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Neal Johns
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Registered: 10-31-2002
Location: Lytle Creek, CA
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Baja Highway
The Evolving Landscape ? Homer Aschmann?s Geography
1997 ISBN 0-8018-5310-9
Pages 71-80
The Baja California Highway
You can get lost on roads which are traveled less than once a month?.
Beyond Ensenada, the peninsula of Baja California stretches some
seven hundred miles, with roads which turn into unmarked trails
across one of the most extreme deserts in North America ...
?Review of Lower California Guidebook, 1958
[This is] a region which has so far been screened by its bad roads
from the typical American tourist.... The advent of more visitors ...
cannot help but change the character of the poor, proud, and to me
very attractive inhabitants.
?Review of Lower California Guidebook, 1958
EUROPEAN SETTLEMENT of Baja California began in 1697 with the founding of a Jesuit mission in Loreto. Until their expulsion in 1768 the Jesuits
extended a chain of missions over the southern two-thirds of the peninsula to Santa Maria, their last one, founded in 1766. Their Franciscan
successors, with far greater governmental support, given for geopolitical reasons, founded a mission at San Fernando Velicata and pushed on overland
to San Diego whence the California mission system was extended. Baja California thus served as a strategic corridor to the frontier province up which
personnel, livestock, plant-propagating materials, tools, and church furniture were carried. It was regarded as a more secure route than the one by
sea against strong northwest winds and a south-setting current. Briefly, from 1775 to 1781, another overland route from Sonora was used, but that was
cut by the successful Yuma Indian revolt.
In 1773 Baja California was transferred to the Dominican order, which missionized the gentile Indians of the Frontier between San Fernando Velicata
and San Diego and tended the declining older Jesuit establishments through the end of Spanish colonial times and into the period of Mexican
independence. Records are less abundant in the first half of the 19th century than in earlier mission times, but until after the middle of the latter
century there is no report of wheeled vehicles or roads for them anywhere in the peninsula. Transport was exclusively along mule trails, a network of
which came to connect widely spaced missions and other oasis settlements and ranches. Less affected by accidental topography than roads, these trails
run fairly directly between points of interest. In rugged, subsequently abandoned regions, as around Mission Santa Maria, they can still be followed.
A backwash from the California gold rush brought a wave of prospectors into Baja California, and by 1870 a number of successful gold, silver, and
copper-mining properties had been located as well as a myriad of unsuccessful ones. For a time even high-grade copper ores were hauled as much as 50
kilometers to coastal landings on muleback, as from Mina de San Fernando near San Fernando Velicata, to the coast at San Carlos (Figure 3). The need
for heavy equipment such as boilers and stamp mills, however, was an inducement to construct wagon roads to coastal points, and once they had been
established other mines would tie into them. By 1910 the peninsula had a broken net of mine roads, especially in the Northern Territory.
The development of irrigated agriculture in the Mexicali Valley, the accession of the powerfully independent and locally interested Governor Esteban
Cantu (1915-20), and the advent of Prohibition in the United States combined to accelerate economic development in the northern part of Baja
California. Cantu constructed engineered roads across difficult terrain from Mexicali to Tijuana and from Tijuana to Ensenada. Trucks and cars were
available duty-free from across the border. Ranchers and farmers in the valleys and uplands north of San Quintin found or constructed tracks that were
passable, at least in dry weather, in a widespread net.
In 1920 the geologist Carl H. Beal made an extensive reconnaissance of the peninsula for Marland Oil Company of Mexico seeking promising sites for
petroleum drilling. The results of his work were not published until i946,4 with a map which includes his amazingly extensive itinerary, most of it
followed by pack train. In January 1922, apparently at the request of the U.S. military district in San Diego, still interested in Baja California as
a hangover from World War I, he prepared a 27-page single-spaced typescript entitled "Baja California-Route Studies." In it he identifies all the
sections a wheeled vehicle might traverse, noting some wagon roads that an automobile should not attempt. He concludes that an automobile might be
able to travel from Tijuana to the onyx mine at El Marmol, though evidently wagons were used to transfer the onyx at that time. The road from Tijuana
to Mexicali was established, and from it a number of passable tracks connected many of the ranches and mines on the relatively level plateau of the
Sierra Juarez. The track south from Mexicali to San Felipe was passable at some times but carried so little traffic that someone stuck in the sand
might die of thirst.
Farther south some disconnected roads from mine to coastal embarkation were noted. The most extensive set had been built by the El Boleo copper mine
radiating out of Santa Rosalia. Only the one connecting that town with Mulege, however, was passable, others having been washed out and not repaired.
