Baja Results – Photos
12/2/2008
So I guess I owe it to everyone the Mexico story from my perspective. I’ve told the story about 30 times now and am starting to get tired of doing it. So if I’ve referred you here to read it… Heres a day by day play of ridiculousness, Its long but if you want to know the story, here it is.
Saturday Nov. 15th, I flew out of Evansville Indiana with a weird feeling in my stomach, Like I had to lighten some onboard luggage… but couldn’t seal the deal. By the time I reached 30,000 ft outside of Chicago airspace it was a different story! The stomach bug was in full assault mode! I was in the tiny airplane lavatory begging to die already. I spilled my guts for the entire 5 hour flight to LA. By the time I reached baggage claim I looked and felt like I should go straight to Hollywood and start working the streets. It was aweful, It took me about 45 minutes to walk 2 blocks to a power aide to get re-hydrated. Nick Nelson who was my ride out of LAX would normally be 20 minutes away was trapped in the fires spread throughout LA and it turned out to be a 8 hour delay. So in the mean time one of Nick’s buddies – Adam came through and scooped me up. I kicked it with him for a few hours discussing the Baja and occasionally vomiting in his bathroom and passing out from exaustion on his couch. Thanks man! Nick finally showed up with an ash filled sky and was able to get me to a pharmacy where I had a prescription called in… Turns out it was one of those bullet deals you swallow… but not with your mouth! Whatever. They worked.. and was able to hold down liquids. We arrived at Nicks house with me wiped completely out around 1 am. I was awake for 20 hours already.
Nov. 16th, after pretty much the worst day of my life I woke up to the sound of crows in Nicks house somewhere in the Desert highlands north of San Diego. I met the entire team and spent the rest of the day finishing up the race bike and all of the travel details to Mexico, we shipped off around 10 pm and ended up sleeping in one of my long term sponsor DWT’s parking lot in San Diego.
Nov. 17th BIG day. A real eye opener, driving through Tijunana, I realized how glad I was to be an American and became really thankful for everything I have. The country was beautiful… But extremely poor. We arrived in Ensenada and went on out to our first drop point to begin pre running. I set foot in foreign dirt and climbed on a trusty Polaris. (which I later befriended) Nick and I took off through the hills of the Mexican countryside. Three hours of some agressive trail riding we ended up on a dirt road meeting up with our chase vehicle. Tacos. We then drove four hours south on the East to West portion of the loop where I encountered my first night in Mexico. I took off around 10 pm on my trusty Polaris 5th gear pinned into the darkness on a dirt road never seen by these eyes. I know there was ditches on both sides of the loose road with open fields on the other side of the ditches. (at one point) I then approached a rock wall where the road twisted and turned around the crevices of it 3rd gear 90 degree powerslides. This section was simple! The worst that could happen is blow a corner and end up in a ditch, Ive done that a hundred times in the KY river bottoms no big deal! Just so happens I ended up coming inches from doing just that on a couple of occasions… REALLY close. I decided to stop and take a break. I let my eyes adjust and saw the most spectacular stars of my life! I was really miles on top of miles away from anyone or anything. Pure desert wilderness. I was blown away! I noticed the moon was behind the rock wall behind me and was casting a shadow across the vacant area and on a large mountainous mass way off. I decided to turn the bike at the open area to see what was out there and suddenly realized I was halfway up on a mountain and was looking not at a ditch and open field but off into a hole well over a 1000 feet deep!!! I inched back to the rock wall and shuddered at the realization of how close I was to launching into the open abyss just moments before. Chills. I had to look past the fact that I almost was living out Tom Petty’s Free Falling video and had plenty more miles of it ahead of me. Once I reached the pavement once again it was almost 1 am, I had 2 options continue another 2 hours of riding on my section and another half hour to the campsite, or grab a handful of throttle and head on into Ensenada 56 miles away and worry about my other section the next day. I chose the latter. So Im dodging oncoming tractor trailer rigs hard on the exaust brakes, crossing the center line, coming at me head on with no guardrails for over 30 miles. Freezing. Did you know it gets down in the 30′s in the desert at night? I also thought it would be so rad to ride a quad down the highway and thru towns back in the states, believe me, its not that cool and is pretty scary to do at 1 am with Mexicans swerving towards you in Peterbuilts. Im dreaming of a motorhome 30 miles away on a nice quiet beach when I notice a ply wood cut out of some military figure on the side of the road. Totally freaked out. Then theres a second one a mile later. I approached a check stop where there were barrels on fire and small shacks on a level dirt area. Ok, Im stopped, again with no means of communication, nobody knows exactly where I am except for the 13 – 15 yr olds pointing AK47s at me in the middle of the night! I again was completely freaked out that young kids were holding me up with machine guns, and a slippery trigger finger was all I could think about. I actually had a vision of me being buried in the desert and the ol Polaris pre runner getting sold by morning. Turns out they didnt find any mota (marijuana) or any other illegal item on me and they let me carry on with my trek home after some VERY careful explaining that I was just pre running. Ensenada lights! Tacos. Estero Beach. Motorhome! Sleep.
