Cruise Ship Madness

Part 2: Baja 500 2006..............................

When the sun came up, and another beautiful day was evidently in the making, we decide to start our day as well. Raceday had seen a steady flow of traffic into checkpoint one all night long. We are an hour and a half east of Ensenada where the race starts, and 20 miles from the nearest pavement, and a half mile from the first checkpoint of the race.

Grrrr.......there is a 25 ft mtr home that has parked between us and the race course during the night, but that is really no big deal. We just move out to the side of it with a moto crew that had adoped us, when we pulled in the previous evening, to watch the goings on.

Mike and Chuck are 55 and 65+. they have a friend Jerry (a 40 year old Mexican US citizen) with them, and they have two boys 13 and 17. A nice family. The boys are really into the racing, and can imagine themselves right there on Johnny Campbell's ass contending for the race lead. The 13 year old is eager to help anyone that needs it, and in fact a racer, who he help change a tire for last year for, gave him an autographed 20 dollar bill in appreciation. The kid now get that $20 bill signed by anyone that he can, and has a bunch of signatures on it. Cool.

Mike is a good old beer drinker who often handle pit duties for Ron Bishop. He is helped out by his running buddy Chuck. Both these guys have wives and they live in Mexico full time.

Ron Bishop is the only guy that has run every Baja 1000 so far (at 62 years old), and he is still doing it. He lives not far from me, and I have run a pit for him before, so we had a bunch to chat about. You know, the good old days of early Baja racing, before the world went to hell in a hand cart.

Doug was getting into it with Mike who was sporting a Harley cruiser type tee shirt. Doug is a hardey fan as well, and currently own a annivarsary VRod, that lives next to his 2001 ST1100. Doug still says that of all three of his street bikes he is most comfortable on his V65 Sabre.

Doug is supprised at how he doesn't hurt from the previous day. The first bike get to us at 8:10. It's the Honda team of Rick Bell. Next bike is the Johnny Campbell entry. Campbell's entry has passed everyone in the class but Bell, in the two hours that they have been racing. That is a 50 mph average as we are at the 100 mile mark of the 450 mile race.

Bikes go through for 2hr. The trophy trucks start at 9am, three hours later than the bike, in order to give the cars and bikes some separation. It take them nearly an hour longer to get to us.

In the meantime we notice a suited up rider going up and down the track walking. He's obviously a rider looking for something. We are curious so we get him over to us and he says that he's looking for his bike. It should be here by now, and no one with an FM short wave radio can find anything out about his entry.

He's a 42 year old Limy. He tells us that he isn't really supposed to be in this race, but he got appointed to do this when their real rider contracted an ear infection that made him dizzy when he ride.

But the important thing is, where is his race bike. Turns out they are racing an 86 XR600 with all the trick upgrades. It's bored out to 650cc, has Race Tech White Bros front forks and rear shock, has the bigger cooling fins welded onto the head. I mean these guys are ready. Except there is no bike here and they are two hours late by this time.

Our adopted Limy is scared now as the fast, fire breathing race truck have now caught up to any bikes that come through now. That is a huge hazzard, to be passed by those monsters. You need more eyes in the back of your head than you do to the front when your are in the pack of front running 4 wheeler.

Honestly his bike probably is out of the race, and we take advantage to query the guy about racing in England and the Isle of Man and such. The boy gets him to sign his $20 bill. He's an interesting guy. Jerry coaxes more stories out of him with a trio of ceviche tacos.

Which brings us to another subject, we don't have any food with us, and it's going on about noon or so. When on motos out there in Mex one learns to beg. We, got a couple of those tacos ourselves, but knew that we had to make a more substantial move.

But first I took a walk down the race cource about a mile to see what I could see. There were racers all along the way with tents and such.



The above photos were taken on this walk. the top photo is of a Mag 7 pit crew that is supplying gas and tires and minor work on probably 10 or so cars and bikes. And they will help anyone else if they have time, and they usually do.

This last photo is of just some race spectators. I tried to get a shot of a bike way down there going past the trees to the left of that white pickup, but I didn't time it correctly. All in all there were seveal thousand spectators in the 2 miles along the race cource here. it is a mad house of activity.







These are typical spectator out having a day at the races. These guys get on the race course to move to somewhere else all during the race. Folks rarely get hurt.