Finally, two passable roads led south from La Paz to Todos Santos on the Pacific Coast and to San Jose del Cabo at the tip of the peninsula. For both
roads and trails he is meticulous in noting where water can always or only sometimes be obtained, commenting further on its quality. The uncertainty,
even danger, involved in traversing the peninsula is implicit.
General and ex-President Abelardo Rodriguez, who became governor of the Northern Territory in 1923, constructed the first paved road, from Tijuana to
Ensenada. Even earlier road construction began in the Southern Territory of Baja California with a road pushed to Magdalena Bay in 1921 and others
southward to Todos Santos and San Jose del Cabo. With its widely scattered intensively cultivated oases, the Southern Territory's road building
followed the classic pattern. If the terrain obstacles were not too severe, roads would be built to tie together the settlements, following the
topographically easiest course, but accepting detours if minor settlements could be brought into the system. Though his economic resources were far
smaller, the governor of the Southern Territory was able to tie Comondii to Mulege in 1927, connecting with the system of the Boleo Copper Company
which had independently laid roads south from Santa Rosalia to Mulege and westward over the divide to San Ignacio.
The Automobile Club of Southern California and Governor Rodriguez, cooperating almost like sovereign powers, undertook to drive wheeled vehicles
south from San Quintin to connect with the road system of the Southern Territory. In late 1926 an Auto Club group made it to Rosario, and in 1927 a
combined expedition of the Mexican military, including the governor, and the Auto Club drove to San Ignacio, then over the Boleo Company's roads to
Santa Rosalia and Mulege. Mining roads were followed where they existed, routing the track back and forth across the peninsula. In 1928 the Auto Club
installed its distinctive signs as far as Mulege, noting mileages obtained in the previous years. Random roadside vandalism, intensified by Mexican
nationalism that resents the foreign signs, has obliterated or removed all the signs where the road is still followed. A few survive in spots
infrequently visited.
For trucks or well-equipped field vehicles the road was negotiable from Tijuana to Cabo San Lucas, but few tourists attempted it until after World
War II (Figure 4). Onyx was hauled north from El Marmol and Cerro Blanco, and in the decade of the 1940s shark liver buyers sought all coves where
fishermen might put in. In the late 1940s out of season tomatoes were trucked from the Cape Region to the U.S. border; on a weekly schedule during the
1940s a 1932 Cadillac limousine carried mail and an amazing number of passengers from Tijuana to Santa Rosalia: some used passenger cars were driven
from the duty-free border zone for sale in La Paz, and modest but growing numbers of adventurous American tourists pushed southward, many to write
books about their experiences.
In 1943 Ulises Irigoyen published in Mexico City a massive two-volume work on Baja California. While it discussed the geography and history of the
region in not too accurate detail, as its title suggests the book was primarily a strong appeal to the Mexican national government to build a paved
highway the length of the peninsula. Such an enterprise would lead to economic development and strengthen the region's ties to Mexico. The effects of
the work were slow in emerging, but when in 1972 the national government did build the highway the expenditures were justified on the same grounds.
During World War II the road had been paved south from Ensenada to Santo Tomas. In 1947 and 1948 a major project undertook to extend the paving to
San Quintin. Grading was accomplished that far, but funds for asphalt pavement were exhausted at San Telmo, some 75 kilometers short. For 20 years the
graded surface, becoming ever more washboarded and rutted, carried heavy truck traffic from the irrigation developments at Colonia Guerrero and San
Quintin.
In 1956 a remarkable individual road-making achievement was carried out. Arturo Gross, a part-time miner, prospector, and mine promoter, and long a
resident of the Laguna Chapala and Calamajue district was offered 10,000 pesos ($800) by the State government if he could drive his truck up the East
Coast from Calamajue to San Felipe. Carrying a pick, shovel, and some blasting material he did it. Within weeks tourists followed with four-wheel
drive vehicles. The northern part of the road has been improved, and now there are tourist fishing camps on the formerly completely uninhabited coast.
Curiously, it was the Southern Territory, with far smaller economic resources than the Northern State, that sustained the impetus of road building
and improvement, both north and south of La Paz. Soon after 1950 a road was pushed south-westward from Loreto, until then accessible by road only from
the north, to join the main peninsular road at Santo Domingo. This road made Mission San Xavier, the outstanding example of Jesuit mission
architecture, accessible to tourists. A road was graded northward from La Paz to Villa Insurgentes by 1954, and paving proceeded steadily to that
point by 1961. For the next few years, repairing washouts caused by severe storms seems to have occupied the road-building resources of the Territory,
but in 1968 a major program paved the road south to San Jose del Cabo. At the same time a project was instituted to complete a paved road north from
Villa Insurgentes to San Ignacio, the most northerly oasis in the Southern Territory. A completely new alignment was chosen, crossing the uplands in
an east-northeasterly direction to reach the Gulf Coast south of Loreto. Grading preceded paving, often by a year or more, but work progressed
steadily and reached San Ignacio in 1972 (Figure 6).
