My Road to the NORRA Mexican 1000 2017
The Biggest Adventure of them All
1,300 + Mile Off-Road Motorcycle Race through Baja Mexico
A wild 12-month journey preparing to race the toughest terrain on the planet, Mexico’s Baja Peninsula. Here we go…
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Of course, skip all the dribble if you like and just check out the photos
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Race Morning:
I’m up at 4 AM to start slamming prune juice, yogurt, a protein shake a cliff bar and a little coffee. I can feel myself shaking inside but it’s a familiar shake, nothing I haven’t had before, it just feels more intense. There is time so I try to relax and stay cool. ” Hipster tries to calm me “Consider this a training day. Just don’t crash and don’t get lost” All good advice, a crash could end the race, and getting lost…not fun.
Staging starts at 5:30 AM so I mount up at 5. Of course, the carburetor is pouring gas out it’s overflow as soon as I turn on the petcock, and now the bike is flooded. I try pulling in the compression release and kicking it a dozen times to clear the cylinder. It still does not start. Hipster helps push the bike up a hill at the Ranch so we can attempt to push start it. The first attempt it finally fires up but quickly kills. One more push up the hill did it, she fires up but is still pouring gas out the carb. I throttle the petcock closed and just continue to proceed up the HP Ranch driveway, hoping the bumps will seat the carburetor needle before I get to the starting line.
It is still dark with a blanket of fog at the top of the HPR driveway. I have my clear goggles on but they keep dewing up. I slowly tool into Ensenada.
The starting Line:
Most of the motos are here already. I’m surprised to find I’m starting right around the middle of the pack, I have no motorcycle race experience at all, I have X-motocross and Desert racers behind me. I think to myself (WTF!) Everyone is cool, I rally with FirePig, DJ and their crews right away, this helps calm me down, we are all excited and anxious to start. FirePig exclaims “Trail Ride today boys” Just what I needed to hear, I can trail ride all day…
I am beside myself.
The 1st section is a twenty some mile transit section. I guess we have enough time to run the transit sections at posted speeds with an extra 20 minutes or so added in to get gas, food, fix your bike or just chill if you want. I’m not too hip on how to handle these transits yet and basically line up at the transit end, sign in and blast off. The first race section was through farmland with sections shaded by trees. I was riding fast and was freaked out by some super deep gullies I could have hit, but did not. I stopped for a disabled bike, I think it was an Australian, he lost two 8mm bolts holding on is front brake caliper. I had nothing to help him but zip ties and he wanted bolts. He said he already gave a farmer some money to see if he can find some bolts in town. I blast off.
There are more deep gullies and fast riding. This type of riding feels familiar to me, like the back roads and fire lanes of Northern Wisconsin.
I pass another disabled biker, his Bib Mousse tube was completely outside of his tire. Again, I could do nothing. He said he will just have to call his support team for rescue. I blast off.
At one point in a village FirePig and I hook up to compare navigation notes, we both missed an obscure turnoff that went right through a Pimex station just a 100 meters back. That was lucky. Even that small amount of backtrack means we need to adjust our odometers to the exact mileage the turnoff is marked on the roadbook. For some reason my odometer does not want to cooperate, I cannot adjust it to save my life. I continue on subtracting two tenths of a mile from what the odometer reads.
Hipster was there waiting at the first Mag-7 moto gas pit. What a welcome sight. He tells me I’m kicking ass. I slam a protein bar and a ton of water the Mag-7 dudes gave me, and blast off.
These Mag-7 guys are the best, offering me anything I want, food, water, drink. They check my oil when my fingers don't work. Their support is totally what made me think I could pull this off solo. Thanks a ton guys!
The race navigation is all consuming, sometimes having to make several turns within a mile. I see another rider coming straight at me. He blasts right past like he knows he is going the right way. But at that point I know I am going the right way, so I keep going. Ten miles later I’m at a fence that is marked in the roadbook, but the turns at the fence do not match the compass heading of the turns in the roadbook. I ride to one end of the fence to the other several times looking for a road with the correct compass heading, but there are none. At this point I know I’m lost, I can see my tracks but no other biker tracks. I pan back through the roadbook looking for the turn I goofed up on. I find it, at mile 11.36, the roadbook says turn right xx degrees onto the “Dry Lake Bed” I did turn at that mile mark at the right degrees but did not go onto any dry lake bed. Crap, my odometer says mile 28.7, I need to go back a long way and look for the dry lake bed. That hurt a lot, I'm a navigator.
