My 1973 BAJA 1000 Super 8 Video Clip: Enjoy! (some '73 pics added too)
Wow, not easy at all... for an old guy like me. Thank you to StuckSucks for assistance in "Ripping" the video onto my PC.
I wanted a different song for the background music, but YouTube had a few available without a lot of computer genius needed, so (for now) here is the
3 minute 21 second video... that was on a Super-8 reel for 42 years (amazing I didn't lose it) since filming the race when I was 16 years old!
The music is a little like what they used for On Any Sunday, so it is early 70's jazz...
That is (now) Highway 3 being paved on the right... We are on some big boulders just east of where they detoured traffic onto the older road... and
the racers, of course... about 5-10 miles east of Ojos Negros:
This was the first of many off road races I would go to see, pit at, and participate in, once. My dad and I went to Ensenada for the November, 1973
race and saw the inspection line up, and even had Parnelli Jones drive up onto his trailer as I was standing next to it!
Oh, no... it was just one real (3min, 22 sec)... I don't remember the cost, but it was my brother-in-law's camera, as I recall. A Bell & Howell?
Does that sound right?
You see I got one bike in there... I am sure they were mostly past me when the first trucks and buggies poured by. I think that was Walker Evans
first? I really have no looked at it too close since I downloaded it.
Back before Score and after Score's first or second race, you started based on the number you drew... and that was you car number... not based on
classes or faster classes starting before slower classes... other than the bikes all starting first.
I just scanned some of my photos from my Baja album, and touched them up a bit, as I had a request from a Bronco fan, who now owns the Rod Hall
Stroppe Bronco (he saw it in my 1974 Baja Internacional race pictures I have been posting in the "Time Machine" thread in the Photo forum here on
Nomad.
Here is Rod Hall's Bronco and three photos of Parnelli Jones and his mechanic, Dick Russell coming back to his trailer in Ensenada after testing the
Big Oly Bronco, the day before the race:
What a great video! Thanks for posting this, David. You could probably pluck the white Class 11 VW out of 1973 and race it today. And I WANT that
#185 blue Toyota Hilux near the end of the video!
My buddy Todd Zuercher altered me to the existence of some footage of the 1973 BSC "Baja Mil" and she I saw it, not only was I smiling, but soon many
others were soon to be found with a grin non their faces!
I was a mere lad; age of 12 in 1973 I had to wait a bit before throwing a leg over a bike and run with the Big Guys! In the meantime, I absorbed
EVERTHING I COULD about off-road racing in Mexico and one of them appears in the video!!!
This is one very small motorcycle - actually it is called a Honda SL-70cc mini-cycle that was ENTERED in the race and though they made it to La Paz,
it was past the maximum allowable limit.
The Honda SL-70cc had a fuel cell made out of asbestos to increase its size; there was a powerful two way radio secured on the front forks and light
bar assembly and a RUMOR which is as REAL as a rumor can seem if there is some "personal knowledge" behind what you say...
So with that, the Watkins Brothers - John Watkins; "Dingus" and Ed are known for the "party favors" and "treats" they tried off the years and to make
this LONG, LONG journey of 912 miles, the three riders and probably some or who knows how many on their team - used LSD to get them down the course!
I just posted this over on Tacoma World, it may be of interest here for those who like to know the history of the races in Baja:
It was my first off road race to see in person. To meet or be next to people like Parnelli Jones and Mickey Thompson was cool, too. I was 16 and it
was a father & son trip. My dad was so cool... if he thought I would like something Baja-wise, he would take time off work and we would go.
The next race in Baja I went to was the 1974 (July) SCORE Baja Internacional. It was Score's first Baja race, a 400 mile loop starting and ending in
Ensenada with a mandatory one hour down time at Mike's Sky Rancho. We camped at Mike's and I took many photos of the racers arriving at the checkpoint
there. I have a thread on Baja Nomad Forums with my old photos from Baja trips in the 1960's and to 1975 there: http://forums.bajanomad.com/viewthread.php?tid=80549
In 1973, after the NORRA (National Off Road Racing Association) BAJA 500 finished (in June) with Parnelli Jones winning in his Big Oly Bronco, rolling
and flipping it three times along the way, the Mexican authorities told NORRA they were no longer sanctioned to run races in the state of Baja
California (this is the northern half of the peninsula of Baja California). A group of Mexicans said they could run the two Baja races (Mexican 1000
and Baja 500), and keep profits in Mexico... "for the children". Yes, they actually said that. NORRA (who created the events in Baja) was out and the
Mexican organization "Baja Sports Committee" (B.S.C.) was in.
The long race to La Paz was renamed "Baja 1000" [Baja Mil in Spanish] (as it was often called anyway) and the November 1973 race (seen in the video I
shot above) was the first B.S.C. race. Sadly, the finishers that made it to La Paz would learn that the money for the winners and top placed finishers
had vanished! Corruption, mismanagement, whatever... a black eye on Mexican organizers, in either case.
The Baja Sports Committee actually attempted to run the 500 in June of 1974, and nearly nobody came... big surprise. NORRA had offered up an
alternative race in Arizona called then Parker Dam 500, and that's where the money was, so that is where most of the racers went. BSC failed, the
businessmen in Baja California quickly rallied and contacted Mickey Thompson who had just created his SCORE organization with a short course race in
Riverside in 1973. They knew Mickey loved Baja racing and invited him to have SCORE sanction races in Baja. SCORE would no longer stand for "Short
Course Off Road Enterprises" and ran the 1974 Baja Internacional in July. It was a HUGE success, SCORE sealed the deal and had exclusive rights to
Baja races for many years.
There was not enough time from the deal being made to November to properly set up the 1000 race, so 1974 was the ONLY year since the first in 1967
that no 1000 was run. For several years, the shorter SCORE race moved to June from July was called Baja Internacional as NORRA maintained some legal
rights to the name Baja 500. Also, the 1000 race did not go to La Paz, as again NORRA had a contract in the southern territory and SCORE did longer
loop races in the northern state in 1975-1978. In 1976 and 1977, they actually called it the Baja 1000 Km. as it was closer to 600 miles than 1000.
1979 was the first year that SCORE ran the Baja 1000 to La Paz, and that was the year I was a co-driver! Great fun... we broke down early, but it was
great to have that perspective of being in the c-ckpit, having Sal Fish wish you a great race, get the green flag, screaming down Ensenada streets and
up the riverbed towards Ojos Negros.
"If it were lush and rich, one could understand the pull, but it is fierce and hostile and sullen.
The stone mountains pile up to the sky and there is little fresh water. But we know we must go back
if we live, and we don't know why." - Steinbeck, Log from the Sea of Cortez
"People don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care." - Theodore Roosevelt
"You can easily judge the character of others by how they treat those who they think can do nothing for them or to them." - Malcolm Forbes
"Let others lead small lives, but not you. Let others argue over small things, but not you. Let others
cry over small hurts, but not you. Let others leave their future in someone else's hands, but not you." - Jim Rohn
"The best way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question; it's to post the wrong answer." - Cunningham's Law
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