Extending the northern part of the paved road south from San Telmo did not begin until 1968 and in two years progressed only 20 kilometers, and in a
year and a half more, to early 1972, made only a like distance, though surveying and grading for a modern road had begun beyond San Quintin. Suddenly
the operation was accelerated; federal money became available, and two major contracts were let to grade and pave the entire 600-kilometer intervening
stretch to San Ignacio, working from each end. Hundreds of trucks and graders and thousands of laborers were employed.
Various stages of construction, from bulldozing a brecha to final hardening of road-side gutters in cuts, were carried on simultaneously over 100
kilometer stretches to hasten essential completion of the highway by the end of 1973 (Figure 7).
The heavy investment in the new highway is being justified by its attraction of vastly increased numbers of American tourists and the employment that
will be created in providing them with services. The American visitors prior to the paving of the highway have been of two classes, the drivers who
traveled slowly, enjoying the scenery and the nearly empty country, camping out and spending relatively little money; another group flew to luxury
resort hotels, particularly for fishing. The Mexican government's planning assumes that with a paved highway the additional drivers will seek luxury
hotel accommodations, and several rather luxurious hotel-restaurants have been established at formerly unpopulated sites as well as new hotels at
established resorts such as Cabo San Lucas and Loreto.
The "Baja 1000 Rough Road Race" has attracted annually a further set of tourists, concerned to tear up the countryside rather than look at it. The
hope that the paved highway would end this desecration of the landscape was vain. In 1973 the race was run cross-country on a newly staked out track.
It has been continued with completely new lineation, but the course has been shortened to 500 kilometers.
Though it is only two lanes wide, less than 10 meters in the least-traveled middle of the route, the new highway was designed and built by modern
engineers given free rein. Curves are broad and gentle, grades are moderate, and visibility is generally good. Since water for construction was always
scarce and sometimes had to be hauled scores of miles, an ingenious, water-sparing roadbed construction scheme was devised. Crushed gravel, sand, and
cement were mixed dry, spread and graded into place, sprinkled with water, and then rolled. The resulting surface is smooth and hard, though how it
will hold up will be determined in years ahead. The final surface is oiled and covered with fine gravel.
Except where the highway is actually cut into a hillside, it runs on top of an artificial ridge more than a meter high and only slightly wider than
the roadbed. To build this ridge, earth was scraped from as much as a hundred yards on both sides, destroying the vegetation, much of it unusual
endemic plants, and leaving a scar that will remain for decades it not centuries. Protection against washouts rather than maintaining the wildly
beautiful desert environment clearly had precedence in the engineer's plans.
There are almost no places that a car can be stopped safely, and getting off the ridge on which the road rests is difficult and even dangerous.
Clearly the Baja California Highway will funnel tourists directly to the resort centers. Pausing to examine the extraordinary flora and the attractive
desert terrain, the features that attracted the driving tourist of the past, is discouraged and often made impossible. One could drive to La Paz
without being conscious of more than a long dull highway interrupted by a few settlements.
The alignment of overland transport routes in Baja California has changed in one rather consistent pattern from earliest historic times. The earliest
mule trails and probably their Indian trail predecessors went rather directly from water source to water source. These streams and tanks were
settlement sites, and in general are concentrated in the rugged uplands of the center and eastern edge of the peninsula. The mines which gave rise to
the first wagon roads tended also to be in the rougher country, but they sought the shortest and easiest route to the coast, either Pacific or Gulf.
The pattern of swinging back and forth across the peninsula that marks the original road for wheeled vehicles derives from two tendencies, the effort
to utilize the mining roads whenever feasible and seeking lower and leveler land. Water sources and settlements were still connected if possible, but
a number of oases that had held missions?San Borja, Santa Gertrudis, Guadalupe, and San Xavier?either long did with-out any road connection or were
tied to the main road by long, poorly maintained side tracks.
The new highway continues this trend. The biggest shifts in alignment involve staying far out on the flats of the Vizcaino desert almost to the
latitude of San Ignacio before heading east to that point, thus bypassing the former mining and trading centers of Calmalli and El Arco, and following
the Gulf Coast well south of Loreto before crossing the drainage divide into the Magdalena Plains. The mission oases of La Purisima, Comondu, and San
Xavier are bypassed.
In its most recently completed sector, from Rosario to San Ignacio, the highway has been consistently displaced one to three kilometers west of the
old road except west and north of San Ignacio, where there is a completely new alignment. All the tiny settlements along the old road that eked out a
precarious existence serving tourists have been bypassed as have some larger ones. In some instances, their residents have been able to move to a new
site on the highway, but this requires more capital than many possess. Further the new alignment, in contrast to the old, is not focused on hitting
the infrequent spots where water can be obtained.
