You know how sometimes the simplest things turn out to be way more complicated and difficult than they have any right to be? Such was the case in getting from pit #4 to pit #5, a mere 35 course miles and maybe 50 miles on road (this was one of the cases where the course was a more or less straight line, but we had to go back to the highway and then south).
It was around this time that we heard from the race control radio channel that there had been a helicopter accident on course. Many of the top tier race teams use helicopters to ferry drivers and crew to driver change spots, to film their truck’s race, and so on. Oddly, they are not allowed to spot for the trucks (”You’re coming up on traffic” or “You’re a mile ahead of the guy behind you”), a restriction that I can’t believe is enforceable, and is therefore pretty questionable on the “don’t have rules you can’t enforce” principle.
Anyways, there was a lot of confusion surrounding what helicopter had crashed and under what circumstances. It eventually turned out that both pilot and passenger were killed, and two spectators were seriously injured. This is not the kind of news you want to hear any time, but especially only 200 miles into a 1269 mile race. This was on top of fairly constant radio traffic directing rescue and medic teams to injured racers (primarily motorcycles).
Finding the vicinity of pit #5 was not a problem. All we had to do was stop at a gas station and ask the good folks in another chase vehicle, and they helped us find the right turnoff to get to the pit area. The problem was in finding the goddamned pit itself. We found the parking lot full of spectators. We found a huge traffic jam with chase vehicles and trailers. We even found dirt roads that wandered off and went nowhere near the pit. Where the hell was the pit? While we were driving around looking for it, we contacted them by radio and heard that our truck was indeed there, had stopped, and was waiting for us.
A word about how pits work on the Baja 1000: large and well funded teams run their own pit stops using several chase vehicles which go to pit areas and set up tents, refueling stations, etc. However, most teams (including us) use one of several pit companies who have a bunch of pits scattered down the length of the course. In our case we were using Baja Pits. Without exception they were fantastically nice, well organized, well equipped, professional and competent.
However, they were not always easy for the chase vehicles to find, as we learned here at pit #5. We got them on the radio again and they helpfully informed us that they were easy to find had had a large dome light that we couldn’t miss. Well, ok, they were also somewhat down course from the main pit area and spectators. Down course? Like, on the race course? Yes. So we need to drive on the race course in our rental trucks and hope that nobody fast comes up behind us and runs us over? Yes, but only for a couple of miles. A couple of miles? Yes.
There wasn’t really anything for it but to get going. We carefully looked at the 100 feet or so of course that we could see and then drove as fast as we could. Fortunately the course here was pretty much a dirt road, so it wasn’t wildly impractical, just scary. Once or twice we saw lights behind us and hurriedly pulled over to let a race vehicle pass. But we did eventually make it to the pit.
And there was the truck, and Robb and Jimmy. I think everyone there was incredibly relieved, and we were all surprised that a 200 mile drive took 9 hours. The truck was also sporting an interesting jerry-rigged spare tire: someone had bumped them early in the race and the spare tire and come clean off. So they had stopped with one of our other chase vehicles who had spare tires and strapped one to the back of the truck in a not-pretty but entirely effective manner.
A quick note on passing in the Baja 1000: because you’re zipping along a dirt road at speed (low speed, often, but still driving hard), there’s a huge cloud of dust behind you. At most times, it is simply not possible to see if someone is coming up from behind. So the etiquette is that the passing vehicle charges into the dust cloud and bumps you from behind. These can be pretty ferocious bumps — enough to knock a well mounted spare tire right off a truck, apparently.
Anyways, as is normal in racing, after all of that waiting and driving and finding, it was a flurry of activity as we got Fern and Kalbas into the truck so they could continue for the next leg. They were getting the truck at about 8pm and would be driving about 300 miles. However, 60 miles of that was on a paved highway where they would be able to go 60mph (no more than that, or the GPS tracking would alert race officials who could penalize us). So we figured they’d be getting to the next driver change around 3am.
Once they were packed up in the trucks and zoomed off, we packed up the chase truck and headed off. We were all starving, so food was in order. After that, I planned to try to get a little bit of sleep, since Ed and I would be the next driving pair and it seemed we would start around 3am.
We found a great place to eat in El Rosaria (I had Arrachera — thanks for turning me on to that, Vic!). Just as we were walking in, we saw the next bit of bad news: an ambulance went screaming by, and through the windows we could see there were clearly members of a race team standing in it. A few minutes later, two tow trucks went by hauling a pair of fairly much totaled chase trucks (the numbers on the windows and spare tires in the beds made it clear what they were). We learned later that these two had had a head on accident. Ugh.
After dinner we headed out again, aiming for the next driver change. It was about 11pm and I figured I’d try to get a couple of hours of sleep in the chase truck so I wouldn’t be completely beat when I started driving at 3am. So the next thing I knew, we were at the next driver change and it was about 2am. So I figured I’d sleep a little more.
It wasn’t a good sleep, of course, so I was aware that hours were passing and that the truck had not appeared. Other members of our team who were foregoing sleep periodically reported that nothing had been heard from our truck and there was no ETA for its arrival, so I dozed off and on and waited for news.
Around 5am, we got word that the truck had been seen by a pit stop about 60 miles away from us, and that the course between us was medium speed, so they should get in around 7am. It was starting to get light, and by 6am spectators were starting to appear on the course, which ran through the beautiful of Bahia de Los Angeles (BOLA). When I say “starting to appear”, I mean “starting to play loud Mexican oompa-loompa music and drink Tecate.” So sleep was pretty much done at that point.
I got up, hung out with the guys, and walked around the town a bit. There were several other crews in town waiting for their truck or dealing with broken trucks, including a couple of crews that were equipped with helicopters and serious chase vehicles. After a breakfast of water, Coke, cookies, and beef jerky, I was feeling ready to go. But still no truck. By this time it was after 7am and we were all a bit worried that it had taken so long. Fern and Kalbas must be exhausted. And still time went on.
We passed the time by waiting, asking the nearby Baja Pits whether there was any word from our truck (which we could still not reach on radio), and watching the crew of a Baja Bug do a total engine swap, which was going amazingly quickly.
Finally, around 8am, our truck appeared and there was much rejoicing. I desperately wanted to hear news from the guys and find out how it had taken them 12 hours to go 300 miles (60 of them on the highway!). But that’s not how things work. We were in a rush to get situated in the truck and get going. We were pretty far behind our estimated schedule, but on the bright side I had gotten a few hours of sleep and rather than our original estimate that Ed and I would drive 11pm-7am, or our revised estimate of 3am-11am, it was now looking more like 8am-4pm. Which I was pretty happy about. Now all I had to do was learn to drive a Baja 1000 race truck for the very first time, on a presumably difficult off road course, with all sorts of other traffic.
Leave a Reply