Weekend Warrior: The Baja 500 Through the Eyes of a Rookie

Seven churros, two tamales, a hamburger, and a slice of pizza: this is what I ate as I sat in the dirt at the finish of the 2005 SCORE Baja 500. After pounding myself for fifteen and a half hours, I had just received the checkers on the longest day of my life. I felt like I had been hit by a truck. My decision to attempt the Baja 500 solo was pretty ambitious, but looking back, it was one of the best decisions I have ever made.

I hatched the idea to race the Baja 500 while day dreaming in class one day. I love to hear stories of epic journeys, and I think it's amazing what the human body can endure when it really has to. The Baja 500 was something that I could test myself with. I wanted to do this thing alone. Everyone I talked to gave me a long list of reasons why I couldn't do it. "You'll get lost, you'll get run over by a truck, you'll fall asleep" and on and on. There were a million reasons why I wouldn't make it to the finish, but I just could not get the idea out of my head. If I could pull it off, this would be something I could tell my grandkids about someday.

I have never been blazing fast on a dirt bike. As a twenty year old college student, I don't get to ride as often as I would like. I usually head out to REM's Saturday motocross for my weekly mid-pack finish in the novice class. However, I do consider myself a smart racer, and I don't crash that much. I have also been trail riding in Baja and have seen parts of the course before. I figured that if there was any mid-pack novice that could do it, I was the one. I gave my father a call, and he said that he would support the effort. We faxed in my entries, signed up for the Honda pits, and that was that.

A few months flew by and before I knew it my family and I were on the drive down to the border. My preparation was a little shaky. My ride was a five year old XR400. I had the motor taken care of by a professional, but some of the details were missing. One of the big ones was my steering stabilizer, which I found out the night before was not going to fit. The other part of my preparation that was lacking was my pre-running. I hadn't done any. With final exams starting the Monday after the race, I was short on time and never got to go down to look at the course. I really had no idea what I was up against and that made me uneasy.

The scene in Ensenada the day before the race was pretty intimidating. For blocks around the starting line it was a standing room only crowd of fans checking out the race vehicles, drinking adult beverages, and just being rowdy. Loud music and lots of activity left me a bit frazzled. I made my way through sign-up with no problems. My buddy Tim Morton instructed me when going through technical inspection to "act like this ain't my first rodeo" and cut to the front of the line. My dad and I made the mistake of cutting the line so far that we went past the inspectors. Oops! We pushed my bike backwards through tech and were able to get the sticker so it worked out in the end.

With a few hours of light left, I threw on my riding gear to go check out the first section of the course. Coming back on the crowded surface streets the bike started cutting out when I made left turns, and three blocks from the hotel it just sputtered to a stop. It turned out the decompression cable was snagging on something. Tim fixed it all up. I was glad I had run into this problem a day early. Disaster averted! However, at this point I started thinking that I had bitten off more than I could chew. Everyone I talked to thought I was crazy for riding my first Baja race solo, and thought I was just plain stupid for not pre-running. On top of that I couldn't even get my bike through the first five miles without a problem. I had some serious self-doubt. I tried to put it out of my mind and get some rest.

My eyes were wide open all night. Not an ounce of sleep. At four thirty in the morning the alarm went off, and I got my gear on and headed to the start. The sky was overcast as I was sitting on the starting line in the pre-dawn darkness. I had drawn the first starting spot out of the twenty-seven entries in the Open Sportsman Class. My time came up and I put on my goggles. I could hardly see out of my dark lenses. I quickly added lens selection to the mental checklist of things that I had screwed up, and at 6:22:30 I received the green flag.

I soon learned the coolest thing about Baja: the fans. They were camped out all over the place. The "jumps" that kids had dug on the course were more like bumps, but I indulged them nonetheless. Coming through Ojos Negros, thousands of spectators lined the road. They were going crazy. Guys were standing in the middle of the road giving me the "throttle wrist", helmetless fans raced next to me two to a quad, and everyone was yelling and waving. I have never had people cheering for me like that before, so even though it was a little dangerous, I still appreciated it. What was taking place was truly exceptional: I was racing my motorcycle through the middle of town, and everyone who lived there was cheering about it. Only in Mexico!

I worked my way down the scenic Pacific coast and met my family at mile 135. Other than a quick wave at mile 80, this was the one and only spot that they would see me during the race. My father put a fresh air filter in the bike while I gnawed on a PB and honey sandwich. I topped off my water, told my dad that he had nothing to worry about, and got back on the bike. One mistake that we had made during preparation was not getting a communication device. This oversight would take its toll on my father as the day wore on. I waved goodbye as I was grabbing gears down the highway. That was the last that they would hear of me until the finish line, which was about 300 miles away.