Finally, the long-term residents who have depended on tourists geared their services to the minimal requirements of the rough-road camper. The
tourist whom the new highway is designed to attract will be served by new entrepreneurs from Mexico City, who will provide, at high prices, what might
be found in an American resort (Figure 8). Profits are going to the investors and managers imported from the mainland. Mexico's problems of
underemployment and her need to develop lucrative economic activities cannot be ignored. One can only hope that the benefits gained by the crassest
touristic development of the wildlands and shores of Baja California will be worth it.
My motto:
Never let a Dragon pass by without pulling its tail!
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Mike Humfreville
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Great Post Neal!!
It took me two days to read it but it's so true in some ways I've experienced personally (only lately of course!). Some of us passed places, simple
houses, ranches, that were built beside the road that had existed in a given place for so many years and catered, aside from their ranching duties to
the value and pleasure that were accomplished by serving up a soda or meal.
But the part that really got to me as a young man, then being less sensitive to the needs of the local ranchers, was the damage, as your author points
out, to the desert. While the dirt road was ten feet wide and you had to slow for the cacti and brush, the road builders were totally unaware (not a
criticism on them, rather the overall management) of the sensitivity of a small dirt track winding slowly through the desert versus a 300- meter wide
rape of everything through the peninsula.
Following is an excerpt from my stuff ~1972 re the ruinous roadwork:
We dropped from the sierra San Miguel down into the central desert many kilometers south of El Rosario. I was catching unfamiliar views of something
in the distance, something yellow, something apparently moving. Dust blew across the central desert like I had never seen it before. It had to be
more than just from the road, 10 feet wide. As we continued we could see signs of heavy equipment working to widen and flatten the roadway. I had
accepted the fact, several years before, that a paved road was going to be built. But I had envisioned a two-lane road that worked with the natural
landscapes. What I was seeing now, on first observation, somewhere in the northern half of the central desert in 1972, was a gaping rip into the land
over a hundred meters wide that ignored anything in its path. Even beyond that they were tearing out all life to build by-pass roads. All this where
a single-lane dusty track had been a few months before.
It was clear that the road crews were insensitive to any kind environment. What I had imagined as a gentle narrow road winding between desert flowers
and cactus, slowing the driver to enable braking for a tarantula or sluggish snake or scampering chipmunk was just that: an image.
What we were seeing was a complete lack of concern to identify and integrate into an environment. The men that had been tasked with carving this road
into the wilderness were hard men, accustomed to the desert ways. They were not sensitive folks. These guys were mad at their environment. There
was not a soft spot in their souls. It seemed that every opportunity to destroy the simple world of a desert that had existed for thousands, millions
of years had given them pleasure. Raw, crude slashes of the blades of many tractors carved deep into the heart of the desert where small animals had
lived for eons. No thought was given there! The thought given was about the strength of the blade and how a man could feel so powerful moving so
much gosh darnned earth.
In order to conquer the peninsula and tame her with a blacktop backbone, officials, wanting the best for their constituents (it must have been what
they thought was best, and they were probably correct), the attack was launched at both ends and in the middle. There was no resistance. Baja had
only to belly up and forsake her vested interests in solitude and tranquility. We wound through many miles of uprooted cactus and loose dust swirling
up from the tires of my old Land Cruiser. My eyes were misty and I knew I would never see the peninsula again as I had known it before. The work
started and then stopped a few miles south only to start again after a few miles of quiet. Driving along an undisturbed piece of the old road, some
miles north of Santa Ynes, there were signs of heavy equipment. This was the most magical spot in the central desert, with the cirio and cardon
plentiful and a patchwork quilt of huge boulders covering many square miles; the slender track wound between towering rocks for miles. Soon we came
upon places in the midst of this tranquil splendor where the roadbuilders had just blown up many of the boulders that were too large to move with even
their most powerful equipment. How strong they must have felt when the dynamite exploded, throwing large pieces of stone into the blue sky.
So I looked toward the horizon where I didn't see so much disemboweled life and kept my hands locked on the steering wheel. Within an hour we were
out of the disruption and back to the undisturbed desert. But this was a vision of the future; it would never be the same again. The lonely
landscapes and rocks and hills, the cordon, ocotillo, the yucca, the obnoxious old man cactus, the field mouse and kangaroo rat, scorpion and
tarantula were about to become second class citizens. This would not be a problem if evolution were involved, that great evaluator of
what-makes-sense, but this was just a highway! This monstrosity was raping the peninsula.
It was not my peninsula. It was not my place to judge what the government that represented the people of another land wanted to do. So on we drove.