Nov 18th I woke up to some gnarly blisters forming on my hands and decided to look around the campsite, turns out we were on Estero Beach, I highly recommend staying here if your in the area. Such a dramatic difference from whats outside the surrounding gates. Almost felt as if I was on a relaxing vacation, wheres the shuffle board and giant pedal three wheelers for the beach? I spent most of the day installing some HID lights on the Polaris pre runner which was a huge improvement over the stockers. Tacos before the drop point. I got a chance to pre run the pacific coast portion of the course for the first time and was having a blast doing it. There was a natural motocross section extremely technical up hill and down hill whoops and some down hill off camber woop sections where I could actually time and double through. As soon as I reached the coast I took a minute to stop and watch the sunset over the horizion, I was completely awestruck. I sat and listened to sea lions yelp on a large rock just off the shoreline and noticed very large splashes in the water from either a whale, dolphin, shark or colossal squid? Maybe? I sat there for at least 20 minutes till it got dark and decided to continue with my pre running. Click Click. Absolutely no power starting the bike. No flashlight, no headlights, no power, great. I was about 20 miles from the road and thought about walking but checked the battery terminals before I committed on the journey… Turns out I’m not the greatest electrician. It fired right up and I ripped on. The rest of the section was very diverse and challenging while fast at the same time. I ended up passing through a small village out in the middle of no where where some guys were playing basketball, totally would have never thought Id be looking at that 20 seconds before that. I had to pee and took another break about a 1/4 mile away from the village and as I turned around to get back on the bike there were two small mexican kids about 10 yrs old standing on my heels!! Scared me to death! They kinda laughed and immediately started asking me for stickers. I told them I was fresh out and gave them high fives and pounded out the rest of the section. Tacos. I finished at a decent hour and we decided I should run the section again. So right back to the starting point again and back by the sea lions and so on… another 2 hours of riding ahead of me. I guess I didnt tighten the adjusting screws enough on the HID lights and found that they were bouncing. I had to tape them up with medical tape and rode back to the village with the basket ball court was and decided to stop in this time. I bought a bottle of water and right next door there was a little shack full of hombres watching scattered fuzzy telemundo. I asked them (or drew them a picture) for a wing nut to fix the lights. The shelves were full of collected junk and a guy came out with a cellophane package full of assembly parts to a random night stand or a pinball machine or who knows what. Just so happened to have a 7/16ths nut in there and he had a craftsman sized once wrench. I also asked for air because I had a tire full of cactus spines and a guy pulled down a brand new still in the box 1980s style foot pump! He gladly went to town airing up my front tire to vente psi, cleaned it off and put it back in the box and on the shelf for sale. I tipped them happily and cruised on! Finished the section again flawlessly and headed back to camp. Tacos. Sleep.
