Baja 1K story from 301

Here is a fantastic story from my brother-in-law who raced in the Baja 1,000. I have added a link to the YouTube site and a few pictures of there vehicle.

Our race began at 12:44, we were first off the line in class 3.

By the end of the concrete the 300 had caught us and passed us before we turned off into the dirt. I had planned to take it easy as I did not want to end up on someones YouTube footage for screwing up in the first few miles after the start.

At around rm 50 near El Alamo we caught and passed the 300 and were about to put a few minutes on them until we had a flat near rm 85 were they passed us back before we could get the tire changed.

We made good time through the dry lake where we put our Dougan's horsepower to use we were about to pass 5 or 6 cars. We again caught and passed the 300 in the rough south of San Felipe. At the BFG pit at rm 242 we discovered that we had broken the end off our sway bar, we took a few minutes to secure the arm that remained up and of the way and the 300 was able to come in, fuel and leave before we were squared away to go.

The next section was really frustrating; despite SCORE posting on the website that no chase teams were to use the race course to cross from Gonzaga over HWY 1 there were dozens of them. It was infuriating to charge through the dust only to find a loaded chase truck be the source of the dust.

We made it to Coco's and into the creek. We were really glad to have 4x4 at this point. When we arrived at the bad spot it looked like the river scene from "Apocalypse Now" with the people shouting and lights shining everywhere. My co-dog pointed to a bank on the right and we blasted up it and through the willows and we drove around the whole mess.

At about rm 330 just before El Crucero we heard a clunking in the front end, we saw some lights up ahead and pulled over at a camp i what appeared to be the middle of nowhere. We lucked out that the camp was occupied by a group of mechanic from Guerrero Negro. The problem turned out to be the axle shaft that comes out of the third member had broken. We took the drive flanges off tied the long axle out of the way and limped it to rm 335 where our chase team met us at the Baja pits. At the pit, we removed the long axle and slip joint and prepared to continue on with 2 wheel drive only.

We made it to our driver change where I got out of the car on the Bay of LA hwy near rm 360. My brother Dan and his co-dog Jeff Saunders took over. Somewhere in that section Dan got by the 300 and arrived at Vizcaino with about a 20 minute lead. The 300 reeled us in and passed Dan on the fast section near San Jaunico and had a 10 minute lead by the time they came out onto the hwy north of Loreto.

The next section was really rough with very steep hill climbs and lots of rocks. On one of these climbs we rolled a rock up under the car and high centered on the drive shaft. At the river change at rm 781 we replaced the drive shaft and the air filter and sent the car on its way driven by "Old School 8" Mike Doherty and my godson Jameson Hall.

While on our way to Insurgentes we learned that the car was stopped with what was reported to be a broken spindle at rm 830. We stopped at an auto parts store and junk yard in Insurgentes, bought some bearings and a few parts off a junker F150 and sent the prerunner Bronco out to the race car. We cobbled it together enough to limp it to the BFG pit where we loaded the prerunner Bronco onto the trailer and robbed the spindle and related parts to put on the race car.

We got out of the there little after 10pm with around 230 miles to go. The fog was horrible and made chasing a challenge. As we headed south we lost radio contact with the race car and for what seemed like an eternity then from our post at rm 950 we heard the car was running and they came by a few minutes later.

After the final BFG pit we got stuck in the silt like nearly everyone else, fortunately an enterprising local was close at hand with a 4x4 pick up and offered to give us a tow for 20 bucks.

I was excited that we were going to finish and decided to take the whole group into town so we could caravan with the racecar to the finish. This turned out to be a big mistake and a case of counting the chickens before they hatch. As while waiting we got a call from my wife at home saying the race car was stopped at rm 1040, damn!

We turned around and blasted back up the road a second bearing on the spindle with the axle removed had failed and we lost a wheel at speed and crashed into a 4 foot deep rain rut. After getting two chase trucks into the car and hooking them up in tandem we were able to pull the car out of the ditch so we could survey the damage. The damage was not too bad and we had another set of bearings with us so we repaired the car a quickly as possible and when we were ready to go we hit the starter and it went "clunk" the angle was so severe that the gas from the fuel bowls drained into the cylinders causing a hydro lock. We removed the spark plugs cranked her over, pushed out the gas, replaced the plugs and it fired right up.

During the stop the 303 came by us in a hurry to get to the finish as they were very close on time, by now we knew that we were not going to make it on time but we were going to drive it in anyway. On the way we passed the 303 sitting dead with lots of oil in the trail. We sent our chase truck back for them and headed to the finish.

So in summary, we made it to the finish 45 minutes late to get an official finish. We should have done more to seal the inner portion of the spindle to protect the bearings from the silt. I am proud of everyone on the team for pushing hard all the way to the end. We learned a lot and proved that we could run well, we will be hard to beat at the 500.

YouTube Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVX99Cw13aA&feature=player_embedded