Five on Four – part 7

Victor and Dustin arrived at mile 289 in the night.  Marie and I got back in the car and strapped in, and hooked our filtered air supply hoses to our helmets.  We were off to take on Matomi Wash.  Matomi is a wide wash that narrows and narrows to steep canyon walls.  There was a lot of rain and Matomi can be a violent torrent of water at its throat, moving boulders and changing the landscape.  It is very technical to navigate.

Marie and I went fast where we could, and crawled over boulders when we needed to.  Chris told me not to turn on ALL the lights at one time for long because the battery would go dead.  We remembered – but just how long we could run the lights we did not know.  

We made a 40-mile crescent and turned sharp left for another 55-mile crescent.  We had company.  One buggy, not in our class, was dogging us and made a pass at one point.  We passed him back, playing a game of who could find the best shortcuts where the wash made a wide bend.  Sometimes you’d cut the corner and pay a price by having to drive over bowling ball-size boulders for 200 yards.  Other times it worked out.

This was where we lost Tanner when we were prerunning.  He ran out of gas.  There are no gas pits set up for pre-running.  

This chase truck meet-up point was tricky.  Only one chase truck could come in.  It was 20 minutes off the paved road in soft sand.  Four-wheel drive was a must to get into the wash at Race Mile 360.  We didn’t see them where we were supposed to.  We stopped and doubled back.  Somehow we went past them in the 200-yard wide river wash.  I shut the machine down and Victor and Dustin got in.  

Victor turned the key.  Nothing.  Dead.  Apparently, I found the limit of how much you could run all the lights.  Victor knew there was a second battery.  Press a button on the keychain to access it.  I did not know anything about this.  Bad communication somewhere.  Whew.  Thanks Victor!  

They took off up the course.  In a few miles, they would be at the scene of a fateful accident that occurred with two motorcycles involved – and one of them was my son Tanner’s.  I’ll fill you in on the amazing story of his race later.  But this scene involved two broken arms, a broken back, a broken femur, seven ribs and a hip.  

We drive back out to the road.  It was far.  Back north up the highway.  Through the small city of San Felipe, we stopped at a taco stand.  Timing is everything.  They were the best tacos I ever had!  35 miles north, through a military checkpoint and 30 more miles to San Matias.  We waited for Victor and Dustin.  

The sky got lighter, and slowly daylight came again.  We were in front of a little store – the only store in the tiny town of SanMatias.  Coffee was a cup of hot water with a scoop of Sanka powder.  Nasty but great at that moment.  Everything else they sold was in cellophane.

Marie was pretty beat and tired.  So was I.  We talked about it and decided to put Kevin in as codriver with me for a brutal seven-hour 200-mile loop over the mountains to the Pacific Ocean, and back.

The car arrived.  Kevin and I climbed in while the mechanics walked around looking for problems.  

“See you in seven hours – God willing”….