Race Day was hectic.
Seth and Jimi finished work on the bike while Tommy, Manuel and I put together supply kits for each vehicle. First aid kits that seemed woefully inadequate (what are you going to do with Band-Aids and Neosporin when you run into a cactus, fall into a trap dug by a drunk spectator or the worst of our fears, get run over by a Trophy Truck?) Snacks, drinks, caffeine, TIRES, tools, gas, etc. Jimi took a nap while the rest of us had an early dinner at a nearby vegan restaurant which had become our go-to for a filling meal.
Then, the plan went into action. Around 4pm, Seth and Manuel left to find a good, visible parking spot at the first checkpoint, and for Seth to sleep until around 12:30am when he'd start keeping a watch out for Jimi. Jimi settled in for a nap, while Tommy and I went down to the starting area to check things out. The whole city had turned into a street festival that would last until well after the finish. The starting area was packed. There were pigs roasting on spits, vendors selling every kind of junk you could possibly imagine, and drunk people everywhere. We went back to our hotel and tried to nap.
At 9 pm Tommy, Jimi and I arrived at the Racer's Meeting to get the inside scoop. A line of Coca-Cola girls stood behind a line of shiny looking men from California and a few Mexican government officials. Some Mexican troops came in and performed the Mexican national anthem. The shiny California men thanked the Mexican government officials for all of their spectacular help in pulling off this race, and especially for their help in routing the race over a section of native land which had never been done before (this happened to be the section where Jimi was hung by a tree). Once everyone was thanked properly it seemed like we were about to be dismissed without receiving any inside scoop at all, til a racer stood up and said he just had one thing to add.
Jimi and I both immediately recognized this guy. He was in a Trophy Truck and he'd been racing the Baja for ages. He'd even raced the Dakar several times. Our ears perked up and we finally got the inside scoop. The "indians" had been throwing boulders around up on the mountain pass because they were pissed the race was going through their land. There were flat-tire inducing wooden stakes on the road from San Felipe down to Coco's Corner, vestiges of a hastily packed away construction project.
Jimi and I were livid. Jimi was angry at the "indians" for throwing boulders around on the mountain and I was incensed that the organizers had tried to route the race through the reservation with apparently not a lot of agreement and then bragged about it in front of a line of Coca-Cola girls. I was also angry that they seemed like they didn't really want to talk about the fact that there was any dissent going on and the race course might be more dangerous than usual. Seth and I had calculated that we had about 60 minutes left on our sat phone, but I dialed Manuel's cell phone anyway. Seth had to know that the mountain pass wasn't going to look like he expected it to. It was his first section and he'd be riding it in the pitch black desert night.
No answer, Manuel was out of range.
I dialed Seth's sat phone. No answer. They probably had it stuffed in a door, or in his backpack, turned off. They were not expecting a report from the rider's meeting.
The motorcycles were scheduled to start at 11pm, followed by the ATVs. Then every living soul in Ensenada would utterly demolish their livers with alcohol until 9 the following morning, when the Trophy Trucks would take off, followed by the cars, then the buggies. This plan was supposed to give the riders enough of a head start so that they might not be overtaken by the Trophy Trucks at all, and worst case, at least when they were caught it would be daylight. This was the shiny California plan for reducing the number of riders run over by Trophy Trucks.
Anyway, Tommy and I were supposed to see Jimi through the start, and then start our own adventure back down to the bottom of our world. We managed to get Jimi and the bike into the starting area, which was even more chaotic than it had been earlier in the day. There were barriers around the line of racers, which was starting to form behind the start/finish line. Tommy had to sneak in to hold the bike for Jimi, so Jimi could sit down. (We had to take the kickstand off of the race bike to pass tech.)
Racers were being released every five minutes, and Jimi was toward the back of the line of bikes. We had a long wait ahead of us. We stood around. The line crept forward. I tried to keep just on the other side of the barrier from Tommy, lest I be swept away into the lonely crowd.
After an actual eternity, Jimi was up next. My stomach was butterflies. Each rider was interviewed before they started, to help pass the minute in between each rider and keep things interesting for the drunken masses.
What would Jimi say? He'd told Tommy and me that he had a whole speech prepared. Tommy and I inhaled a collective breath, holding the exhaust in our lungs "frickin' tree hung me" echoing across the wavelengths between our brains.
