Boise OT National 4/17/10

The CA boys in the 60 Master class had a rough weekend. Terry Sage took a tumble over a tabletop and sliced off the tip of his pinky finger. Art McDade over jumped the small step-up and landed on Tocher’s bike sending himself to the hospital with a broken rib and punctured lung. Both Terry & Art are ok and looking forward to their next race.

2009 Baja 1000 - Eric McKenna

Ever wonder what it would be like to ride the Baja 1000? Well let’s take a little tip down south.

I was invited to ride on a team generally known as the O’Neal team. Yes, that O’Neal of the off road clothing line. Since I was getting a new pair of riding pants and a jersey, O’Neal gear of course, I figured I should go down there and take a look at my section before I was going to race on it.

 I was assigned a 140 mile loop that was in the San Felipe area and included a variety of terrain from  sand to rocks with a couple of miles of pavement for good measure, (oh, by the way did I mention the 22 mile WHOOP section?).

Now I am thinking, 140 miles how bad can it be? So I take my trusty XR600 with a 3.6 gallon tank and figure I am set to look the place over. So the first day of pre riding I fill it up knowing that I have gone around 140 miles before I even hit reserve on past rides on this bike. My loop is 140 miles total, but I should pass right by San Felipe at around 125 miles. No problem, I will just ride into town and fill ‘er up at the local PEMEX station and finish the loop. It seemed like a really good idea at the time so off I went with my camelbak, sandwich, power bars, money, cell phone and tools.

I ride some really fast 100mph dirt roads, some really nasty rocky sections, hit a bunch of sand washes that go for miles with rocks, whoops, silt beds and a lot of cactus in them.  After doing all these obstacles for around 4 hours on a fairly heavy bike I am starting to get a little tired. But now the course has wound its way around  and we are heading down a very fast dirt road toward San Felipe and I am thinking since the big XR is going to be thirsty I might as well get myself a Pepsi when I stop for fuel. I look off in the distance and estimate San Felipe must be around 20 miles or so. I am feeling pretty good since I never got lost and haven’t had any crashes during my first look at my section. When all of a sudden, like someone shut off the switch the bike quits. I am thinking what in the heck can be wrong with the bike, it never quits on me. I roll to a stop and make sure I didn’t knock something loose or the switch didn’t get shut off by accident. I know what you are thinking, he is in denial, the fool is out of gas. So I look in the tank and sure enough I am out of gas! I look at my odometer and it says I have only gone 109 miles.

I wonder how in the heck did that happen, and I start to remember all the deep sand washes that I was having such a good time in all day to this point. OOPS, apparently deep sand equals crappy mileage.

Well, I take a look around and figure since I will probably have to walk to San Felipe and it is around 15-20 miles I should probably get going. So I lay the bike behind some bushes off the course and start to walk figuring  that I should be there in 3-4 hours (about dark) considering the terrain/sand along with my riding boots and gear. While I am walking I figure I should call someone to let them know I am out of gas. I bust out the trusty cell phone, turn it on, battery is good but not a single reception bar registers on that sucker. I think I will call AT&T when I get home to let them know they have a dead zone around San Felipe.

I must have done something right lately because I had only walked about 1 mile when I heard the sound of engines. I stopped and listened to see if they were coming in my direction or going away. Looking back down the course I could see dust clouds about a mile away and they were moving pretty fast in my direction. I waited for them to reach me and there were two trucks pre-running for the race. They stopped and gave me a ride back to the bike. It was my first time in a Trophy truck, what an experience. Those things are amazing, they have so much suspension that they just run over stuff and don’t have to pick a line like we do. When he turned the truck around I saw a bunch of humps and ditches that I thought he would go around. Nope, just nailed the throttle and bombed through all that crap. I would have been white knuckled and scared on a motorcycle! Like I said what an experience, it is incredible what those trucks are capable of.

They gave me a couple of bottles of gas from their truck and we were all on our way. That is an interesting thing about Baja, it doesn’t seem to matter if you are on a bike, in a car or driving a truck and have trouble. Any of the racers out on the course will check on you to see if they can help. So I learned a lesson, I now slow to make sure everything is ok whenever I come up on someone that has stopped for whatever reason until they give me the thumbs up sign to let me know they are alright.

So I make it back to town before sunset, buy some gas and head for home to return the next day to do it again, although with more gas. Each time I rode the loop from then on I carried a gallon of gas on my hip and dumped it in when I had burned enough fuel. No problem, had a great time and learned my section.

We raced in the 50+ age group and did very well, winning the class and eventually climbing into the top ten overall. This may be the first time a 50 yr old team has finished in the top ten of the Baja 1000.  Not bad considering we started somewhere around 57^th off the line with riders going off at 30 second intervals. All of our riders did an outstanding job and everyone had a good time without any serious mishaps.

So if you have ever have a chance to do one of the Baja races with friends, I would recommend it. Just to experience the event and a whole new world of riding we don’t get to see very often, it will teach you and show you things we don’t get at the MX races.

Hasta La Vista Mi Amigos!

#33

Check back soon for a 2010 report on the San Felipe 250