The chase is the juice.

“Man needs difficulties. They are necessary for health.” – Carl Jung

We crossed a rocky river, maybe one of the same ones we had crossed before. On the other side, there was a 30-foot high vertical canyon wall. I was confused as to where the course went – left? Right? Up?? I looked around. It was right. Drop off a 4’ shelf into more rocks and then up and out of the riverbed. 50’ later there was a barbed wire gate across the course. It was there to keep cows in. During the race, the gates would be open.

I had some cold sweats thinking about barbed wire fences and gates. I heard too many stories about bikes and 4 wheelers running into barbed wire and catching it under their helmet. Sometimes a landowner would string barbed wire across a dirt road to keep the riders out, now knowing they would cause a decapitation. 

There was a lot of barbed wire in Baja. Sometimes you were riding three feet away from a line of it at 50 miles an hour, or parallel with it in the whoops. Don’t think about it. Don’t look at it. Your body follows your head. Your head follows your eyes. Don’t look at it. Mario Andretti said, “Never look at the wall” as that was a sure way to hit it. 

It’s the same with any goal. Think about what you want, not what you don’t want. Because if you think about what you don’t want, even though you don’t want it, you are thinking about it and you’ll very likely manifest it. Think about what you DO want, and keep your mind on that.

I dismounted to open the gate. Rick rolled through and dismounted to put it back up. I rolled through and kept going. Then there were the cows. Cows were everywhere in Baja. They were left free to forage for whatever they could eat out here. You’d be ripping along and all of a sudden there is a cow in your path. The startled cow doesn’t know which way to go and is unpredictable. Sometimes it’s a horse.

I was riding along and two adult cows and two calves were in the dirt road in front of me. They decided to run away and follow the road. I idled along at 15 mph as they ran in front of me, but they wouldn’t get off the course even after several turns. I revved the engine and got a little closer to scare them off the road. Finally, they turned right, but one of the calves tripped on a curb of rocks on the roadside and went down. It squirmed and got up and kept running, but I felt really bad.

In 2013, one of the best desert racers that ever lived, Kurt Caselli, was leading the Baja 1000, making first dust, when he hit a horse and died from the injuries in the LifeStar helicopter. Another hazard and a real risk of racing here. RIP Kurt.

Rick and I had planned to meet the truck at mile 788, 43 miles before Loreto. We stuck with our plan and rolled out to the paved road. No truck. Andrew and Tanner were very much delayed since they left San Ignacio that morning and got the call from Santana. They were pretty far away and had to go back to get him. The desert sun was hot. I felt like I was in a microwave oven. We both took our packs and helmets off and laid down on the gravel in the shadow of our bikes and waited. About an hour later, Andrew, Tanner, and Santana pulled up in the truck. We got some cold drinks and food in us, and decided to stay on plan and make a late afternoon effort to go the next 43 miles to Loreto where we had planned to spend the night. 

What started out a few days earlier as a team of four riders, was now down to two. 43 miles. That’s all. 

What could happen in 43 miles?…