"Vermon'," Jimi answered when the interviewer asked where he was from. (Sidenote: most of the time after we told people we were from Vermont, they'd look at us blankly. Sometimes we followed up with "near New York" and sometimes we followed up with "Canada?" Most people continued to look at us blankly until they'd guess "California?"
"Nope its just me an' Seth!" I heard Jimi say, after the announcer asked if he had teammates stationed all over the peninsula. I smiled. Jimi had stared into the bright lights and most of his speech flew out of his head. The announcer asked him a few more questions to keep him talking.
Suddenly, the flag was waving and Jimi was off, then around the corner and out of sight! I was exhilarated. It was happening! Tommy and I fought against the tide, freeing two coveted spots right against the barrier. At every step, people filled in behind us like water.
Tommy and Joanna Race a Backwards Baja 1000
We power walked our way back to the hotel, pausing only to run our hands through some well-loved rosemary plants in front of an upscale house. At the hotel we decided we better make one last pit stop before we hit the road. When we were ready to pull out, Tommy opened the gate of the hotel parking lot while I drove through, carefully, in Seth's big truck. Tommy shut the gate and hopped in. I realized we needed to fill up the gas tank before we headed back into the desert where we'd already almost run out of gas a few times. Luckily we found a 24/7 self-service fancy-credit-card-taking gas station fairly quickly.
Finally, around 12:45am, we started our 7 hour drive to the bottom-most pit-stop of the race. This would mark the second time I'd driven us down this harrowing road in the darkness. Thankfully, the only other people on the road tonight were other crews making their way to their "spots." We rolled nervously through an empty checkpoint station, expecting lights to blare, dogs to bark and gunshots to ring out at any moment. All was quiet.
At the last-known gas station we stopped, even though we had only used 1/3 of the tank. As we approached, the entire gas station was entirely dark and my stomach nearly fell out. "It can't be closed! It can't be closed!" Another crew's rig (which we'd been vaguely following down the only road to the bottom of the world) was sitting next to one of the pumps, so we pulled in to see what we could do. The pumps were on, but wouldn't pump. We went to the window and, after struggling with our terrible Spanish abilities handed over a $20 US bill. We got on our way again, and drove into the blackened desert. Somewhere in the blackness, Tommy started driving.
When I awoke, the grey tones of pre-dawn clouded the desert mountains. I started driving, and watched the world turn blue, then pink, and then orange, as the fiery sun slowly illuminated the landscape. We passed the house we'd spent hours parked beside waiting for Seth. I drove in the middle of the empty road to avoid the site of our double-flat-tires. We passed the grove where the semi had overturned and stranded us on the wrong side of our hotel. We passed the hotel that had been our desert oasis. We passed the place we'd dropped Seth off for pre-riding. We kept on. We were in uncharted territory.
We found the place where the race crossed the road because there was a motorcycle racing across the road. We made sure no one else was coming and turned off, onto the sandy race course toward the pit area. The pit stop had been turned into a campsite with pickup trucks and campers lining the race course. There was no where for us to go even though I could tell by the cloud of dust and the wide-eyed folks waving from the side that another motorcycle had caught us and we needed to be off the course. An opening came and I whirled the truck onto the much harder packed sand on the side. There was no easy way out of this spot, but it would be pretty visible to Seth, was near enough to the actual pit and provided us with a pretty good view of people coming. Plus, it had the huge advantage of not being on a live race course. Tommy got out to check out a campfire and hang with the locals. With a thud, my eyes closed. It was 7:30am.
My brain registered a ringing and tried to ignore it, but it was too persistent, too close. Without fully waking, I answered the sat phone and jumped out of the car to make sure it didn't drop the call. "This must be Manuel," I thought, "letting me know that they just left Seth and he'll be here in a few hours. We were expecting him around noon. I tilted forward to make sure the antenna was sticking straight into the air.
"Hello?!" I screeched.
"I'm ok, but the bike's not so happy."
STOP
"What? Where are you?!" I asked.
"Just on the other side of the mountain."
FULL STOP.
We had sent most of the tools and spare parts with Tommy and me: to the bottom of the race, the bottom of the world where they were most likely to be needed. Now Seth needed them, and he was still on the top.
