The Baja 500 Race: Mud and Glory
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SUNDAY JANUARY 30, 2005 The Baja 500 race: mud and glory By Christopher Reynolds "A 24-hour plane crash" bellowed their approval. Los Angeles Times Along the way, the races have grown into a sort of a brand name for manly chal- It's not the money In a valley south of Ensenada, thou- lenge. Steve McQueen, George Plimpton, sands of race fans wake at scraggly camp- James Garner, Ted Nugent — all have Dave Ashley once ran Baja wired up to sites to the sight of rising dust and feel of skidded here. It was Parnelli Jones, Baja a machine that measures lateral and verti- trembling earth. It's a roaring off-road repeater and Indianapolis champion, who cal G-forces. The results showed G-loads armada of 300 bikes, buggies, quads and called the Baja Mil "a 24-hour plane crash." that shifted from positive 9 — nine times trucks. But as Baja's population grows and en- the usual pull of gravity — to a heart-in- The first motorcyclist flashes past in vironmentalist sensibilities edge south throat negative 5. an explosion of dirt. A chase helicopter across the border, the future of these races "And sometimes those reversals happen swoops overhead. The hordes spring looks about as clear as the dust-choked in less than a second," he said. "It's from their campfires. Despite speeds of route. enough to where it knocks the air out of up to 100 miles per hour, bystanders jam "These races have little to no environ- you sometimes." the roadside, leaving bikers and drivers mental oversight, and the maximum Then there's the cost. The richest millimeters for error. speeds they encourage result in maximum teams, the ones fueled by personal for- "Have you ever been startled or scared, damage to the landscape and wildlife just tunes and big-time sponsors, bring scores really scared?" asks Dave Ashley, a truck so gringo motorheads can rip it up," said of crew members and hire helicopters to racer who's been competing here since Daniel Patterson, a biologist at the Tuc- trail overhead in case of trouble. Some the '80s. "Imagine that happening for a son-based Center for Biological Diversity. will spend $1 million on a vehicle. Many full four, five hours." "The environmental matter is becom- will spend $100,000 on one race. And And it's not only drivers who feel the ing very, very touchy," acknowledged even the teams with the thinnest wallets buzz. A thrill-seeking teenager dashes out Oscar Ramos, the Tijuana attorney who have to pay $400 or so to fill a truck's 65- of the crowd and across the course like a serves as race promoter Sal Fish's right- gallon tank. bull-dodger at Pamplona, winning an ova- hand man in Mexico. "They want to put Yet even when you add up purse money tion. Then a civilian cycle takes the dare, tougher conditions on us." and contingency prizes that manufactur- lurching across the track. Then a car. Still, the roster of starters for last year's ers give the winners who used their prod- This is no traffic cop's nightmare; it all Baja 500 was the longest in 15 years. And ucts, the winner winds up with less than materialized last June, at the running of within its first hour, the race had slipped $20,000. the 2004 Tecate Score Baja 500. There into the usual chaos. One of the things that keeps racing in was more of the same in November, when At mile 50, 28-year-old Ricardo Flores Baja an adventure is its ragged flavor. Af- another 280 kidney-thumping devotees of Tijuana and a dozen buddies pulled their ter all these years, it's still an amateur af- lined up for the Baja 1,000, aka the Tecate truck up to a creek and built a little dam. fair. More than 95 percent of the drivers Score Baja 1000, aka the Baja Mil, aka the They were among perhaps 100,000 spec- are weekend warriors — builders, small granddaddy of desert racing. tators, and their dam converted a little businessmen, teachers, Nevada casino For 37 years, these races have endured trickle into a 3-foot-deep water hazard. executives, salesmen, mechanics. despite deaths and injuries, despite prize With Metallica blasting on the stereo and Last year's route was 428 miles, an ob- money that's pocket change next to many empties scattered on the dirt, they stacle course of silt-swamped, boulder- NASCAR's winnings, and despite perpetu- waited for new arrivals. Every time a racer marred, dust-cloaked tracks, the way ally dodgy local politics. hit the water, a great wave of mud leaped marked by stakes and ribbons semi-vis- toward