Speaking of getting hurt, we heard by radio that a rider was down on the track somewhere before us with a broken leg. They called for a medivac helicoper to get him out. Seems there is nowhere, but on the race course, to put the chopper down,
so they will have to contend with race cars trying to get by them.

Life is kinda harsh out there at times, but that kind of stuff always happens to the other guy.



While on my walk I came across that tree back there by that bike in the picture. The bikes are coming around that corner with that tree on the corner's outside, and the bikes are really struggling to keep from wearing that tree. A couple of bikes before this rider, a fellow blew that corner and went to his right of that tree, out where those people are. Whatever works is how its done down there.


My hunger was getting to me. The racing action had slowed down and the first racers would be coming back into Ojos Negros on their last thirty miles of the race so we all decided to ride in to Ojos N to get lunch. We first said good by to our new buddies. I made it a point to shake the kid's hands as well. We started to leave about 1pm. First we had to go a 1/2 mile against race traffic to get to the road out. Many others were leaving as well.

So Doug's nightmare was starting all over again. He wasn't confident enough to go at a speed that kept him between the dust clouds made by the cars. So the cars would pass him and dust out his eyes. I followed him down to the turn that took us the final 4 miles to the pavement. He had about had it by then, again, and to boot, we had dropped a couple thousand feet and we were dealing with hot weather also.

10 miles later we were in town having A burrito plate, sodas, and big glasses of water. We felt much better as we left town to go to Ensenada near the cool ocean to get away from the heat.

I got the hint that we really had seen enough racing, and we knew enough about how to outfit bikes to go to Ak. It was about 4pm when we left Ojos. If we played our cards right, we gould get home tonight and sleep in our own beds.

Race trafic was backing up as we approached town. I knew a way around town, so we took that route. Cool, every thing was going good. Then we came to a blocked off road. I decided to go around it to the right as that was the direction that I wanted to go. Well, that took me up into a residential area that I thought was going to close me out, but no...here was a small connecting side street.

I will be saved. Oh, no, these road blockings are for the race course. I come up to the edge of the course, and I have to get across that with my two trailing riders. I looked for racers, and although one had just passed, there were no more, and as in the outback you just jump on the course and cross if you need to.

Well, that isn't exactly how they do it here in the big city. As I pull out into the street there is a foot cop who doesn't want me to do that. Oh Shit, if I stop this is going to get me fined a few bucks. He seems like he doesn't have a car near by so I punch it and hope my boys will do the same. They did. I go a long block down the street and indicate to the next cop that I want to get off the course, and he so nicely open the barricade for me. In the meantime the other cop is hollaring at Arnold to stop, and the cop at my intersection doesn't know that the other cop wants to arrest us or something.

I'm figuring that we should get out of sight as soon as possible. Arnold runs up along side of me, and stops me to tell me that that cop was real mad. I say, well, lets get out of here then. Arnold says ok, but he stalls his engine. I take off, and wonder why they aren't behind me. And all through this Doug doesn't know anything is going on.

I went six or eight blocks and waited for them. Arnold wants to take a break and have a cigarette. I said lets go five or six miles up the road to a gas station and stop there for gas and a break. Arnold agrees. Doug still doesn't know exactly what has gone on. I leave for the gas station. They don't come and don't come. They should be 30 seconds behind me but they are at least 4 or 5 mintues back as I wait along the road. Turns out that Doug has offered a homelss guy one of Arnold's cigarettes.

Well, the cops haven't taken a warrent out on us, cool, and we saved 20 dollars and some time and embarassment. So, much ado about nothing, but we decide to take the free road home so if there is an all point bullitin out for us at the toll stations, well, we won't be there.

We still had to go through Tijuana. TJ is at least a couple million people, and threading your way through there can be a nightmare. I was high on anticipation as we approached the city, but things went like clock work as the boys stayed close. We split traffic as necessary, weaved to avoid entering traffic when needed and avoided all dogs and kids. Right in the middle of all this chaos a Ranger pickup truck, pulling a small tent trailer, passes us and the rider is waving enthustically. I wave back without know who that was, But it turns out to be Jerry and the kids from checkpoint one. Small world.

Crossing town was a success as we pulled up to the border station. I was much relieved to find only three cars in front of us, and a wait of just a few minutes. That was the least traffic that I have ever seen at the border. 2 hours is the longest that I ever waited to cross.

