Five on Four – part 4

After much preparation of the physical, mental and mechanical variety, we were ready.  I would start the race with Marie in the co-drivers seat and race to mile 155 where I’d give the car to Kevin and Dustin.  That was the plan.

The race started in the middle of the city of Ensenada, the largest city in Baja California, Mexico (besides the border city of Tijuana). This way the fans could see the race start and finish.  In years past they went off the start line on city streets, left then two blocks, left then one block, then drop into a mostly dry river wash, which provided a conduit under bridges to get about halfway out of the city congestion.  But this year it was different.

They did a “ceremonial start” where you raced one block, around a corner, then stopped to regroup everyone.  Then the police escorted a long parade of race vehicles through the city to the outskirts, where they started everyone again, at 30-second intervals.  Five miles on a closed highway and off into the dirt you went.  From there, the course was different each year.

The motorcycles started at 3:30 am.  Four-wheel machines got started 6 hours later, and by the time we got off racing for real, it was 11:30 am.

It’s always an exciting feeling to finally, after all the months of preparation, to be finally in the race – racing….wind in your face, your competitors in front of you, and hunting you down from behind.

Since my first experience racing a four-wheel machine as a passenger a couple of years ago, I was freaked out about passing.  Four wheels on baked and pulverized dirt and silt can put a lot of dust into the air.  So much that the vehicle behind you can’t see – and the closer they get the thicker that dust is.  If I had one real worry, it was this – how can I ever pass without charging into what I cannot see? 

In this race, I wanted to ride more aggressively.  I wanted to go faster without breaking the car.  That’s the challenge with these machines – go fast, but not so fast that you hit the rocks and whoops (big bumps made by racing wheel traffic) so fast and break a suspension component.  Hurting my body was not what I was worried about.  I was fastened into a roll cage with a five-point harness and neck restraint. Hurting the machine was my number one concern.

On a motorcycle, getting hurt was the big concern.  Self-preservation.  A motorcycle is far more dangerous – except in the case of fire in the UTV – but we had fire suits and a fire suppression system.

I made two passes in the section before the first dusty little town.  I was happy to break the ice.  If you can’t charge “into the dust”, you can’t pass.  You will only be passed and finish last, if you can finish at all.

We were going pretty good, and Marie was hanging tough, calling the turns she saw coming up on the GPS screen that was in front of her.  At race mile 70 we came out to the road, crossed it, and went back into the desert.  They changed the course last minute because a landowner was complaining.  They took 3 miles out and added 4 miles.  There was a GPS “patch” that we loaded on our GPS.  Tanner lead me on the correct way during pre-running, and I knew where the new turn was by sight.

A mile after we made that turn, we had a problem.  The race line disappeared from the GPS.  Just an arrow in the middle of a blank screen. What to do?  We continued.  I knew I was on the course, and we were.  

A buggy came up on me from another class and pushed their pass button, which lit up a blue light and siren in our car alerting us that a faster car was behind us and wanted to pass.  Etiquette was to pull over where you could and let him by – so we did.  A good thing about this is I figured his GPS was working, so  I’d just follow him until…I don’t know yet…until our GPS picked up the race line again.  I figured it had something to do with the course change and maybe when we got back onto the regular course the race line would show up again on our GPS.  

The buggy took a hard left at an intersection of dusty trials in the bush.  Then he stopped.  He waved for us to back up, as we were right on his bumper.  I thought he took a wrong turn and knew it because his GPS was working.  He took a hard right instead.  I followed him.  This was a big mistake.

He found the course because there were signs every quarter or half mile.  We went three miles down course.  But when we got to a checkpoint at mile 703 we both knew we had gone the wrong way.  You see race mile 70 and race mile 700 were about 100 yards away from each other at one point.  One going out, the other coming back in.  

He turned around and I followed.  It was then I remembered that you get disqualified for going backward on the course.  I tried to get to the side.  Even 20 feet off course is not on the course.  But there was thick brush and drop-offs.  I drove back to try to find race mile 72 ish and get back on course, all the while having a panic attack that we’d be DQ’d.  So early in the race!  Damn!!!  Damn!!!!

I consoled myself that the nearest race vehicle was at least 300 miles from here at race mile 400 perhaps, and maybe this rule didn’t kick in until it was a “live” racecourse.

As we got closer it was clear the buggy did not know where he was going.  The blind leading the blind.  There’s a lesson.  Don’t assume.  If you don’t have the answer and feel like a dummy, don’t assume someone else does and follow them.  Make sure.

I could have stopped to think about it.  Sometimes spending time to stop and think is a wise investment of time.  I was in hurry-up race mode.  I made fast decisions.  But fast and good are two different things.  A good decision is better than a fast one.  A good fast decision is even better,  But a fast bad decision is the worst.

We found ourselves going the wrong way from a fork in the dirt road – one of thousands that lace the Baja peninsula, the off-road racing capital of the planet.  We looked left and could see the course, but we could not turn around because of giant berms on both sides of us.  We went straight looking for a way.  A barbed wire fence was between us and the course, and we were going up hill and the course was in a level wash.

When I could see a way, I picked through the brush and came to a cliff.  It was a four-foot vertical drop, a flat shelf of 20 feet and then a six-foot vertical drop.  I saw tire tracks.  Someone else had done it.  

I slowly dropped the front end down the four-foot drop.  I was on the shelf.  So far so good.  I inched my way to the next drop which was completely vertical – six feet.  Marie pleaded with me not to do it.  Then she was yelling.  

I couldn’t go backward and up the four-foot step.  I was committed.  I reasoned the wheelbase was at least 11 feet – and the wheels were pushed all the way forward and all the way back.  I can do this…can’t I?  Just keep it perpendicular to the drop and you won’t roll it.

I slowly teetered the car over the cliff and…I was impressed!  I wanted to do it again!  We were on the course!  I look to the left and who is coming – the dang buggy who messed me up!  I scurried in front of him to protest his incompetence, dismissing my own.

I had to put this out of my mind and race again.  We blasted toward the dreaded ‘summit” crossing, the site of my great struggle in the freezing night in 2020, and Tanner’s great struggle when he finished the race in 2019.  This time we’d be going down the summit pass and not up, in the day not the night.

Three hours of violence had passed so far, and we had 722 miles to go…