Nov 19th Blisters were getting better and woke up in paradise once again. Dan Guetter sometime during the night ate a Super Burro and put himself in a coma. (more about the super burro later) I switched off my trusty Polaris and was left in the desert heat on a BONE stock Z400 that had a severe pull to the left. I was combining portions of my course so this was going to be one full race section of the course. (an all day deal on a stock machine) Since I would be traveling at least half the speed of race pace and the Suzuki had a small tank, I was required to fill a gallon jug and strap to my pack full of fuel, along with a 2 liter bottle, and a couple gatoraide bottles all full of gas. Dan and Nick’s wife laughed as I left on this incredible journey and jokingly (i think) said, “see ya next week!” I cruised on and instantly regretted cussing the Polaris pre runner bike. The 400 was AWEFUL. I felt like I could run as fast as I was going through the course in the searing heat. I puttered along and told myself that I shouldnt miss any portion of the course on this machine! About 80 miles in and seemingly 2 days later I busted a tire and had to plug a tire and fill it full of fix a flat. Dumped some fuel and took a breather. I never felt so alone in my life. There were no crickets, no birds chirping, no wind, only silence. I found out what people mean when they say silence is deafening. I looked around and saw heat waves and mountains ontop of desert ontop of more mountains and more desert everywhere I looked. I started to look around at cacti, different rocks, and plants, I began getting curious and wanted to start flipping rocks over and looking about the strange terrain. I made a quick (and wise) decision to get back on the bike before I get ahold of something that I may not want, mainly a tarantula, but deadly snakes and scorpions were also within reach. Four hours later and I reached the pick up point and headed back to camp. Tacos. Seafood Cocktail. Sleep.
Nov 20th The sabbath. Thursday before the race is a day of rest, a day off. A day spent going over course notes thoroughly, bandaging wounds from pre running, proper showers, final adjustments to the race machine, tech inspection, photo shoots. Tacos. Sleep.
Nov 21st Race day. Everyone was to be awake at 4:30 am. I did a final check over my equipment and hit the road with Nick’s dad to the section where I would first be getting on the bike. As did everyone else to their assigned portions of the race with their drivers. Granola bars. Nick was to do the start and hand the bike off to me only 40 miles into the race. Around 8 am we saw Nick approaching us at 75 mph, he jumped off and I jumped on. I was gone. Full tilt. I never appreciated race suspension so much after beating myself to death on stock machines all week. It was very nice and I was tackling obstacles at twice the rate. I placed a link on the site here where you all could view our race progress live. Apparently only 30 miles into the race our transponder quit transponding. My entire family excluding my dad was completely beside themselves, is he hurt? Is something broke? Is he lost? After getting home my dad said he just threw his arms up and said to himself “Welp I guess Zac is already on his ass!” Thankfully that was not the case. (yet) Around 9 am I arrived at a VERY technical rocky uphill section holding on to 3rd position. Theres a youtube video someone placed that I found of me bouncing up it with a vibrating and buzzing skidplate in 3rd place here. About 70 miles in the realization of me riding over 700 miles in just a few days had set in, in the form of monkey butt. For those who have not had it, its a horrible condition that affects riders who are chapped in a sensitive manner, those who have know exactly what im talking about. Moments later my boot slipped off the footpeg and grabbed the rear tire. I was instantly sucked off the bike and into the only water crossing in my whole baja expirence. The creek was no more than 5 feet wide and I was in it! I ran to the bike refired it and took off loosing no more than 30 seconds. The next 10 miles were switch backs, not rocky downhills or highspeed dangerous sections where I would be standing up on the bike, yes switch backs, requiring me to slide from one side of the seat then immediately to the other for a good 30 minutes with wet underware crawling up my chapped crack. I whimpered. 