We drove into the evening with sun-magic across the desert a few miles north of the junction with the road to Bahia de Los Angeles. Colors increased
and attitudes softened as the day eased. We came on a ranch and decided to camp nearby. Baja was so remote that we felt somehow more comfortable
next to someone else. I asked the only person here, a matron, if she would mind if we camped here. She was pleased with the company and asked if we
would like her to have dinner with her. Of course! We were invited in.
[Edited on 9-7-2003 by Mike Humfreville]
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thebajarunner
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Baja Highway
While I agree with some of the points in your "highway history" and admire the amount of research that went into this effort I take great umbrage at
the comments concerning the original "Baja Racers!" Also, to some of the comments concerning the presumed positive effects on our beloved peninsula
as well as the questionable quality of the highway that they installed.
When I first went to Baja in 1971 to support a local off-road team in the Mexican 1000 (yes, until 1973 it was the Mexican 1000, not Baja 1000) I
completely fell in love with this wild and wonderful world we experienced. The drive to Camalu was uneventful, then we encountered the "Pavimento
Terminado" sign and "the real Baja" began.
For those who never dropped off the pavement and drove the ruts, the wash boards, the river beds and mountain rideges, the awesome dust holes at
Chapala and all the rest..... Sorry Dude, you never knew the real Baja and you never will. And we, the racers, got to pre-run, race and live with the
people along the way for weeks and weeks each Fall and Spring. I dare say that in the 12 years that I personally raced there I got to know more
people and more spots than any weekender, flying across the paved road in his pseudo four wheel drive, believing that he is "Doing the Baja"
Sorry, it just is not the same.
And, we racers gave back much, much more than we took. I personally adopted an entire orphanage, We ended up raising four boys from the orphanage
with our family in Central California. I visited and assisted a couple dozen more orphanages.
Parnelli used to haul loads of things down to the remote Rancho Cuarenta. His Bill Stroppe team aided many many more, too numerous to name. We
bought gas from ancient drums behind farmhouses, and we ate our meals with those same farm families, on their back porch. Baja was a real place.
Now, the highway has simply provided an avenue for Southern California to bomb along in their phony 4 x 4's, never seeking the dirt roads and headed
for overpriced beaches and a disaster known as Cabo San Lucas. (Dollywood lives!)
None of those farmers benefitted, the highway passed most of them by. Now there are closed Paradors, closed gas stations and a total lack of the old
ambience.
The highway was, indeed, horribly made. The swath cut across the land made more damage than any combination of Baja racers, past-present-and future.
It is constructed on virtually no base and thus, is breaking up all along the length.
Am I bitter? Nah, just disappointed at the loss of an old friend. Do we like Baja? Sure, but we don't love it like we did when you had to "earn
your trip" down the Baja.
Oh, and better yet, check your facts... you comment that the current races are shortened to some 500 kilometers. The 2000 Baja 1000 went the full
length of Baja, TWICE! I make that just about 2000 miles! The 2002 Baja 1000 went all the way to La Paz, check your map, I think that is still about
1000 miles.
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Neal Johns
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Location: Lytle Creek, CA
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Hey guys,
I posted the chapter verbatim for the good stuff in it. Author Homer Aschmann (decesed) was a Geographer so when someone ate a bush or left a berm it
hurt him. That said, the massive swath cleared for the highway ate more bushs than the racers did.
I have traveled much of the old road (as my wife did in 1967 before my time) and agree with Mama Espinosa "Bad roads, good people; Good roads, bad
people"
My motto:
Never let a Dragon pass by without pulling its tail!
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David K
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This is an excellent thread... I agree so much with thebajarunner, as well. You can still see Parnelli Jones' and Bill Stroppe's donated vehicles at
Santa Ynez, for example.
I am so very lucky my dad made the long trip to the tip in '66 and dragged my mom and I along... I was very young, but the images are etched in my
mind:
Gravity gas pump at Bradley's in Colonet, 100 miles a day maybe, rare cold beer (for my dad) from a kerosene refrigerator at Rancho San Agustin, dust
bowl before Chapala that covered our Jeep so you couldn't see and a dry lake after (the worst and best of the old road), really remote villages of
Punta Prieta and El Arco, switch back grade to Santa Rosalia requiring a back up to make the turn, buying aviation fuel at San Lucas Cove airport ,
the pet deer at a hotel in Mulege, camping solo on El Requeson with clams so thick just under the water, getting invited to join locals eating turtle
stew at San Miguel Comondu, dining at Rancho Buena Vista family style and trying to convince the disbelieving pilots that we DROVE from Tijuana and
not via the new ferry from Mazatlan, panga fishing for dorado off Cape San Lucas (a cannery town). The peninsula and its people are just fantastic!