"The bike wasn't running well. I pulled out and tried to figure it out. I pulled the engine and checked the valves but I can't get it to start so I'm going to try to walk to the closest pit and see if they can help me."
The exhaustion in my beloved's voice beamed down from a satellite, and I closed my eyes.
"You pulled your engine apart on the side of a mountain?"
Visions of the first time Seth and I had checked the valves on his KTM, wearing surgical gloves and scarcely daring to breathe lest we move any dust from the air into his engine, floated across the back of my closed eyelids.
"You have the bike hauler on the truck," Seth pointed out. "Start driving here and I'll let you know where to pick me up."
My heart sank with the weight of the disappointment Seth had to push down. He didn't have time for it yet.
"OK," I said, "I love you."
"I'll call you back," he said. Determined. Focused.
Seth's focus reached through the airwaves and shook my by the shoulders. "You have work to do," it said, "you can do this."
I found Tommy unexpectedly sprawled out in the back of the truck with a blanket. (That guy could survive comfortably anywhere!) Seth's position presented us with a conundrum: he was basically on the opposite side of a circle with no way to cut through. We dreaded backtracking the way we had just come. We estimated that going that way would take us about 12 hours to reach Seth. The only alternative, taking the circle the other way to Coco's Corner and up to San Felipe, was sort of closed because part of it was the race course.
Wasn't it? Was it actually closed to thru traffic or was it only closed to race crews following their racer? Tommy and I thought through the exact words the shiny men from California had used a the Racers Meeting only 12 hours before. If someone breaks down in that section they have to let the crew in to extract them, right? What about ambulances? Yea! They just didn't want you following your racer all the way to Coco's Corner. (Right?????)
Tommy walked up to the pit area to confirm our suspicions and confer on our best course of action. I tried to turn the truck around. A very nice lady in the pit area assured Tommy that we could get through at Coco's Corner. We would be driving against race traffic once we passed Coco's Corner, but as long as we were careful it shouldn't be a problem. We still had a few hours til the Trophy Trucks hit that section.
Encouraged, and with renewed purpose, we jumped back into the truck, waited for a motorcycle to pass and headed out. We had to back track about a half-hour until we came to "the road to Coco's Corner." Our smiles quickly faded as we turned off of the fresh pavement of Hwy 1 and onto the dirt, gravel washboard that was passing as a road. We swayed and rocked and thudded our way up the road at around 20 miles per hour. This might take longer than we thought.
The road changed from a flat, straight, raised pile of rocks crossing what probably turns into a swamp during the wet season, to a winding, narrow, rocky mountain pass. In the middle of a blind turn one of the remaining original tires went flat, sending the tire pressure monitoring system into fits of rage. We stopped where we were and Tommy changed the tire (with pretty much no help from me). Since I was so useless I stationed myself at the turn and tried to slow oncoming traffic. A few cars passed and, for the first time in our Mexican experience, someone offered to help. It took a while but we were on our way again, now going extra slow. Finally the road became more sandy with fewer jagged rocks, and we were able to speed up.
We knew when we got to Coco's Corner because Coco greeted us head on, he on his ATV holding his hand up in the universal symbol to Stop, Or Else. We stopped. I rolled my window down and he rolled up.
"English or Spanish?"
"English?"
"Road's closed. You can't get through here."
I looked to the sky in desperation. I couldn't face that road again. We didn't have any more spare tires!
"This is an active race course," he continued, "there's no way you can get through!"
"My husband's on bike 342x, he's stuck and we need to get up to San Felipe to get him out," I pleaded.
"It's way to dangerous."
I looked to Tommy for help. Seth's focus wore off and for the first time, I felt the familiar tightening of my throat as tears welled in my eyes. My brain shut down, overloaded.
"You've got bikes then ATVs and then the big trucks. You've got to have emergency flashers and stay to the right. I mean WAY to the RIGHT!"
Tommy and I frowned, and I looked back at Coco: "Didn't you hear me??"
I looked back at Tommy, still confused. Tommy shrugged and nodded his head towards the road ahead, eyebrows raised.
I took a deep breath and, before Coco could change his mind I drove forward, onto the race course; driving backwards on the Baja 1000.