the crowd. Flores and company ible through the clouds of brown. The racers roughly paralleled the coast down and he never failed. The drivers don't ment. to San Quintin. Then, using a network of know Espinoza from Dale Earnhardt Jr., When another trophy truck careened old ranch roads, they looped inland on the but they have to trust him. into the Ricardo Flores Water Hazard and way back north, running through blind- Other bystanders, meanwhile, have en- stalled in the deep water, Espinoza and ing dust, sudden gullies and neck-snap- tirely different strategies to inject them- company leaped from the sidelines to work ping turns, often 40 miles from the near- selves into the race. Every year, in the dark their magic. When the ignition turned est blacktop, sometimes at sea level, some- pre-race hours, scores of them sneak out over, the crowd roared and the driver times 3,000 feet above it. In parts, the to make their own amendments to the charged up the hill. track narrows to a single lane. If the guy course. Mostly, they like to dig trenches And now it was Navar's turn. In his behind you wants to pass, under Baja eti- and arrange rocks and planks to cause workaday life, he's a Jaguar mechanic in quette, he simply rams your car to let you unexpected jumps. Sometimes, they even San Diego. But here, where he has family know it's time to move over. The route use heavy equipment. Nothing pleases the and a long history of race-day adventures, changes every year, and it's never exactly crowd more than an airborne vehicle. he was part of the show. He leaped be- 500 miles, just as the 1000 is never 1,000. "Off-road racing in Mexico is viewed hind the truck and grabbed the rear But it's not all dirt. To connect the patch- as a blood sport. People like to see acci- bumper. work course of dirt roads and trails, the dents and guys rolling over," said Enrique As the tires churned and the vehicle organizers include about 35 highway Hambleton, a veteran driver and Mexican lurched up the muddy hill, there was miles, which racers will share with what- citizen from La Paz and La Jolla. "Experi- Navar in back, invisible to the driver, ever workaday traffic happens along — enced drivers know that whenever you bouncing through the mud on his barrel man, truck or cow. In theory, the com- see a clump of people out in the middle of chest like a stunt water-skier on choppy petitors slow to 60 mph on these stretches nowhere, watching you, you'd better go water. and nobody passes, lest they be arrested slow." Eventually — after 20 feet or so, the and disqualified. Nobody keeps a comprehensive list of skin on his arms and chest abrading, the those killed and injured in the course of blood trickling — he had to let go. Navar the Baja 500 and 1000, but for any new- stood, apparently feeling no pain, and sa- Cowabunga comer, a sampling of casualties should be luted the crowd. They went ape. sobering enough: In practice, anything can happen. Some November 1989: Ten-year-old specta- Road to ruin? drivers cheat, often bringing disqualifica- tor Lorenzo Lopez is killed when a Baja tion, and others get their course stakes, 1000 competitor's vehicle hits him near Even in fatality-free years, opponents ribbons and markers confused when vis- San Quintin. of these races call them dinosaurs from ibility dwindles in the dust and dark. Four June 1995: Motorcyclist Danny Hamel, an era of motorized manifest destiny, land- years ago, leading a race just an hour from 23 years old and already a five-time Baja bashing fests that rearrange a delicate the finish line, Ashley rounded a corner champion, has covered about 10 miles of desert. Even if the route isn't truly off- and plowed into a cow. the Baja 500 when an off-duty policeman road — the organizers stick to crumbling "This is a full-sized cow, and I steers a vehicle onto the course, hits him ranch roads and dirt paths, most of them broadsided it," said Ashley. "The truck head-on and kills him immediately. blazed decades before — the engines rattle went over it so easily, I was just shocked. June 1999: Two miles beyond the start- every plant and animal in a usually silent I thought it was over." ing line, driver Jason Baldwin, 29, loses territory. The breeze scatters tons of spec- But it's not just bovine head-ons that control of his truck at a crowded high- tator litter across a broader territory than set these races apart. It's the role of Baja's way crossing and flies into the spectator any cleanup crew is likely to reach.