Seeing stars – during the day

San Felipe was a town on the eastern shore of Baja along the Sea of Cortez.  They have been racing around there for many years, and routes they use are never groomed.  What do racing wheels do to the sandy terrain around San Felipe?  They “whoop it out”.  “Whoops” are waves in the sand caused by wheel action.  A wheel under either acceleration or braking hits the face of a bump and digs a little dirt out and throws it backwards.  Keep doing this thousands or tens of thousands of times and you have three-foot troughs and peaks.  A motorcycle going through there works a lot harder and travels a lot slower than on level ground.

Everyone knows the San Felipe 250 may be a “short” race at a mere 320 miles this year, but the terrain around San Felipe is the toughest in Baja.  It included the “Borrego Loop”, an 80-mile section of some of the toughest of the tough.  This race was no gimme.

The first day of pre-running went well, but 170 miles after a Connecticut winter of no riding kicked my butt.  Day two felt better, until it didn’t.

I met up with two Mexican riders who were also pre-running.  I decided to ride with them because I was riding alone, and that is dangerous.  If you go down and get hurt, nobody is around.  I was chugging along at 40 mph and hit a rock sticking up I did not see because it was the same color as the sand and the sun was directly overhead with no shadows.  It was as if a grenade had gone off under me and my rear wheel was suddenly above my head as I unicycled on the front wheel at speed. 

With the slow motion that comes before eminent disaster, I thought, “would I save this one?”  Nope.  I went over the bars and hit the ground, head first.  It was one of those crashes where you just lay still for a minute and think “Did that really just happen?”  Then you move one finger at a time.  “Ok, that’s alright.  And this is ok….”.  When I stood up I was seeing stars.  My vision was impaired.  Damn!  A concussion.  I’d had my fair share of those.  

I didn’t have memory loss, thank God.  That would be a big problem out there.  I was 35 miles from Victor and forgetting where I was and where I was going and how to get there in the middle of the desert – well, that’s like a movie that has happy vultures in the end.

My Mexican riding mate asked if I was ok.  After waiting a few minutes, I told him to go on.  There is nothing he could do.  A pre-running race buggy pulled up.  There was nothing they could do either.  I waited fifteen minutes and decided I had to ride with tunnel vision and bright dots tracing across my eyes.  After 15 minutes riding that way the unexpected happened.  My vision cleared up.  Whew.  That was close.

I had a brand new helmet on that we got from a sponsor – an Italian company called Just One.  It was an awesome helmet, but it wasn’t brand new anymore.  I landed in gravely sand.  I thought about how if I landed on a rock like the one that I struck, it could have been far worse.  Head to rock?  Concussion at best.  Leg or arm to rock?  Broken bones.  Ribs or back to rock? 

Well, let’s not think about that.  Ride.  Get back to Victor.