The Big Race 2023 – part 4

To give you a scale of how long this race is, consider this.  After our first turn where we gave the car to Victor and Dustin at mile 202, to drive on the paved road to the place where we take the car for our second turn, it was a 7 1/2 hour drive in the chase truck! 

Javier pulled into mile 525 two minutes after Joe went by in the dark.  It takes about 2-3 minutes to get new drivers in the car and all harnessed up, air supply hose connected to your helmet, communication wire plugged in, and to fuel the car and check it over for damage to the wheels and suspension.  That makes us 5 minutes behind Joe. 

This stage would be 240 miles for Mark and me – about 7 hours in the car.  About 40 miles in we see a race vehicle pulled over in the dark ahead.  Is it Joe?  Is it Joe?  It was!  

We blew past him and celebrated.  “Bro we are leading the Baja 1000 at mile 565!”  Fist bump!  We raced ahead to put a gap on him.  Later we would learn that he stopped again at the next road crossing to change the front differential and some suspension component. 

We put a 50-mile gap on him.  We thought it would be enough.

Each vehicle has a tracker and with WiFi you can log in and see where everyone is.  Well, Joe’s tracked stopped working, and we did not know where he was.

Mark notices the gas gauge glowing at him in the dark.  It’s on E.  Oh carp!  Did we make some error in the calculations?  We had been in the car for 6 hours.  We get on the satellite radio to tell our team.  We want them to drive back closer to us so we can meet them sooner and we don’t run out of gas.  Joe is back there and we don’t feel like giving him gifts right now.  I’d run out of gas in the middle of nowhere in 2017 and waited seven hours for gas.

After some negotiating and mild arguing, we are told that the gauge is only approximate and that when it’s on E we still have gas.  We prayed they were right.  Everything on the car is custom aftermarket stuff.  The oversized gas tank did not come with a gauge – it was added later.

We gave the car to Victor and Dustin again.  We drove ahead to Gonzaga Bay near the only gas station and little store in town.  That’s all there is there.  We waited.

Over the satellite phone came a faint voice.  It was Victor.  “No brakes!”   Oh no!  He limped it into us 90 minutes later.  He was going very slow and when he got near the chase truck where we were set up to fix the car, four of the team had to grab the car and stop it with manpower.  No brakes is right.  None!  

The right rear wheel was wobbling.  The sway bar was broken off, and there was no brake fluid left.  Victor had hit something that caused this damage.  The mechanics went to work while Javi and Richard got in the car and waited.  It took 30 minutes.  Joe never came by, but we knew we were consuming our cushion.

Javi sped off.  

Where’s Joe?