Once across the border we stopped for coffee. Arnold's van was at Doug's house about 30 miles away, and I live another 30 miles north of that.

I tooted my horn as Doug and Arnold pulled off at their exit, and a half hour later I called my wife from the call box at the gate to let me in. I wanted to give her a little time to get whoever she was with out the back door if necessary.

A hot shower looked mighty good. I was really too tired to talk about the trip. But later that night my wife wanted to know why I was home a day early. She asked if I had pissed my buddies off so much that they had ditched me.

Damn, she's good.

Part 1: Baja 500 2006.................................................

I'm all outfitted up to do a ride from Oceanside Ca, 50 miles north of the border, down 60 or 70 miles into Baja to watch the Baja 500 Off road race. Due to recent increased video of the race, the entries have increased by 30%. That should make it a better spectators event.

I'm headed to Alaska in about 10 days with 2 of my old codger buddies, so the three of us are going to do a couple days in the bush with a minimum of equipment that will keep us comfortable. The idea is that we want to unload the small dualsport bikes off the trailer in Alaska, and maybe take an overnight ride to Bella Colla or Inuvik or who knows where.

I thought that we needed to take a small ride down to Baja first. Well the communications broke down. Arnold showed up at Doug's house with nothing on his bike. He thought we were trailering the bike to Mexico. Doug on the other hand had packed everything that he was taking to Alaska on his NX250. What the hell, that was why we were taking this trip. We need to get on the same page.




I guess that I had not communicated very well our mission, but no matter, Arnold soon had his bed roll bungied on his bike, and we left Doug's house at around noon on Thursday. The race was to be on Saturday. We could easily get to our race watching site tonight, and that would leave us all day Friday to goof around and smell the roses while waiting for raceday Sat morning.

So to that end we left San Diago, and established what speed three different dualsport riders have to ride at in order to stay together. The NX250 could easily run 65+ on the Highway. Arnold didn't want to go much over 50 with his DR350 with some pretty aggresive knobbies, and his geared down sprocket selection. I was comfortable with up to 65 with my sprockets and dualsport tires on my DR350. Having said all that, the NX was the best tool for the road portion of our trip.

We ran the 50 miles to the border with a burger stop in Dulzura, about 15 miles shy of Tecate Mex. We gassed up on the US side of the border. Then we would do 20 miles east on Pavement to the Compadre Trail, then turn south on a dirt road toward Ojos Negro.

Arnold had a bunch of hours in Mexico and on his Dual sport bike, but this was new to Doug. I grew up with both these guys. Doug is a hell of a cordinated athelete of 65 years of age, but he was really uncomfortable on his NX with that load in the soft stuff. The slipperiness of the sandy road had him down at the 15 mph level, where 50mph would have made everything much easier, and the time on the road much shorter.

I could see that he was struggling so I decide to make the 3 mile side trip over to Ranch Veronica. RV is now a lodge with motel rooms in a land of nothing else. Lots of dualsport and any kind of Baja travelers go there for country style getting away from it all.

I learned that this rancho used to be a fighting bull, breeding ranch. We took a picture under the mounted heads of some of its members.



After a couple sodas, we get back under way. We read the map and it seemed to say that in 22 km there was a broken dotted line road that went east to the piney tree country of Laguna Hanson some 15 miles away. I wanted to take Doug over there to show mim the 20 mile square pine forest of Baja. It turns out that those mileages off the AAA maps were in miles not kilometers. So we took a break under these trees to collect our thoughts,and recalculate mileages



The weather was perfect as we rode along. The road was wide but a bit sandy in places. Doug was riding slowly and carefully. Arnold is enjoying the 30 to 50 mile version on the same road, while I follow along behind Doug much of the time, so he won't think we ran off and left him.

Riding slow in that stuff is harder than riding fast. When you are fast you have some of the 'things that are going in a direction have a tendency to keep going in that direction' going for it, but riding slow takes a lot of corrections to stay upright.

As the evening grew on I could tell it might be time to call it a day if I could find a good campsite. Sure enough I did come across a sand wash where we could get 50 yards away from the road. There was even a bunch of fire wood lying about. And sleeping on sand is better than hard ground.