30 miles later I encountered a gnarly highspeed downhill that issued the rear shock on the machine a taxation at my expense. I tackled the hill and the rear shock began to pack up sending me into a side to side swapping motion that was beyond recovery, while the rear shock was at full compression another small boulder decided to slam the bottom of the bike sending me a good 4 ft over the handlebars, via flapjack style. I splattered into a hill knocking every molecule of air from my lungs into the Mexican atmosphere. I ran to the bike again only to find that I was down 2 more positions. I quickly made up time and ended up battling with an rider for the remaining of the section, I arrived at the switch point exausted, dirty, wet, and in 4th place. The bike continued on with a fresh Mike Bender. My ride to my second section was by a guy named Frank who I had never seen or met before. As I started looking around deliriously a rather large mexican in a Cheech Marin voice yelled at me saying, “Geeet en the truck fool! Come on mane we got no time to kill fool!” I jumped in and peeled out in a truck with three mexicans in it at a high rate of speed. About 2 miles down the road I explained that I was to catch a ride with Frank and he said “I’m Frank fool!” Ok. I was where I was supposed to be, Flying through the desert at 110 mph in a truck with 3 mexicans. Good thing. I was gulping water, eating advil, and trying to breath. Frank had heard that I was from Kentucky and was already starting with the redneck thing, as he turned on his ipod he said “Ive got something here for you fool!” It was the Legend of Wooly Swamp by Charlie Daniels. If you’ve read this much of my story you have to click here to listen to this song to get the full experience. So im hauling ass through the barren desert with 3 random mexicans bumping Charlie Daniels moments after running a portion of one of North America’s most grueling races, is this really going on?! Such random chaos. I chimed in on the ridiculousness and told them all if we get pulled over that they will definitely have some explaining to do to the federales about why they have some white kid speaking very little spanish covered in dirt and beat up in a vehicle full of oaxacans! (pronounced wah-hockans, mexican slang for rednecks) We got along well, they were all punks and I quickly fit in with them and had a blast on the trip down to my second section with them. Tacos. We all arrived at my second starting point around 4 pm and was scheduled to be back on the bike by 7. We watched (what was left) of the dirtbikes and quads fly by in the darkness. 9 pm Nick shows up with no headlights! Apparently the bike was cartwheeled sometime in the afternoon and broke the tail light and other items off. This triggered a short in the lighting system and ended up catching the bike on fire, melting all of the insulation of the wiring and exposing bare wires. Needless to say it turned into a very long night with merely a small HID flashlight for lighting purposes! By 3 am I was exhausted. I had been up for 23 hours (again) and passed out in Franks truck. In the mean time we arrived back to Ensenada to the finishline at 5 am 23 hours after the race had started. Longest day of my life! I ended up sleeping though the finish of our team and woke up around 5:45 am. Our whole crew was standing in the streets staring at each other and the completely thrashed bike, delirious, slap happy, amazed, filthy, and completely drained. Frank then opened a fifth of Jagermeister and threw the cap as far as he could. It was official. We made it. By the time we got halfway thru the bottle it was time to hit Super Burro for breakfast. The vehicles were lined up at this tiny shack in the ghettos of Ensenada while the morning sun burned through the fog. A super burro is a burrito that is constructed with a tortilla approximately the size of a hoola-hoop. The final result is a burrito about the same size as my lower leg. We ate three of them along with every Modelo Negro they had. The celebration had started! It didnt matter that we finished hours behind schedule, or that we finished 5th, or that the bike was completely worthless now, all that mattered was that we beat baja.
Nov 22nd as vehicles were still crossing the finish line throughout the day we as a team enjoyed refreshments in a giant hotub overlooking the ocean and a mountain range. Was a good feeling. We spent the rest of the day cruising around the shore, around the campsite, sleeping, and drinking. A dinner that night NOT tacos was had and a little club action occurred.
Nov 23rd Said our farewells to Ensenada and our teammates and spent the day with Nick and Dan attempting to get me across the border and to LAX by midnight… Didnt happen. I missed my flight by 30 minutes due to border traffic (which was completely insane) and had to wait for the next flight.
Nov 24th 12:30 am I assembled a fort with my Ogio luggage in the floor of LAX and camped out literally under luggage walls till the next available flight (6:30 am) with a mexican sand crab I smuggled into the states from Estero Beach earlier the day before. 2:30 pm I arrived in Evansville, In completely dazed and confused. Did that really happen?
Nick Nelson and Dan Guetter did a story about our Baja 1000 team on the QUAD Magazine website you definitely need to check it out HERE.
Photos by Dan Guetter from the 2008 Tecate Baja 1000
Comments
Congrats on finishing thats a feat in it’s self from what my dad tells me. How do i get hooked up with one of those shirts?
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