To give you a realistic idea of what this meant to us, less than 12 hours had passed since the motorcycles had started, spaced by 5 minutes, followed by ATVs. We'd already seen the first motorcycles early that morning and they'd been fairly spaced out. Now, we were seeing the first ATVs catching the mid pack to last motorcycles. It is easy for motorcycles and ATVs to share a road with a truck of our size. We could see them coming from pretty far away, the dust cloud behind them giving them away before we could even hear them. When we saw someone coming I'd pull as far to the right as possible and slow, then stop in order to let our own dust cloud settle. Those guys had enough dust and sand to deal with, without us adding to their troubles! I saw Seth's face on every one of them, and I wanted to make sure we weren't obscuring their view of the course.
This all seemed fine and dandy, and after an hour or two even became the norm. The real worry, the one that kept my heart pumping and my foot on the pedal, my brain focused and my muscles tensed, was that we needed to get to the normal two-way road (where pit crew vehicles were not allowed to continue) BEFORE the first Trophy Truck. I didn't even want it to be close. Coco's last warning thudded in my ears: "and then the big trucks"
As the road unfolded in front of us it became sandier, and softer. I became afraid that if we stopped we'd spin out when we tried to get going again. I also became worried by the gas gauge. We realized we had no idea if there was a gas station before San Felipe. We'd never pre-run this section. The needle continued to decline and our progress seemed to slow. How long had we been on this blasted road?! How much longer could it possibly be to the start of two way traffic?? Was the sun even moving through the sky or was it stuck dead center, baking us all to death?
The wind became gusty, blowing sand from the east. It no longer mattered whether we stopped entirely for racers, sand obscured everyone's vision all the time. The wind pummeled the truck. I couldn't imagine how the motorcycles and ATVs weren't being swept away. I imagined Seth squinting through his goggles as this sand pummeled the rest of his face.
The wind continued to gust.
The sand continued to blow.
The road continued to unfold before us, an endless brown ribbon.
The gas gauge continued to drop.
Our bladders continued to fill.
The sun beat down, heat radiating from the parched earth.
We stared ahead, waiting for something to change. For some sign - any sign - of civilization to let us know we were close.
With a giant gust and a clearing of sand the road widened. We saw trucks and rigs pulled off to the side and a brilliant modern gas station glittering in the sun.
We stopped. It was real, we had made it across the mountain range and no man's land to the point where racers had to continue on their own. The tar-road was actually under construction here, and someone had built a giant dirt ramp for the Trophy Trucks. We realized why all the support rigs were pulled off on the side. They were waiting for the Trophy Trucks; waiting for the show to start!
We filled the gas tank, took advantage of the gas station's modernity to empty our over-filled bladders, got a snack, and managed not to be swept away in the still howling sand laden wind. We were on our way again, smiling again.
Back on the road, we quickly came across our first Trophy Truck. It whizzed by on the other side of the perfect road. "God that was close!" I breathed, we had only just made it. Soon we heard the ringing of the satellite phone. It was Seth! He had found a spectator, a rancher with a truck, to ride him and his bike to a nearby Honda pit. "This pit is close to an access road so you should be able to drive into me pretty easily." I gave the phone to Tommy, who put the coordinates into our GPS. "Got it" he said, "we'll call when we're close." (A year or so later I found this route still in the GPS, titled 'Save our Darling Seth!')
We called Manuel and Jimi to give them an update. They wanted to know where they should go to get him, where was he, what could they do!?!?! It was clear that they'd been going crazy with worry and lack of action. Unfortunately I couldn't give them anything to do except wait til we got there, unless they wanted to try to drive into the Honda pit themselves. They didn't have the bike hauler and their lowered SUV was not capable of off-roading, but they had food, water and a first aid kit if Seth needed anything.
Tommy and I switched again and the Sat Phone jingled.
"Hello?" I scrambled back to alertness. It was Manuel. I tilted forward to hold the antenna upright.
"We heard on race radio that a pedestrian was hit by a Trophy Truck up on the mountain."
No. - No.
Seth knew they were coming. Seth is not an idiot. He said he had pulled his bike halfway up the mountain to get it out of the way of any possible traffic.
"I'll try to call Seth and call you back." I said.
"He's not answering!" Manuel was frantic.
No. - No.
I dialed Seth's phone. "Hello? he said?
"Manuel and Jimi think you're dead!" I laughed, relieved. "Are you OK?"
