#2 What's inside?

On day two of pre-running the Baja 1000 course, we did another 200 miles. That’s it. It got dark and Tanner had a dim stock headlight on his bike as the proper, bright race lights had failed the night before. We got a motel and for security, we pushed the bikes right into the $15-a-night room! I thought we’d get in big trouble if we got caught doing this. When we had no hot water and needed a shower badly, I became less worried. In the morning when I could see more of the place, I wasn’t worried at all. It’s Baja. It’s a different world here.

We asked where the best restaurant in town was. Two blocks. On this road, of course – there are no other paved roads on the entire Pacific side. We went in and the Cubs game was on – 9th inning, tied score, several locals cheering them on. By the time we left the place, the Cubs had performed their miracle. “That’s what I need,” I thought. A miracle.

On day three, we did another 220 miles. We were beat. Our hands were numb. Tanner was ahead of me as we bounded down a whooped out (wavy) sand section. He didn’t see that the spaces between two of the whoops were four feet deep – a wash. He cartwheeled his bike and was thrown over the handlebars. Lucky the bike did not land squarely on him. We were miles from help.  

He regrouped. Lucky the bike was ok to ride still. Two miles later he had the head of a dead cactus stuck in his hand. It looked like an anemone. A few hours after that, I missed, a little dogleg on my GPS and went straight instead. On the course notes, this is where it said “Danger, drop off.”  As I appraoched, I could see the trail fell away, with a much lower elevation ahead. I figured it was a grade going down, as I braked into it to see how steep it was. To my horror, it was straight down, 6 feet. Because I was braking, all the weight was forward; I’d surely flip over the handlebars if I went airborn now. My motocross skills kicked in and I instinctively blipped the throttle. It was too late to get the front wheel up. As I dropped, I didn’t know if I’d save it or not. After a hard hit on the front wheel, would the rear end go down, or up and over the front one? Lucky. I looked at my GPS and realized my small mistake. I missed a turn 15 feet before the cliff.

This section of Baja is called Borrego. It’s the most brutal terrain in Baja. That’s what the driver of the broken down desert buggy said to me a few miles later. He was pre-running too, and had become a Baja casualty that day.

The fourth and last day of pre-running gave me some hope. The course flowed better and there were some faster sections. I was encouraged for a bit. Tanner reminded me that it took us four days to ride this, and we still didn’t do the 38 miles out from the start, or the 40 miles back into the finish line. More than that, we had three 8-hour periods of sleep in between our rides. Yes. I knew this. I had little reason to be encouraged. On race day, we needed to do all of this – at once.

We flew home. One week later, we were to fly back for race week – the race being on Friday, November 18. I controlled my thoughts and self-talk as best as I could. I talked myself into being excited for the challenge.  

We can talk ourselves into things. You know this.

On Monday of race week, we went out with the video guys to get some drone footage over the beautiful desert. We decided to go to a 12-mile-long sand wash that we did not pre-run before. (A sand wash is a dry riverbed.) Jesse Dostie put the drone up. I pulled off the paved road into the deep sand. A quarter mile later I look back expecting to see Tanner. No Tanner.

I stopped and waited. No Tanner. I went back. I thought maybe he stalled because we forgot to turn the gas valve on. We had just started! There he was 20 seconds off the pavement, where he hit a watermelon-sized rock sticking up out of the deep sand, camouflaged in the shadows. His front wheel slammed the rock, the back of the bike kicked up violently, and he went over the handlebars. His footpeg jammed into the side of his boot as the bike landed on him. Lucky it was soft sand and he didn’t hit any rocks. His helmet was full of sand, and both wheels were bent, but he wasn’t badly hurt.

Later, we reviewed helmet camera footage, and we got the whole thing on video.

While there was no reason in the world for us to believe we could actually pull off this 855 mile non-stop race solo, we never thought of not trying.

What makes someone attempt a feat so dangerous when their chances of failure are so high? Why would anyone face such a challenge he did not have to?

There is something for each man to discover within himself. The Baja 1000 is where I discovered what was in me.