Yes, Baja has infected me... I even was invited to pit for the racers starting in '78 and was a codriver in the first Score race to La Paz... what a
thrill (even though we broke early)!!
Thanks Neal for posting the Baja Highway story... I did see the peninsula before the highway, then saw and documented it's construction in the summer
of '73, then returned in '74 to drive the full length. I sure hated to see so many boojums bite the dust in the construction... some of the oldest
plants on earth!
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thebajarunner
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3718
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Location: Arizona....."Free at last from crumbling Cali
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Baja Highway
To Neal and David... thanks for your added comments. I understand the "quote nature" of the first post, and I understand even better your personal
comments which seem to mirror mine.
After the 1972 Mexican 1000, which we finished second in the pickup class, I wrote a 150 page personal memoir of the whole event. About every five
years I dig it out and re-read it. It never ceases to charge all the old batteries. You mentioned Mama Dona Espinosa.... remember when her lobster
burritos really had lobster? I can still taste them, last time I stopped there it was all mayo and something strange. Ah well.
Yep, we still go down, spent a great week on the beach over the ridge from Papa Fernandez' this Spring, drove my family pickup truck 85 m.p.h. up to
Orfanito... (at least until I stood it on its front bumper)
Enough memories, thanks for chiming in.
thebajarunner comes from the Firestones we bought from Parnelli and Marv Porter, they were called "Baja Runners"
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Ski Baja
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The old Baja
On a brighter note, there are still some places.
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David K
Honored Nomad
Posts: 64845
Registered: 8-30-2002
Location: San Diego County
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J.R., where's the rest of your post?
Bajarunner, you may remember Marv and Aletha Patchen, also Judy Smith and John Howard, from the old Baja race days. All four have attended my last two
Viva Baja parties. Aletha and Judy were perhaps the first women off raod racers (Jean Calvin has passed away). I would very much wish to invite you to
my next Viva Baja party... Have a look at the last one: http://davidksbaja.com/vivabaja4
I wonder if we can get Parnelli to come, driving the Big Oly Bronco? He lives near Carlos Fiesta...
Drop me a U2U from this board or email me from my web site... if interested.
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thebajarunner
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3718
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Location: Arizona....."Free at last from crumbling Cali
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Baja Highway
David, will contact you later off this post.
Sure, remember Judy Smith and Jean Calvin very well, spent a bit of time on the pre-run road with them once. And always good for some quips in the
pits, so to speak. I wrote a couple of items for Jean and her "Off-road Advertiser" which was a really good publication for all offroaders, latest
news, gossip, etc.
Parnelli, would be great to get him to an event. I have some contact with him, and have some mutual friends who have closer contact. Let me give it
a try.
My first trip down was 1971 1000, pitting at El Arco, when the Big Oly Bronco thundered into town my whole perspective on life changed. Never forget
P.J. sitting upright in the drivers seat while Stroppe took a quick dash around to see all four corners, then back in. They offered Parnelli a drink
and he never took either hand off the steering wheel, just shook his head and flew out of town in a cloud of rocks- not dust.
(I was also sitting in the motor home of his partner, Marv Porter, at Mike's Sky Ranch during the 500 when Parnelli killed the biker who was riding
backwards on the course. That was a grim afternoon.)
Baja Vida!!
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Neal Johns
Super Nomad
Posts: 1687
Registered: 10-31-2002
Location: Lytle Creek, CA
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BajaRunner, you know Spencer Murray? He's still going strong at 76.
My motto:
Never let a Dragon pass by without pulling its tail!
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thebajarunner
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3718
Registered: 9-8-2003
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Baja Highway
Neal, sorry, don't recall Spencer.
My last off-road partner was Darold MacDannald, we drove "Old Blue" the saddest excuse for a pickup truck racer you ever saw, but boy did we fly.
I think Darold was in mid-70's age when he won the Parker SCORE race.
He died at 84 a couple years ago. Two weeks before he died he had me start up his truck and just sit and listen to the engine for a few minutes. Oh
yeah, Darold lost a leg at age 21, never slowed him up a bit.
Spencer probably remembers Darold.
After we retired Old Blue the boys built a Ford Ranchero and the first race, the SCORE Laguna Salada 250 they had a really bad crash and the
co-driver, Stanley, was killed. I was supposed to be in that seat but had a conflict- went to Haiti on a mission project and missed it.
Fate is strange, isn't it??
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David K
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If I have my facts correct, the race that Parnelli hit the motorcycle (not a racer, but a vacationer going the wrong way on the course) was the July
1974 Score 'Baja Internacional'. That was the first Score race in Baja, and NORRA still had legal rights to the name 'Baja 500', but we all called it
the '500', anyway! The motorcycle's fuel tank exploded in the c-ckpit of PJ's Bronco. PJ and Stroppe (or Russell?) were burned. Parnelli never raced
the Big Oly Bronco again.
