Night Moves 2

Continued…

I saw lights coming up behind me.  They told us when a trophy truck is approaching behind you to pull over on your own terms way ahead of time, and not wait for one to run you over.  I did and it roared by, filling the air with a dust curtain.  Your headlights on dust is a recipe for zero visibility. I kept moving forward into the night wondering if Tanner would get to our next rider change before me.  The course met the last section of the crossover road – there were tons of chase vehicles moving slow making so much dust it was hard to see.  Then it got foggy.  It went on forever.

I emerged at the pit, got fuel, and 100 feet farther who do I see?  Chad – our second driver.  I turned my head and was relieved to see Tanner!  He made it!  The plan we for me to go 60 miles more. Chad checked the bike over, we changed the air filter, and I was gone.  Tanner jumped in chase truck two and headed to the next rider change spot.

We fueled again and Tanner jumped on.  We found out via radio that #266x was out of the race – their bike had a mechanical failure.  We were in third place now.  There is a system where you can text a race number to and it tells you where the racer is and how fast they are going.  But in the south we had no service to text.  We communicated by satellite phone back to team base who was monitoring the internet, and my wife Wendy stayed up all night and gave helpful updates when we had service.

Now we were headed north back towards Ensenada.  Tanner had a 41 mile leg of whoops.  Not just any whoops.  Three foot deep whoops – never ending for 35 miles.  If you are a dirt bike rider, this is your Kilimanjaro.  It was very tough.  Chad got me to the next rider change area and I only waited ten minutes and Tanner came in.  I got on and sped away for a 24 mile section of – that’s right, never ending sand whoops.  Whoops are waves in the sand created by wheel action. Very tough. They seemed to never end. I handed the bike off to Tanner for a 60 mile section and he disappeared into the desert night once again.

We waited at a road crossing for him to emerge.  A headlight came through the whoops.  Was it him?  The bike popped out onto the road in front of us.  It was 285x, the leader.  The next light came.  Was it Tanner?  It was 202x, 12 minutes behind 285x.  How far back was Tanner?  We were 45 minutes behind when we had to change the front brake at mile 480.  Here comes another light. It was him – 7 minutes behind 202x and 19 minutes behind the leader!

I hugged Tanner and sped off.  I passed 202x just before the pit.  Now we were in second.  I got gas at the next pit and turned off the road up a rock face called “Goat Trail”.  More whoops at high elevation.  It was cold now, 48 degrees at 4 am.  I sped passed Kurt Caselli’s marker, the leader in this race in 2013 who hit a horse and died.

After 60 miles I came out to the road, but it wasn’t the road crossing I saw during pre-running.  I was confused for a moment.  Did they change the course at the last minute or was I lost? I swiveled my head and saw my team.  Chase truck 1 had caught up and both trucks were there. Tanner had his helmet on ready to go.  Who was across the road pitting?  285x!  We tried to be quiet to not alert the 285X team who was 60 feet away, that we were their competition and on them now.  (They could have thought we were in another class.  It was still very dark at about 5 am.  We hurried and checked the bike over, and Tanner got on for his last leg – 80 miles into the finish into Ensenada.  Tanner sped away.  The 285x team realized it was us, and got their rider out of the pit 90 seconds after Tanner.

We were in first place.  That’s when the most epic battle of any race ever, began.

To Be Continued…