From mile 280 I headed south to get to my next goal. Make mile 380 by dark. Better yet, if I could get to 415 by then I could get past some bad silt and a gnarly rocky hill climb by then. Hopefully, I could stay ahead of the race trucks coming through until mile 415.
Highway 5 ran down the eastern coast of the Baja peninsula along the Sea of Cortez. In our 2015 race I had this section of pavement in the race. The highway was brand new. I mean the asphalt was black as black gets and the guardrails and striping were brand new. Now just three years later, disaster had struck here.
A monster storm came across the peninsula dropping a lot of rain. When it got to the Sea of Cortez, it came back and sat here a while. The flooding made lakes alongside the elevated highway in a dozen places. The water eventually broke through the highway which was acting as a dam.
One section of highway was completely missing for miles. Then I got back up on the pavement and you’d be going along at 60 mph and see just three rubber cones across the road in front of you. Just beyond that it dropped 40 feet straight down. The highway was missing for 100 feet. They made dirt ramps down into the desert and back up the other side where race vehicles and civilian traffic mixed. Brand new bridges were collapsed. This scene repeated itself a dozen times.
It was erie devastation. I was sad for Mexico and what they had to deal with here. There were only two paved roads down the peninsula, and this was the only one on the east side. Of course, the engineering was lacking. I had come to appreciate American engineering and highway builders there.
The scenery was fantastic. To the left was the calm Sea of Cortez – the body of water between the Baja Peninsula and the Mexican mainland. The baked brown hills rolled up to mountains out of the salt water, and the race course rolled with it. I was headed to my next pit – Gonzaga Bay. There was one store, a few small structures and a flat spot along the road where an occasional small plane landed. My team would have a warm burrito there for me.
At most stops there were locals watching my team and waiting for me to come in. They’d be excited to see a real racer in the Baja 1000 up close. If I took all my gear off and put jeans and a T-shirt on they wouldn’t be so impressed. But this was the Baja 1000 and it was going down right now. I always tried to acknowledge them. A fist pump or even fist bump, a thumbs up, or my team giving them stickers made for a memorable moment for both them and me. Shared experiences….
Arturo told me again, as wise reverent man encouraging his friend – “No mistakes. Smooth. Smooth is fast.“ They whole team would always cheer me on loudly as I took off out of the pit down the course. My soul heard them.
I was twelve hours in now and the sun was getting low. I had prepared well. I was ok.
714x was still in the race; in pursuit of something important.