Pre-Running
Pre-Running the course means you run it before the race so you can see the course. Typically you do not pre-run at night. You need to see it. There has been a lot of rain in Baja this year, and rain changes the landscape of the desert considerably.
Washes are basically the remains of temporary rivers. They are filled with rocks of varying sizes and sand in varying densities. Boulders loom just above and just under the deep soft sand. Some you see, and some you don’t.
Square edge ruts form, and are particularly treacherous when the ground slopes from left to right or vice versa. You could be racing along otherwise smooth terrain at high speed and hit a 12′ deep by two-foot wide rut and you’re race is over.
You want to try to see all this, and take note of the hazards when you pre-run. You also pick rider change spots, pit and refueling locations, and plan who will be in the car for which sections.
We pre-ran with Tanner. One four-wheeled vehicle and one motorcycle. This way if anything happened to him, we could help, and if anything happened to us he could help, or go get help.
At race mile 620, deep in the sweeping hills of baked red clay and rocks Tanner, on his motorcycle, stopped and waited for us to catch up in the pre-run UTV (four-wheeler). As we were closing on him going up a hill another rider cut in front of us and went ahead as we slowed to check in with Tanner.
As we got going again Tanner caught up to him and passed him. The rider, pre-running like us, seemed to be trying to stay with Tanner. I rode aggressively to stay with them both.
After fifteen minutes of this pace, we had caught up to the motorcycle rider. We were about 100 feet behind him in his dust when Marie yelled as I saw simultaneously that he was down in the dust close in front of us. I was going pretty fast and could not stop in time. I had to turn, but there were 18″ high berms on both sides of us. If I just turned into the berm and was on the brakes, my machine would skid and slide to the middle and run him over.
Instinctively I jerked the steering wheel right, then left to set the suspension. The wheels on the left side of the machine made it over the berm and hard braking had me stop in a shocking position. We unharnessed as fast as we could and got out to find the rider knocked out cold, laying next to our rear wheel, his shoulder just two inches from our rear wheel.
I had nearly run him over.
He was not breathing normally, his chin strap digging into his neck. He was snorting through his nose, with long intervals between tiny breaths. I unbuckled his chin strap and observed very closely for improvement in his breathing, which would tell me if I needed to take further action, which I was prepared to do.
Slowly he began to breathe a little better and better. After three or four minutes he began to wake up. Broken sternum. Out there in the desert hills above Colonet, we were thankful for what we did not witness.
Not today.
Thank God Larry, you and Marie were there to save his life, our guardians and angels can only do so much, you both were his living angels that day.
SCARY!! ? But, thankfully, quick thinking and instinctive reactions – along with intimate knowledge of your vehicle and understanding of the terrain – kept it from being much worse.
The other rider was lucky you were there with your racing experience when he went down!