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| So tired but so Bueno. |
The last 1000 had a lot of moving parts with 8 guys from Florida, bikes shipped in crates and others coming from the Oregon ranch. With half of the guys never experiencing Baja the task was educate and push the pre-run miles everyday on both sides of the peninsula. With mucho intense preparation for race day everybody was listo for the 4 am start.
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| Jerry and I feeding the crew healthy hearty race fuel. |
The chosen bike Husky 510 the class 30 Pro Moto, off we go with Jerry from Panama except his serious black and blue groin got ripped again off the start and set our position back with a challenge of the hunt for the rest of the day and night to come. Its easy to say and a whole lot tougher to do but every person had to dig deep and keep pushing because as we all know You first must finish before you can finish first!
The whole Los Perdidos (the Lost) found thier way working hard every mile with the whole team being able to shadow the whole race never missing a pit or rider exchange keeping everybody's involvement was inspiring, fun, and hard but well worth the effort!
As the long day turned to night in Catavina, EB was just getting off the bike ripping the toughest section like ET floating across the Baja sky! Up to 5th place and hunting down 4th the boyz kept up the strong pace with fresh riders ready for the task. Trophy trucks, pitch black night, dust, crazy local fans, nothing stopped the hard push all the way to the finish line. Waking up after a couple hours sleep to find that you officially finished 3rd place was like telling your kids your heading to Disneyland for the first time. The sense of pride and hard effort was indeed heart felt by every team member and already had the feeling of oh crap we are hooked and looking forward to this years 1000. A big shout out to Amazing Willy for spearheading the whole idea of lets do this and trusting me to organize the plan.
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| The team gear is so Fly, thanks |
With no time to dally around I headed home to ready for 6 months of Captain Baja adventures meeting great new clients as well welcoming back many groups for there annual trip with us. Sometime this winter my good friend Greg said he was going to race the Norra 1000 and wanting me to race with him but no chance for me to commit knowing my schedule was full.
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| Waiting on a ride. |
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| Hangin' w Sean in the secret Loreto gardens. |
As things happen we had an injury cancellation and my time frame for the Norra was open so I called Greg and said I am in for supporting and chasing him and Marc!! The Norra 1000 is a lot of fun as it consumes 5 days of racing instead of straight through like the Score Baja 1000. The last time they attempted this race it was a nightmare with no help and fatigue set in and ended with a self induced blown motor (that's code for don't forget to tighten your oil plug!) This year the bike was ready the guys were ready and Sean and I were ready to get them to the finish line.
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| Marc having a blast on his rip through Comondu. |
I am not sure when the mental effect of leading a race comes into play but with Greg and Marc it seemed to just flow like a ice cold beer on a summer day. After day 2 the overall lead was in sight and both of them smelled the blood in the water and wicked it another notch and never looked back for the overall moto win! No problems to speak of, the bike still perfect after 1300 miles and only one crash with no foul. Good friends, awesome competition and a great race made this a special win and I am personally very proud of Greg and Marc for such a accomplishment and proud they wanted my help to make it happen.
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| Adventure on Gabe we miss you !! |
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| Greg used the last of his energy to lift the 40 pound overall trophy, |
3 years ago we had the privilege meeting 2 quite polite hardworking guys from AZ that wanted to join a group of riders for one of our adventures. Never being to Baja before they enjoyed everything Baja had to offer. Well to steal Neils catch phrase #captainbajaruinedmylife. As many clients go they questioned me about the Baja 1000 and racing down in Mexico but being as reserved and mellow as Brad and Clay are I never figured they would take on the serious effort and discipline to race a Baja race. The following year they came back for another adventure bringing another friend Primo Mike that we joined with a couple crazy Canucks also return clients. Knowing what your clients riding skills are is bueno for me especially when you know they are wanting to push for mas Baja or opening the book for me to kick there ass's in a good way! Again the questions about racing were more serious and soul searching for me. I reserved evaluation until we finished our adventure with more miles and difficulty.
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| These dudes were in great shape for the mission. |
Well hell ya the boyz can ride fast, smooth and smart so when they said lets make a plan to race, I suggested that the 1000 was a tough nut to crack for the first race so maybe the Baja 500 makes the best sense.
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| No really. |
With a plan set in motion the only thing to do was show up and race, Ha! Not really lots of plans put into motion many months before. Before you know, we are all meeting up in Ensenada. I always say the pre-running is the fun part of these big events and that turned out to be true for us. I did a bunch of prerunning with the boys, while Jae supported us boys playing in the dirt. 200 miles a day was the ticket for 6 days straight with amazing cool weather that gave us wings (it even froze up at Mikes 2 nights!) before you know it the race is almost here and the rest of the support team showed up to the great house we had for headquarters!
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| The Summit always makes me goofy. |
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| A bad taco can waste a couple days! No Bueno. |
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| Baja Pits Boyz need supplies the 10 days they are supporting us 4 hours from nowhere, Mucho Gracias Salud, uno mas tequila por favor |
As many heard the Baja 500 this year was gnarly tough all the way through but hey everybody has the same challenge right! The bikes started 4am and Clay was ready for the challenge but as we drove towards Ojos the thick morning fog started spitting mist/rain and oh shit it just doesn't get any more difficult. Nasty silt beds, lots of dust and misty rain that made you give up your goggles and bare knuckle it for the first 70 miles in the dark uhhh. Time passed waiting and waiting before the first riders started showing up looking like little kids that were playing in the mud then rolled in fresh silt. Wow, is all anyone could say, no goggles every person coming into the pits were done like stick a fork in you done!
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| Clay pushing early morning, who needs goggles for a Baja race. |
Clay showed with no issue except his eye balls, we were in 5th place and the race was on! Mike had all the fun he could stand over the summit and ripped that shit all the way to San Mateos were he picked up a few spots and hey we were in 2nd place only a few min off the leaders. We all have had those races were we battle with another team for a leg or few hundred miles but we had a tooth and nail fight with the 212X team all the way to the finish. Brad had the cross over to the pacific were his dad, chase 2 was waiting to support the run back North. Watching the live tracking from Score has gotten a lot better in recent years but its also a bit torturous, updates, no service, lapse in reporting, weatherman monitoring always ( Thanks a million for all you do) every team member is so emotionally involved it is hard to explain but addictive as hell and makes la famila out of the whole team even uncle Richard!
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| Primo Mike ripping a flat easy section Not! 3' whoops more like it. |
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| Brad playing in Mikes Sky Creek. |
To the finish line at Estero Beach, which felt like a insurance controlled environment but hey it was a forced issue with elections here and it worked. After another long leg for Clay it was Brad to finish the race and that he did still battle royal with the 212x team all the way to the line. Its hard to explain the pride I had for the whole team getting the job done and hey it looks like a podium but of course there is that penalty report that does not show official results until the next morning. As the whole team sat around the breakfast table dragging ass tired the official report posted and whoop whoop 2nd place it was! not tired anymore just jubilation!
For the first Brawley White Baja race it was a great adventure for all and I am sure not the last because as the title goes spread your wings and fly you fuzzy little fuckers you did it!
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| Proud Baja 500 finishers ! |