I was at Mike's Sky Rancho, where Score required a 1 hour down time for each racer.
The first Score Baja 1000 ('75) saw PJ in a bright yellow 2WD Chevy Blazer and team mate Walker Evans also in a yellow Chevy truck. I was at Valle
Trinidad and later at the Sulfur Mine on the return loop.
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thebajarunner
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Baja Highway
David, I think your dates are correct, I would have to dig way down to find otherwise. Parnelli gathered up that idiot in the forest out of Ojos
Negros, the dummy and his buddy were riding backwards on the course, they hopped up on the berm to let a truck go by, then dropped back on the road,
PJ was drafting the truck, and yes, he did get burned. I drove our Mercury truck the first half, my partner Gary drove the second, Marv Porter had
promised to make us lunch at the one hour break, when we got into his motorhome he told us the sad news about his partner Parnelli, then still made us
tuna sandwiches, funny how you remember the little things. I think we finished fourth, I do know that we finished.
You forgot to insert the "ill-fated" Baja Sports Committee, the local wise-guys who tried to take over the sport from Ed and Don at NORRA. They did
the 1973 1000, didn't pay us off for a year (we got a fourth in pickups in that one too) and then they promised to give all the profits to Baja
orphanages, what a joke, they were gone by 1974 and Mickey and Sal brought SCORE to Baja. We ran every one of those races, finished every one, as
well, those were great days.
Ah well, back to Speedvision.
By the way, someone should write about the great Marvin Porter. He lived his retired years in San Felipe and Ensenada. Long time partner of Parnelli
in the Firestone deal, had a terrible crash in the 1972 1000 in a Ford Ranger (Chuck and I were just about first on the scene after his wreck up by El
Rosario) Marvin was a West Coast stock car champion, a great guy and a total Baja nut.
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David K
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Great stuff, BajaRunner!
The 1973 BSC Baja Mil (1000) was the first off road race I saw. My dad and I went to Ensenada and saw registration, then drove east of Ojos Negros,
just beyond the end of thepavement, to watch the racers go by.
Mickey Thompson camped next to us, as he did not qualify or some reason (his racer pickup was on the trailer, he pulled).
Baja Sports Commitee used Score rules, so don't know why Mickey couldn't pass them...?
Yah, I heard you racers got a set of Samsonite luggage instead of prize money! BSC ran a "Mexican/Baja 500" a few months later, but with few racers
willing to trust them, Score was a welcome relief to take over the races.
Ed Pearlman kept trying to promote a NORRA event, in Baja Sur... but the Baja racing business was stolen from him, and he never pulled it off after
his final event, the '73 Baja 500. Parnelli Jones was the overall winner then, even though he rolled Big Oly at least 3 times!
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thebajarunner
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Baja Highway
Great memories, David.
Mickey Thompson, what a great guy he was. Always had a super-exotic truck (including relief tubes attached to the front of the bucket seat so he and
Danny would not have to stop and take a leak) but they always managed to break their trucks. We got to go to his shop for a pickup class rules
meeting in 1974. All the truck guys were there, Walker Evans, Bill Stroppe, Ak Miller, Mickey, Danny, and then us "homeboys" from Modesto. Hanging
from the shop ceiling were the old land speed cars, a couple dragsters and an Indy Car. And Mickey let us prowl through everything, one really great
guy. Anyway, the 1973 500 was a bummer for me. My Mom informed me that she was praying that I would not race. So, three weeks before the race I
broke my leg in a company football game. Called home and said "Stop praying, Mom!"
My guys broke MY TRUCK.... and PJ rolled 3 times on the graded, soon to be paved road outside of Ojos Negros, early morning en route to the finish.
Supposedly the third time they rolled Bill looked at PJ and said "See what your crazy driving has gotten us?!" And PJ growled back "Shut the f*** up
Stroppe, my crazy driving got us here so we can still win after you help me tip this thing back over and we get outta here."
They don't make 'em like that anymore!
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David K
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This was a great thread... just bringing it back up!
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bajalou
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Thanks David, I missed it the first time around.
No Bad Days
\"Never argue with an idiot. People watching may not be able to tell the difference\"
\"The trouble with doing nothing is - how do I know when I\'m done?\"
Nomad Baja Interactive map
And in the San Felipe area - check out Valle Chico area |
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bajalera
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Neal's original post is a chapter in a book that includes some other interesting info on Baja California and on geography in general--The Evolving
Landscape: Homer Aschmann's Geography, by Martin Pasqualetti and John Jackson.
