Ok here's a quick rundown on the event.
In the few months since the GCVWS the YOLO team thought they would be racing a new car in another faster class. with only a month until the race it was decided to start prepping the Baja Bug just in case the other deal fell thru... and it did.
We (team members Erich,Brennon,Grant, Doug,Russ,Greg and myself) spent a few nights a week working on the baja, stripping it down, painting, shipping engine to FAT performance, Trans to Rancho and building a game plan.
I had no idea how much prep and planning went into this race, it's truly mind blowing!
For 2014 we had some great sponsors step up to help get the team back to Baja and most importantly making sure the Fire truck made it to the Mexican border. (Big thanks to everyone who bought a ticket at the gcvws or donated) So here we are, 6am meeting in Langley to start the LONG drive souith.
One motorhome with trailer (quad and razor) one dodge truck with trailer- baja. 24hr on the nose we are in LA and heading to Newport for a hotel and rest....but first a trip to sponsors, Fat to get engine
The famous FAT Dyno, So many Cal Look HP engines have been tested here!
and McKenzies off road to drop our trailers etc. Jeff at McKenzies went out of his way to help us even giving us the use of his shop.
The next day started early with everyone running around to get parts from suppliers and taking care of other business. Phone calls to mexico logistics to clear the fire truck, drop by Rancho to get the trans, NAPA to get calipers and pads for the motorhom since we lost the front brakes in Oregon!
Once all back at McKenzies the race was on! We had to install the engine, trans and a load of other things before 6pm! By 5pm we had a running Baja and new brakes on the Motorhome!
Motorhome brake rotor looks huge on the Baja wheel.
Fresh Rancho trans going in!
5pm we have a running Baja!
The next day we packed up and headed San Diego for Sat Phones and .... Lisle from LDL and Graeme from Global news at the airport (keep an eye out for some vids)
We had a few hours to kill while we awaited the guys so we set up shop in a Walmart parking lot and began placing the decals on.
It almost looks like a race car now!
Once we had the guys it was off for the Mexican border, a quick inspection and a bribe of a few race decals we were in Mexico and headed for Baja Mar 20 min outside La Paz.
Baja Mar is a nice little development/gated comunity just a 15-20 min drive to Lapaz. Only problem is the main Hwy was washed out so the detour into lapaz made it a hour drive each way. Yikes!
We spent the next few days in Baja Mar prepping the car and awaiting new team members from California (Rob and Chris)
Here team captian Erich Reisen plans out our pit stops and fuel consumption.
We stayed busy with sponsor logos and safety checks.
Two days before the race we moved into a Hotel in La Paz near the start line. Here we were able to get down to business, order our race fuel and drop our spare wheels and fuel drop tanks to "Baja Pits" They would then have fuel and spares placed along the course for us at the location we set.
Time to register for the race and drink more beer. Just to be clear beer was drank during and after everything. It's amazing how you can survive on beer and tacos.
The day before the race is tech, in years past the team was in line and done in 3 hrs. This year we got in line early and the line was 9 blocks long wrapping around the streets of La Paz. Tech opened late so we spent 8 hrs moving forward very slowly....enough time for a beer, or two..... Or 3 dozen!
Two days before the race La Paz was a ghost town, tech day it was insane!
Needless to say by the time we passed tech we were doing pretty well :-)
Race day came and it was time to gear up, this includes a cathader, Kidney belt, neck support and helmet.....some much easier to put on than others :-) We got in the staging area early around 11am for a 12-12:30 start. Once again everything was delayed and we didn't get going till 2:30 or so. When the flag dropped we were off, two hard lefts on city streets followed by a straightaway then right into the river bed and we were officially off road!
As you may have seen before people are lined up on either side of the road with no barriers or safety wall. At first it's a little un nerving but you soon realize they will jump clear......well most of them.
We had 7 cars in our class and 240 total. A few days before we Pre ran the first 180 miles of the course to mark out danger areas and get a feel for what was in store for us. Although it was good practice the course was so badly chewed up from all the trophy trucks before us it was barely recognizable.
Video from the start.
http://vimeo.com/112623731I was navigating for Grant Baylis and we were averaging 45 miles per f
Hours for a while with bursts upto 68 on the straight always followed by lows in the 15 mph in rough terrain.
At the start there's 8-9 helicopters above following mostly the Trophy trucks, we were 20 min out and doing 65 when we saw a helicopter come low along side us. Cool!! They guy is hanging out filming us!
A few seconds go by and were giving them the thumbs up when all of a sudden a truck passes us at over 100 mph showering us in dust and blinding us of all vision. We start to laugh... And quickly realized they were filming the truck.
We pushed on as hard as we could passing some in our class and many others. We were in second place for many hours against a much better car and local drivers. These guys were GOOD!
As a newb to the Baja race I gotta say this is a brutal rough dangerous drive with potential for injury and death all around.
One spot we marked as dangerous came upon us fast, it was a HARD right with two concrete and steel posts in your face if you didn't make it. As we slowed to turn we saw a truck hadn't made the turn and impacted it then rolled 5 times. Both driver and passengers were airlifted with broken bones and head injury.
More and more cars succumbed to the course, the silt beds were 3 ft deep and from 100 yards to 4 miles long!
Night fell and we climbed a mountain pass with a cliff on drivers side and rock wall on pass.... One lane and faster cars pushing to pass. And then it happened, ALT light came on...... fack! The battery has 12.8 volts and dropping! We need all the lights we can get, it's pitch black out and on a dangerous road. 12.2 volts we start shutting down all lights but one pencil light that let us see 50-75 feet ahead. We were still going as fast as before but just less vision.
As we approached one hard right on the mountain pass we could clearly see someone just went straight off and didn't turn! Time to slow down a little..... We kept trying to contact our team on the radio but we were still too far out, 11.5 volts and slowly dropping!
All gauge lights, fresh air fans were shut off. We still had 50 miles to go till we crossed a hwy.
About 20 miles out we contacted our crew and asked for the spare alt and tools to be ready. The reply came back, it's with the other driver/ crew 200 miles ahead! Oh shi!!!,!!,
We decided to meet our crew on the hwy and try to repair in any way we could.
We pulled the reg, all good. Checked all fuses, wires, belts etc... Nothing. So we used jumpers to charge the battery and removed the battery from our razor and strapped that to the car with jumpers to keep us going. The plan was to get to the next pit, have them radio our team with the alt and meet at a pit in between.
12.9 volts again one light and we were off!
To be continued.