2014 Baja 500 Trip Report

Motomon · Jun 9, 2014

I think this would be a good spot for this since there isn't a trip report subforum and it's about offroading.

Well, first off, THANK YOU to the BFG Pit guys for being extremely welcoming and making us feel useful and cool . I left Santa Barbara and picked up Andy in Los Angeles. We met up with Juan and Alex in another truck as well, then caravanned down to Bob's house. He and Machelle waited up until 11pm for us! Too nice!

Friday morning was a 7am rise and shine. Bob made coffee for everyone and we headed out around 730 for Tecate. We fueled up in Santee first. Who wants to go to Mexico?!?

We met up with Tim and ran into other BFG Pit people at the border. I naturally had forgotten to buy Mexican insurance, so I got it from the mini mart with Tim Over the border, we head through Tecate....wait, we're missing a truck. Juan and Alex (the two Baja newbies) had been pulled into secondary check entering Mexico...that's right, they got stopped going IN to Mexico The drive from Tecate down to Ensenada was stunning, gorgeous and through rolling hills and wine country.

I could definitely see camping and exploring wine country for a weekend. We arrived in Ensenada and parked at 1130. Bob said if we hadn't seen contingency (Safety checks and inspection) that we should check it. Check it out, we did! Frankie had a 50% success rate with the locals...they either pet him or commented "Perro!! Perro!" and moved out of the way. Works for me in crowds! (the guy in blue is Andy, sombrero is Alex (gringo leche) and Juan in black)

Then it was time for lunch. As we walked back to the trucks, I noticed we were only a few blocks from the Mission. Tacos Floresta is a little fish taco stand that has been there at least 75 years. It has (for me so far) the best fish tacos I've ever had anywhere. Andy and Bob have had better , but I'll believe it because the tortillas are not handmade. Then it was time to head to KM 85 and BFG Pit 3.

We rolled out of Ensenada and headed southeast. On our way out, we saw Colonel Sanders. Gotta high five the colonel!

We arrived at Kilometer 90 and the access road to the pit area. As we drove in, I noticed a few good spots to get a nice running start to jump the truck . We pulled in to the pit, well, the site that would be the pit. It was situated nicely at a 90 degree bend in the road.

Frankie was excited. I asked who we were pitting with during the race and got this photo

The first thing I did was let Frankie out of the truck to pee. There was a small herd of goats that came over the hill and....well...find me at a campfire and I'll tell you how I almost had to buy a goat in Mexico. After taking all our stuff out of the truck and setting up camp, we decided to do a 'prerun' of the actual Baja 500 course out to the highway. As we took off down the road, we encountered a few jumps and GIGANTIC whoops. We were caught by a race prerunner. Juan called it over the radio and we pulled off the road just as they came through - a sweet 3 or 4 seater buggy. Back to the highway, we came back to the first road and punched it. All four tires left the ground. The BFG crew made us an amazing dinner of spicy potato soup with cheese followed by carne asada and pollo asado tacos/burritos. As the sun set on day 1, we had camp set up. We enjoyed a few beers, but I think I ended up in bed by 10pm!

Saturday around 2am, I awoke to coyotes howling. They actually went right by camp. We found their tracks not more than 10 feet from the tent. I later awoke to gray skies. Andy was awake and started chatting. I asked what time it was. 5:20am. No, not cool man. Back to sleep! I awoke to blue skies and a warmer tent. Frankie wanted out so it was time to get up. As we prepped, we had been told that Saturday night, we should have all our stuff packed inside the truck so it wouldn't disappear. We figured we might as well get a few more jumps in (with photos) so we went back down the road and got a few pictures. (insert photos - Andy took them so I don't have them yet). I'll just say that the front of this truck is set up quite nice. The rear shocks are a bit hard so I'll get them re-valved. We came back and circled the wagons.

Tommy and (I'm dumb, I forget the guy at the bbq's name) made an amazing breakfast for us: eggs, butcher chorizo, bacon, guacamole, salsas, cheese, etc. There was coffee in the rig as well. I gotta say, you guys do Baja right!

We slowly set up the pit through the day putting out cones, signage, tools, lights, radio station, etc. Then we relaxed. I took a nap under my truck because the sun was quite hot. There was a nice breeze though. Us newbies were super stoked when Laird, the guy in charge, came over and we signed our waivers and got an official BFG Racing shirt. I'm sure you can go out and buy these, but we all felt like badasses knowing we were going to earn them. Frankie got jealous, so I gave him my hat

It was time to get to business. Laird put me in charge of spotting trucks ahead of the pit. Andy and I drove 1.1 miles down the course and found a perfect 90 degree bend in the road (we thought a jump would be cool, but then realized that it would be hard to spot a number in the dark on a truck going 80mph. The corner ended up being a SWEET spot! Here we are scoping it out

I kept Frankie on leash because I realize that when he sees an animal, his brain turns to primal mode and I can't reach him. Good thing - he spotted a rabbit and ground squirrels and would have been GONE!

It turns out that this corner was pretty technical. The approach is 90 degrees so the trucks would come barreling down the road at hyperspeed only to brake, turn the front wheels and use understeer to help them slow down. When the front hooked up, they'd go WOT and go through the gate which only about 12-15 feet wide! Impressive by any standard! As we started to see trucks, we saw the trophy guys come through during the daylight. Andy used his nice camera to get great photos and we set up a GoPro on the corner post as well. As darkness fell, we repositioned the truck so we could turn on the lights and not blind oncoming trucks. Trucks would honk and use their noisemakers to say hi to us as we jumped up and down cheering and motorcycles would wave to us. We were stoked! Since we were away from camp, we didn't get fish tacos, but I'd say we did just fine: hookah, beer, salami, prosciutto, capacollo, bread, Jarlsberg cheese, chips, queso dip and bourbon on the roof while we stood in the bed of the truck.

"PIT 3, PIT 3, TRUCK ###.....PIT 3, PIT 3, TRUCK ###" was all we had to do. Andy and I caught up (even though we hang out about once a month - I've known him since high school). We commented about my twin brother who decided not to come. Every time something cool happened, our motto was "Fu**ing Tyler" - It had started as "Fu**ing Tyler is missing out". We also went around and got some agave plants and wood. We made a small fire. Did you know that a can of chili will explode when placed directly in the fire?

Don't worry - we had a professional way to douse the fire (and a few gallons of water)

We came back in to camp around 230 or 3am. We packed in the entire pit and everyone called it a race. We drove back to Ensenada. Ensenada arrival 6am. We decided to take highway 1 back to Tijuana with Juan and Alex and said bye to the crew. Highway 1 is still closed so we had to take the free road up inland a ways. I'd say we lost some time there. We eventually crossed the border at 9am so only a 30 minute difference which could have been slightly avoided IF we had the toll road AND if I didn't spend 10 minutes getting lost in TJ because they've changed the signage due to construction.

We had a GREAT trip. Thank you again Bob and BFG! We will see you (I know at least I will) for the Baja 1000!