Soon after that, I learned the worst thing about Baja: the trophy trucks. You don't know fear until you look back and see one of these 800 horsepower beasts rearing down on your back fender. Around mile 230 I started seeing choppers a few miles back, signaling the arrival of the first trucks. I went into panic mode and was in on all out sprint to the famous Mike's Sky Ranch about twenty miles ahead. I could hear the choppers above me as I pulled into Mike's completely out of breath. As I turned off the course and into the pit area, I looked back to see the lead trophy truck of Robby Gordon come around the corner. His truck shook the earth as he ripped the road to shreds, sending up a cloud of blinding dust. It was intense. I took a break to let the first few trucks come through, but my legs were still shaking when I got going again. On a fast section out of Mike's I had the pleasure of being passed by the McMillan's Class 1 buggy, which was going well over one hundred miles per hour. Like I said, you don't know fear until you have one of these monsters behind you.

As scary as the four-wheelers were, there were also plenty of weird things to laugh about along the way. For some reason, one of the pit crews had inflatable women propped up on the side of the road. They all laughed when they saw me jerk my head around to look. Later on, I was riding down some deep sandy two-track, and there were two big empty beer boxes strategically placed in each groove of the trail. As I came around the next turn a girl had an ice chest full of beer and tried to hand me one. It wouldn't surprise me if somebody actually stopped.

As the sun was getting low around mile 320, fatigue started to set in. Shortly thereafter, I found out my hydration system was empty. My stomach had hunger pains, and my condition started going downhill fast. The next fifty miles was a total blur of exhaustion. I couldn't stand anymore, and I started to have problems with my vision. The only thing that kept me going was the occasional adrenaline rush from being passed by a truck.

When I got off the bike at my last gas stop, I was really hurting. Fortunately, the crew at Honda Pit 8 had exactly what I needed: Gatorade, granola bars, and cute girls. I really owe them for letting me eat their food and for bringing me back to a normal state. With my bike and stomach full of fuel, I got ready to take on the last leg of my journey.

The sun had just set over the hills, and another point of my weak preparation came to my attention. My stock headlight was pretty dim, and was pointing downwards. When I accelerated, the bike sat back, and I could see. When I braked, the front end would dive, and everything would go black. Braking into turns was sketchy, but I used little blips of the throttle to get a quick glimpse of the road when I needed it. The other interesting thing about this light was that it got brighter as the engine revved. The hot ticket for this situation was riding pinned in second gear with the engine bouncing off the rev limiter. My riding technique must have been pretty amusing to watch. Fortunately, Baja isn't about looking cool; it's about doing what you have to do to get to the finish.

Going into the last twenty miles, thick fog set in, adding to my problems. Just as I could see the lights of Ensenada, I took a wrong turn and got myself lost. By the time I realized that I was off course, I couldn't see any lights and I had lost my sense of direction. Luckily, a fan in a truck had followed after me when I took the wrong turn. He came rambling up the road in his pickup and pulled up next to me. He didn't speak English, but he waved for me to follow him, and he led me back to the course. Like I said, the fans are the best part of Baja!

As I made my way through the streets of Ensenada, the spectators were cheering louder than ever. I felt like a soldier returning from war. I negotiated the final sandwash, and as I popped up into the baseball stadium at 9:46 P.M., the feeling of accomplishment was overwhelming. The first person I saw was my dad who looked like the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders. I rode down into the crowd, and was instantly mobbed by fans. I signed dozens of autographs and gave my gloves to some eager kids. It was an awesome experience.

I definitely put some grey hairs on my father that day. He hadn't seen me for eleven hours, and had no communication or any form of updates on me. The poor guy had been sitting at the finish line well into the night, watching truck after truck pull in, with no idea as to my situation. For all he knew, I could have broken down at mile 150 and could still be sitting there. If I was to go back in time, I would definitely bring a phone.

Finishing the Baja 500 was the biggest accomplishment of my life. The odds were stacked against me, and I managed to pull it together and make it to the finish. Something about fifteen and half hours in the saddle really clears your head. Enduring all the dangers of Baja, the high speeds, and the physical and mental fatigue really puts everything in perspective. Its like the volume gets turned down, and whatever life throws at you is not such a big deal anymore.

The question I have gotten the most after this is "Are you going to do it again next year?" Absolutely not. There is no way that I would solo the Baja 500 again next year. I have been wondering what the 1000 would be like though....

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