jerry can in the back, Hah! So we dumped it in and drove some more. Well, fourteen miles short of Gila Bend, the
last precious fumes came down the line and that was it. We were stranded. I got the empty jerry can out, and looked around for a plywood sign or
something to save the day. There was a freight train going by, slow enough to jump on. I very nearly did it. I came really close. Mike said, ?What
if that thing gets going eighty miles an hour and doesn?t stop in Gila Bend? Then what are ya gonna do?? Good point. So Mike walks around the back
of the truck and is looking for something to eat in the back, and I thumb a semi down. Mike looks up and I am running down the road to catch a ride
into town. ?I?ll be back.? I yelled in my best Arnold voice (not too good). Semi driver is typical what you?d expect. Slow talkin? lean and lanky
cowboy type. No boots, he?s driving in his socks. Truck is an older Kenworth. It creaks and moans like an old Spanish galleon. It is doing 70 MPH
and the motor is barely idling. The ride is surprisingly smooth. I always thought these things would be rough as mine carts. Well, we chat for a
while, and as we near town, this guy is on the CB arranging a return ride for me. He drops me at the truck stop, and points to another rig at the
side. ?That guy there, he?s your ride back.? He drawled out. ?Thank you much sir.? I stated as cowboy-like as I could, figuring that?s what he
wanted to hear. I ran inside, paid the lady, ran back out, filled the jerry can, ran to the waiting truck and jumped in, all in about five minutes or
maybe even less. Return ride was in a new Volvo. It was silent by any comparison to the big Kenworth. The cab was more like a car than a truck. The
driver was young, about thirty, I?d say. He said his partner was in the bunk sleeping, and that they drove coast to coast non-stop without ever even
shutting the truck off. I could relate to that. So we came upon the 4Runner and I thanked him for the ride. As he pulled away, Mike stood there in
what appeared to be disbelief. ?Well, that didn?t take long.? He said. It had been thirty-five minutes since I?d left. Not bad. We coulda died out
there. Gila Bend is not someplace you wanna die. Baja, on the other hand, would not be so bad a place. We had been over four thousand miles in a
week, nearly eight hundred of that off-road. It was the experience of a lifetime. I will never forget it.
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