Luckily the dry lake bed is obvious to see but the trail leading onto it is not, I had a hard time determining that any other bikes have been down the trail I chose, but it was correct, I raced over several lake beds where other motos have been down. Now I just have to subtract 36.8 miles from what my odometer says to navigate (big eyes)
I’m making good time but the sand is getting deeper and the whoops taller. Soon I’m riding through long fields of giant sandy whoops and I’m getting toasted. I’m concerned I’m lost again. I know I’m close to San Felipe and I know what direction it must be in so I finally pitch the roadbook and start navigation by the seat of my pants. Finally, I hit a firmer less bumpy dirt road leading north and south. I look and think hard. I turn North. I ride fast looking for a trail leading East toward San Felipe. The road Ts, I pull off to think. In a flash a Trophy truck flies by in a cloud of dust. I look up and see a helicopter chasing the truck. HS this must be the leader. And I envision a bunch of trophy trucks to follow. I have no good option, this cloud of dust is my only correct route to San Felipe. I blast off as soon as I could see. It wasn’t long before I hear the loud audible and red triangle flash on the Stella bob. I quickly pull off the course and signal the dudes behind me they are good to pass. It was like a beautiful ballet, it all happened so fast, the signal, the pull off, the return signal the pass. VAARROOM! DUST!.....WOW!
This went on for twenty minutes with half a dozen trucks passing. I wasn’t going to ride slow or stop letting more 4-wheelers catch and pass me. So I rode hard trying to navigate by the dust clouds that fade away fast. This did get me into San Felipe to the finish line without missing any waypoints, avoiding penalties. Hipster, FirePig and support crew were all there with beer and shade, all good…
I picked up a wad of fish line somewhere before San Felipe.
We are all spent.
Right on my A___
My body feels spent. There is no Mag-7 tote transport truck with my tent in sight. Hipster and I head out to look for a motel and immediately score a cheap place where a lot of other racers are and several moto dudes.
It’s early so we take a walk along the San Felipe malecon in search of fish tacos.
This is the same place Heidi and I ate back in 05’. With all the growth since then not much else is recognizable. But it for sure will do.
Back to the racer party in San Felipe. This is great, food, drink and tons of Baja conversations. It was great talking with our table of novice Trophy Truck Light racers. They rented the truck, the support and hotels from one provider, kind of like what BajaBoundMoto does but with Trophy Truck Lights. These are just four guys from California who wanted to do something extremely cool, before anyone gets married. The first day they put the truck on its side and had to get pulled upright. We get the millisecond account, how fantastic! They call us “Bad Ass” for racing and chasing on bikes. The atmosphere and spirits are hi-octane, this is part of why we love racing, the energy in the air being spewed out is insane.
We wait until 8 PM for the racer meeting. I ask the question “does anyone know where the Mag-7 tote box truck is? I need my stuff” The answer is a positive “No”. So that means I am F’ed, no racer food, no racer drink, no oil and no prepped air filters. On the way back to the motel we pick up food and drink for the morning at a local Oxxo. Not my hi-tech race stuff but needed calories all the same. The body will figure out what to do with it.
The skin on 400’s air filter has dirt but not bad. We decided to go as is and rip off the skin if needed tomorrow. Besides that, everything else on the bike looks good.
Next I rip out the day-1 roadbook from the scroller box and wind in day-2. Everything is set. Now I just need to relax and sleep. My heart is pounding.
Day-2:
A perfect sunny cool morning for day-2. The race starts only a few blocks away from the motel, all right. I talked with another biker that was working on his bike in the parking lot of our motel last night, he said he was working on his bike until 2:00 AM. Ouch. This guy has an intensity in his face, at the same time a friendly smile. Mike Perlman gives all the bikers an individual talk “You know what the speed limit here is? 35. What is the speed limit here?” and he waits for you to answer. I feel good, the body feels worked but a good worked, not a beaten down worked. Ready to rock and roll.
The bikes lineup, the Flag, the Go. At mile 0.7 I crash hard and crank my right shoulder, the same shoulder I’ve been rehabilitating the past two years. It hurts, I pick up the bike, struggle to get her in neutral, clear the flooded cylinder and get it started again. Two guys with cameras just keep taking pics. Not a good way to start the day. I did get it started before the next biker came through, a good thing because I am blocking the entrance to a tunnel we all needed to ride through. Now I’m huffing and puffing but cool down as soon as I get moving again.
The trail starts with sandy bumpy roads, all good. After a transit zone ends, the course leads into salt plains with salt mountains lining the horizon, way cool. These are fast desert roads with sometimes deep sand. I ride as fast as I dare depending on the steering damper to keep me straight if the going suddenly gets tricky, which it does and it did.
Stay tuned for more fun in Baja Mexico…
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