"This isn't a good time, we're loading my bike. I'm trying to get out to the Honda pit so you guys don't have to drive back here."
"OK sorry bye." - I love you - be safe - don't let one of those DAMN TROPHY TRUCKS hit you!
Unexpectedly the road we were on turned up and into a huge new road right in the middle of a turn. The truck hit the (rough) transition to the new road and may or may not have been slightly airborne for what may or may not have been an entire second. Time stood still again 'til we came down with a thud. "Shit." Tommy said, "I think we have a flat."
He slowed down, looking for a place to pull off. Luckily a restaurant appeared out of nowhere on the left, with an enormous dirt parking lot and a lot of spectators hanging out there. We pulled in, got out and stood looking at our busted tire, each wondering silently how we were going to get out of this one.
Some Anglos came over to see what our trouble was. The wind howled and we shouted that we'd already had to use our spare, we needed to get up to San Felipe to get our racer. They said there was a small town nearby where we might be able to find llanteras. They offered to give us a ride. I told Tommy that if he went to get the tire I would get this one off. (I couldn't see myself successfully negotiating this deal, and Tommy's Spanish abilities were much better than mine.) He agreed, I pulled a wad of cash out of my secret emergency stash and handed it over.
As they pulled out a metal-framed canvas utility shed beside the restaurant collapsed under the weight of the wind and the whole thing blew across the parking lot to the back of the restaurant and finally stopped at the base of a hill. I got the puny Manufacturer supplied jack out and a vision of the truck with the wheel off, standing on this peg leg of a tiny jack rushed through my brain. If this wind could blow a whole structure away I wasn't sure I wanted to take the wheel off just yet.
The howl of the wind and the warmth of the cab as the sun beat down lulled me into sleep. I awoke to the siren of the sat phone, again. "Shit," I thought, "I never called Manuel back!"
Manuel was talking a mile a minute. They had Seth! Seth is not dead! Seth pulled up in the back of a pickup just as they got to the pit and it was a miracle and Seth is not dead I repeat NOT DEAD and they have Seth!
I smiled at his relief even while I felt guilty that I had caused him to wait so long with such fear.
I was relieved to know that Seth was safe. I was also guilty of thinking that Tommy and I were now useless, and we could have been arriving in Ensenada right now having had no flat tires and crashing into our beds. "We'll have to wait here for you, you have the bike hauler and we can't get his bike into the back of my car." Manuel's voice called me back to reality. "Where are you?"
"Oh, uuh, well I'm sitting on the side of the road about two hours South of San Felipe waiting for Tommy to get back, hopefully with a spare tire." I felt so guilty that it was taking us so long to get there. They'd been waiting all day for us! The sun was finally starting to meander its way towards the western edge of the sky. There was nothing they could do but wait. At least they had Seth, I thought. "I'll call you when we get to San Felipe," I told Manuel.
I drifted back to sleep, my brain unable to hold onto the entirety of this disaster.
A knocking at my window woke me again. It was Tommy. "Did you get the wheel off?"
I cringed. "No, I was afraid of the wind."
This now seemed like a ridiculous excuse. With a nap behind me I could no longer imagine the wind blowing the truck away, even if I took the wheel off and didn't put the jack up! "I'll do it now."
I yanked and pulled and kicked and shoved and could not possibly loosen the lug nuts. An audience formed. "Can I do it?" Tommy asked quietly.
What a failure. The only thing I had to do and I didn't - couldn't do it. I watched as Tommy and an old man swapped the new tire with the flat tire, refilled it and put the wheel back on the truck.
What a failure. At the whispered suggestion of some of our Anglo friends I handed over a wad of cash to thank the guy who had helped Tommy find the tire and then change it. Handing out cash and picking up the tab seemed to be the only thing I was good for on this trip.
What a failure.
Since my failure had provided the luxury of an afternoon nap, I drove. We were happy to be on our way again, every second quietly bringing us closer to Seth. Thu Gulf of California appeared on our right, stunningly gorgeous in the afternoon sun. The deep blue of its waters melted away some of the disaster, its beauty brightening our moods. It's beauty so cleared my mind that I had to turn around backwards to get my first and only snapshot of the day, just before the viewpoint disappeared.