Race-car guys, you're in good company--Homer also disapproved of the Sierra Club. He'd have hoisted a friendly brew or two with you, anyway.
bajalera
\"Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest never happen at all. The conscientious historian will correct these defects.\" -
Mark Twain
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Pompano
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A fine read on the history of the Baja road...
Thanks for bringing it back up, David. I might never have read it otherwise. Congratulations to NealJohns, the original researcher/geographer,
Homer Aschmann and also the Baja racers. You can read their love and concern for this land.
We all love Baja and it's people or we wouldn't live here..or keep coming back for so many years. Like yourself and so many others, I made a few
pre-highway trips down here to Baja Sur...first time with my dad in a small plane from North Dakota in 1959 (an epic adventure in itself) to
Mulege/Rcho Bueno Vista and later in the 60's by 4 X 4 specialty vehicles overland on El Camino Real and sidetrails. While we may have covered much
of the same ground as the drivers in the Baja races later to come, we were definitely 'not racers!' More like turtles.
Our first pre-highway trips were a little different than today's easy air-conditioned cruises listening to XM radio. From those early trips I
came to share the same love of the country and its people as the people on this forum. Especially the pre-highway country and village people. It
reminded me of the far North where I came from..same wilderness-like areas, same friendly and trusting people..just a whole lot warmer!! The way we
drove, as compared to the Baja Race.. was a whole lot SLOWER...3 weeks from San Quentin to Coyote Bay is not exactly racing!..gave us time to inspect
the countryside, make lots of exploratory hikes to rock paintings, see missions, have great campfire talks, and meet lots of friendly folk at remote
rancheros. I also remember the old Boleo Copper Company buildings at Sta. Rosalia...the firm that carved out the first good road to Mulege and back
to San Ignacio. You had to drive underneath quite a bit of overhanging machinery to get around that plant near the waterfront. Much of the
machinery, railcars, and huge cauldrons have since disappeared..to be used as decor at some Pta. Chivato mansions. I will attach a photo of one of
the old buildings.
As a ancedote to the racing, one of my neighbors, Jake, was accidentely sideswiped by Parnelli Jones on the old trail long ago. Jake rolled,
but came through it okay and is still going strong..hosting the Brass Monkey Rally here last year.
Thanks again, David, for the nostalgia posting. Keep it up. You got me in the mood for a camping trip ... and some good campfire get-togethers.
I do what the voices in my tackle box tell me.
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Sharksbaja
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Hwy 1 de ja vu
Whoa.... It is coming back to me. This post somehow rattled some grey matter loose and I see clearer now.This is good info. I'm sorry, I have been
absent for 30 or so years and Baja was a faded but deeply etched memory. I guess I traded in Baja(and other) exploits for marrage, kids and a house in
the country.
We are back. But just us, not the trucks, cars & crews. Since we got a little grass shack last March I have focused of bringin ourselves up to snuff
on present day Baja and the condition its in. I really have learned more from the threads herein than I could have hoped for. I suppose had I not been
thrown in Ensenada jail because my buttcrack friend got in a drunkin scuffle with an official I would have continued my quests in Baja. By growing up
in So. Cal on the ocean and being obsessed with diving, fishing seafood.... same good chit in Baja. I was serious interested in Bajas' immense and
varied sealife and desert But in the early seventies, man (Near L.A. Cal) I could bring home scallops, abs, big ol bugs and things like spider crabs
and large octopus. And I was not very old. Ooops,
Back to the thread.... In 1970 I built-up
a 1300 VW baja bug and along with an Land Rover and an old Willies pickup we took them the length of Baja (old pics later). NEVER WILL FORGET THAT!
It was strange, you could drive on the oll track for hours and then suddenly 10 or 20 D-8 and graders and dump trucks everywher tearing up the earth
and then a mile later, back on the old track for hours until the next assault on the earth. The dust was everywhere In 1971
We took off from San Felipe(wernt much thar) and made it to Mulege to stay a bit.
Switch to presnt day
Well, I don't see the Clams,and where are all the Clams. Conches, where are all the Conches. It hurts. We did see many shells at Punta Chivato but
methinks a lot of those are from the not to recent hurricane. I hope now that we have the ability to do mo divin n stuff we find those excellent
islands for diving teeming with life. SAY YES.
The road certainly has not generated disparate retail or service development although I understand the road now has service hoses and cables running
its entire length. There is water down there,just need mucho power to get at it. Now that they have power along there is it even accessable or made
available to farmers or landowners near it. It is a question I ponder.
Hope we get a chance to meet some of ya.
Gotta find those old Ektachrome slides.
Or were those Kodachrome??
Sharksbaja
When on the Oregon Coast, please visit us at Sharks
We are shark friendly...
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