We were all tired, but feeling pretty good about the world. We could see that the milkyway was going to give us a great show, as the moon was past overhead in the sky, and would be out of sight by the first nightly nature call. A great campfire was had which kept the night chill bearable. We were at 4000 feet, and the night low was probably below 50. Not real cold, but I wasn't looking forward to getting out of my sleeping bag either.



So as we sit around the fire and BSed a bit, it seems that the only thing that we have to eat is 3 sport bars that I threw in my jacket pocket. Arnold has nothing as he wasn't thinking about food as he hastily put his bed roll together, and I told Doug that we would no doubt be eating mostly at cafes.

So we have no food till we get to a cafe. Well that is ok, cause it isn't far to the next town, about 20 miles or maybe a little more.





We slept like logs, only awakening briefly to note with considerable appreciation the beauty of the night sky. The first rays of sunshine brought the temperature to tolerable in a hurry. We were thinking of coffee and such, as I lied to the boys about how soon we would get some.

I wanted to get 20 miles east to the piney trees and the cafe that Jason and I ate at a month ago, but I wasn't sure how to get there from here. Jason and I did nearly the same ride in my van, but that trail had a mile of deep sand that was whooped out from ATV usage that would have killed Doug. Hell it was hard on me. I usually fell down at least once in that sand wash.

So we went south toward Ojos Negros, and I hoped I would stumble across a pretty good road that would take me to the piney tree forest/cafe. Soon we came to a road that looked like it would take us in the right direction.

Up the road we went. It looked like the new usage of the road might be race traffic, and, it turned out, we were actually on the race course in that area. That was no problem, except this might really be a little used road with a lot of washouts and deep ruts and such.

Within a mile the road took off up a five hundred ft climb, and the road turned to the 'more worst' variety. There were loose boulder (grapefruit sized), ruts (2 ft deep sized), and large embeded sharp boulders that had to be negotiated. Now in Baja a 'more worst' road isn't as bad as a 'most worst' road, but we were surely being challenged to our limits.

Arnold's bike is the best suspended of the bunch, except his is unlowered so you can't get your feet on the ground very soon, but with the good suspension you don't need to touch the ground very often. At least, that is the idea.

My bike is the same bike, but I have lowered it a bit. Doesn't leave me with as much suspension travel, but I can get my feet on the ground sooner if I need to.

Doug's NX250 is the shortest of all three, and you can even ride along clutching the bike at slow speed and walk your feet along to keep the bike upright.

So Arnold went up the hill first. I couldn't see from where I was, but his engine quite up there. I knew that was bad. Doug was next and he walked his bike up to where Arnold had trouble. cool. I rode up far enough to see that Arnold was off his bike but the bike was upright.

Arnold was on the low side of his bike, and he couldn't get a leg high enough to get it over the bike. All he could really do is hold his bike up, but he had to get to the other side of the bike, in order to get on it. As he tried to get to the other side of it, he dropped the bike. This was not going well, but Doug got to him to help him lift his bike, and now Arnold is up and on the correct side. He mounts up and is able to ride the bike down in order to get another run.

Meanwhile Doug nurses and duck walks his bike up to the top. I also make a run and luckily make it to the top. Doug and I wait....we hear Arnold making another attempt. I again hear his engine quit. Doug hears nothing. I walked down to where I can see. Arnold is again laying on the ground and the bike is over with the top of the bike down hill. That is the hardest way to pick, even a DR350, up.

These episodes of dropping bikes, picking them up, and turning them around going down hill, then turning them around for another try can take the life out of an old guy.

We were out in the sun, Arnold had his jacket on as well as his chest armor. Arnold had had it by then. It was hot, and Arnold was blowing pretty hard, so he asked me If I wouldn't take it up.

Now I'm not much of a hero in these situations, but I was in better shape to give it a try, so I made a run at it with success. Arnold walked up and we all looked for a bush to get under for some shade. 15 minutes later we were under way.

We rode for another 20 mintues. And there is enought sand to drive Doug nuts. I'm feeling his pain as he rides with his feet out to stab them down at any moment, to save himself. We are looking for some shade to rest in when we come upon the start of the pine trees.



We had been on the trail about 1.5 hours, and we are feeling tired. We mention how a 75 mile ride in the dirt can really tire a fellow out. A big part of that is our age, but still we are tired anyway. We are at least at the top of the hill, and there won't be any more seriously rutted out climbs.