"By the time we get back to our hotel," I said to Tommy, "we will have done this whole damn race backwards!" Tommy smiled.
We kept driving. In San Felipe we stopped for gas again. I called Manuel. "How do we get to the Honda pit?" I asked. After the checkpoint, instead of turning toward Ensenada we were to keep going north (toward the site of our very first flat tire, I noted). Soon there would be a tiny dirt track on the left which we were to take a few miles in to the Honda Pit.
"OK," I said, "We can probably make it in about 45 minutes or an hour.
Soon I got another call. "Just meet us at the Day 1 Gast Stop." Seth said, "we're putting the bike in the back of the Yukon." Confused, I agreed. I had been dreading finding the tiny dirt track in the fading light. Of course, I knew exactly where the infamous Day 1 Gas Stop was, and this considerably shortened our journey and decreased the chances that we'd get another flat. I was relieved. I told Tommy, and we both smirked, knowing that everything we had done, our entire backwards Baja 1000, was useless. They didn't need us for anything. I don't think either of us were sorry though. It had been quite a day; the best worst day I'd ever had.
The sun was quickly sinking now. We waved our race map and flew through the checkpoint. The Day 1 gas stop was almost unrecognizable. The road was lined with cars, the utility road Tommy and I had stared at for hours waiting for headlights was lined with trucks, bonfires, people. This was, after all, where the race course crossed this road. The buggies were just coming through. I thought of how much lay ahead of them, and, in my exhaustion could have wept, knowing what they would face. The wind, the utter darkness, the orange glow and then the glare of tomorrow's sunrise. The heavy, heavy eyelids.
The bonfires glared and the fiery reflection of metal made everything surreal. Tommy and I had pulled over at the end of a line of cars on the side of the road, hoping we were easily visible, and waited. Tommy got out and walked around. I got out and peed behind a bush.I got back in and tried to sleep, Tommy got back in and tried to sleep. The wind continued to howl.
Headlights flashed in our mirrors. A buggy engine roared. With a frown, I woke up and with relief, registered a white Yukon parking behind us. I jumped out and ran to Seth. I saw him with my own eyes, and my heart stopped as he winced in the light of the open door. Why was he wincing? My mind was racing, scanning his body for injury.
"Do you have any Sprite?" he asked.
There was the clue I needed: his head hurt. If it wasn't already a migraine it soon would be. We stole Seth from Manuel and Jimi and settled him into the back of the truck. Jimi told us the news: "One of the KTM riders died. They're not sayin' but they think it was a booby trap."
Every muscle in my body tightened. The Baja 1000 is notorious for the dangerous booby traps set by some spectators. Next to being hit by a Trophy Truck it is maybe the biggest worry. I seethed internally for a long time at this news.
We were so close. All we had to do was drive about 2 hours up this road to Ensenada. But I'd driven this winding mountain road before, and now eternity stretched between each landmark. As we drove a deep peace settled over me. Seth was tucked into the back seat fighting off a migraine. Seth's presence in the car took away our uselessness. It was our job to get him back as comfortably as possible. I was driving very carefully, trying to avoid bumps and swerves that would cause him pain. Tommy and I talked quietly about our day, which had already started to look glamorous in hindsight.
We passed through the little town where Tommy and I had eaten on the first day (dollars?). We passed a section where the race met back up with the road for the final sprint to the finish. We saw trucks with huge quick fill gas cans, and bonfires turning everything to black, orange and flickering. We passed through the last checkpoint and twisted and turned down into the city. The city was pulsing as the first motorcycles were crossing the finish line.
Quietly, defeated, and in mourning for the loss of Kurt Caselli, who it turns out hit a small animal and not a booby trap - and who could have just as easily been Seth or any one else in the race - Tommy jumped out to open the gate to the hotel parking lot. I pulled in, carefully in Seth's big truck and Tommy shut the gate behind us. We slowly trudged up the stairs to our rooms and collapsed with exhaustion onto the couches. Manuel and Jimi arrived with some food and Tommy pulled chips and salsa from our beloved food supply. I sliced a lime and gave everyone a beer.
"Joanna, could you get me a co..." Jimi started, "ah what the hell this is a special occasion, I'll have a beer!"
We'd made it. We hadn't really finished, but we'd all made it back to each other. It was over and that was cause for celebration.