A couple race prerunners come by on XR600, and I ask one of them if they know if a road really does go across this country to the pine tree forest. He says yes, that in about 10 miles there is one. Soon we proceed.

Arnold rides out front and waits at any intersection to find out where to go. Doug rides slow and I follow. 20 more minutes go by and we come to a little traveled road that goes in the direction we want to go. I figure it is the one we want even though it has only been 5 miles. I figured that the racer I asked probably didn't really know how far ahead the road was.

I still don't know if it was the right road. It had been a well travel road at one time, but it hadn't had any travel for maybe years. We rode along and made many decisions about which fork to take at the many choices. Some times Arnold or I would go down the road to see if we thought it was the right one or not. Sometimes we were right, and sometimes we were wrong.

One time when we were wrong, we ended up in a narrow sand wash where the road just petered out. We were pointed the wrong way, and the effort that it took to get turned around was momentus.

As Doug and I were going the other way back out, Arnold was taking his helmet off and said that he was about to die and needed a rest. Doug and I said we would go up to the last intersection and wait for him. We went there and layed down in some shade under a bush.

We rested under that bush and contemplated whether or not we would survive this little ride. Doug openly questioned my sanity. I mean we were all bushed. I was probably in the best shape because I hadn't fallen down, and had expended the least energy, but I was seriously tired.



A half hour later, I went down to see how Arnold was doing. He was coming around. I turned his bike around and got it kick started. Arnold's bike had the only kick starter amoung us. He geared up and we got underway. The good news was that we had seen a rancho that was a 1/2 mile away.

I had given Arnold one of my energy bars a couple hours ago, and Doug and I ate one at the last rest stop. Food was at the top of the long list of priorities, and water was going to soon be an issue as we'd been sweating quite a bit, and there wasn't much water left in our canteens.

Soon we picked up that rancho, and the road was more traveled, but still, there was that nagging sand that was plaguing Doug. We could see the beginning of the end. Or at least I could. We even came to a rancho (El Topo) that was on our map. That located us, and we knew the cafe/lodge was within 10 miles of there, and on pretty damned good road. Doug could average 15 to 20 mph.

I stopped one time to wait for Doug, and he just motored on by. There was no fun left in this adventure for him. I was tired too when we pulled into the cafe. This particlar cafe has a 2 story rock motel next door and they have satelite internet and TV. Rooms are 50 dollars for 2 and there is electricity till 9pm and they have hot water. You can't ask for anything more than that.

Doug sat down and announced that he wasn't having any fun, and that he was too damned old to be doing things that he didn't want to do. In between the complaining we got to drinking sodas and lots of water. The Machaca Burritos were served, and Doug got to playing with Miguelito (a 3 year old that belonged to the owner's wife), and the hydration and caffeine kicked in, then life seemed a little more worth while.

We rested there for an hour, bought three gallons of gas, and reprovisioned our water supply. We felt good enough to drive the next 15 miles to El Rayo where we would watch the race go by.

Laguna Hanson is in that next fifteen miles. Laguna Hanson is a real piney tree retreat. It is beautiful even when the lake is dry. Two months ago when Jason and I went through there, there was a 100 yards of lake. Last weekend there was only a puddle of water out there. I expect it will soon be Dry Lake Laguna Hanson, and it will stay that way until the next rainy year.



We stopped for a photo session and soon went on to Aseradero (sawmill). It had been an active sawmill fifty years ago. I suspect when they made a national forest park out of it, the Saw mill shut down. My first trip through Aseradero was in 1968 and the sawmill was already closed, but a lady sold gas out of 55 gallon barrels. She is still there, and this time she sold us some sodas. I drank another quart of water while I was there. She must be close to 80 years old now. She is quite a success story in my book.

At about 4pm we pulled into El Rayo, and drove about 30 yards behind the first line of race spectators that were already set up to watch Saturday's events. The boys laid out their sleeping gear and Doug was in his Jammies by 5pm. We held a very low profile for the rest of the night. I didn't even feel like lighting a fire, I was so tired. I did stay up till 9pm. I had to wonder if maybe Doug wasn't correct about this being fun or not, then it was ZZZZZZZZzzzz......