Team MX43.com Wins Opening Round of Baja Series!

The 2011 San Felipe 250 was the first race of the Baja 250/500/1000 racing series in B.C., Mexico.  The class 50 winners, riders over 50 yrs of age, were the MX43.com supported team consisting of Jim Dizney, Doug Smith, Steve Williams, Paul Doebereiner and Eric McKenna. They were mounted on Jim “Big Chief” Dizney’s Honda CRF-X 450.

The race seemed to fly by but the week leading up

to the race was quite an interesting one. It produced a couple of mishaps that slowed the team but still couldn’t derail the effort everyone put out for this event.

My personal challenge seemed to being able to keep a bike running without a problem for more than 2 days in a row. My first problem reared its ugly head when I couldn’t keep my bike running at lower rpm’s about 50 miles out into my section. It seems the valves had reached their time for adjustment and became very tight on the tolerances. I had them checked that afternoon and found that they were too tight to adjust back to specs. Bike #1 down. So I loaded it up and made a Banzai run back to Arizona to get another bike! Back the next day with bike #2 and  back on the trail to finish my pre running.

Everything goes well for the first day and I decide to change oil in the big KTM. No problem, drain the old oil put in some fresh and I should be on my way. While waiting for the oil to drain I do a little checking over on the bike, air filter dirty, change it, done.

Spokes checked, oops. I find a couple of broken spokes in the rear wheel. Fortunately I am carrying a few spares in the tool box for just such an occasion. I start taking the rear wheel off and we get company.

 The 600-X team shows up on their way to a Checkers motorcycle club sponsored barbeque and proceed to visit a while first. These guys are all over 60 yrs old to ride in this class. They have learned a few things in their years of going to the races. The first rule seems to be to always have Tecates and Coronas available whenever you go to Mexico to race your motorcycle. They definitely had that! The more they drank the more I laughed while I worked on my bike.

It took me twice as long to finish but it was well worth it! Some of the things these guys have done during their trips to race in Baja are great stories but not really what you want to put into print. So I will just say that I had almost as much fun working on my bike that evening as I did riding it that day. I finally finished the bike and decided to fire it up to check the oil after the service. It ran for a minute when Steve looked over and says, “What’s leaking?”  We trace the leak and discover the water pump is dripping water from the weep hole.

So now bike #2 has a water pump seal that needs to be replaced. I don’t have an extra one of these so now I have to go to my second back up plan ………….…uhhhhhhh………………… which is to try to figure out where I can steal, beg or borrow someone’s bike. Steve says Doug is not using his bike, (more on that in a minute) you could make a loop on his bike. Great idea! I unload his bike since he is gone and take off to ride my loop a couple of times. I have never ridden this bike before and figure I will take it easy since it is not my bike and I am not familiar with it. I head out and the bike works very well up until about 14 miles before the end of my loop. The bike just stopped. I was worried maybe I had put down bike #3. But after taking a look in the gas tank I realize his bike doesn’t get very good gas mileage! I am out of gas with 14 miles to go. It is an 80 mile loop with a fair amount of deep sand throughout the section. I take off my helmet and start to push figuring I can be back in a few hours. I must have done something right because after pushing for only about ¼ of a mile along comes a guy on a quad that is pre running the section too. He stopped and asked what was wrong. I told him I was just out of gas. He says he has 2 one liter bottles of gas in his back pack. I offer to buy the gas and he says don’t worry about it and leaves me the bottles. That was enough to get me back. When I get back to the truck my phone gets cell service and Doug has left me a message and wants to know where his bike is. I told him I used it to make a loop but never mentioned that it ran out of gas and he almost didn’t get it back until after dark. I figure why worry him.

During all of this Steve’s bike has a cam chain tensioner go bad and is making an awful sound. But one becomes available when Jim “Big Chief” Dizney runs into trouble and then recruits Doug as a chauffeur. So that’s how Doug’s bike became available for me to steal, I mean borrow.

So now on to the rest of the story.

The biggest obstacle to overcome was that “Big Chief”, who by the way is the rider of record, broke his right lower leg during his pre run of his section. Now as rider of record he must either start or finish the race for the team to get credit. That happened on Wednesday and the race was on Saturday. So what would you do if you found yourself in that situation? Well, Big Chief decided to have Doug drive him home to San Diego, have his leg checked out, get it put in a cast and drive him back to San Felipe in time for the start.

 Why, you ask? Because Big Chief surmised he would get on the bike, cast and crutches in tow, get the green flag, ride across the line and hand the bike off to the next rider! Great plan on paper, but it becomes slightly more difficult when he realized he couldn’t put his right leg down even to help balance the bike. So he is trying to figure out how to get his running bike in gear with his left foot while maintaining his balance with that same left foot.

Ok, race officials to the rescue. They are going to “help” him put his bike in gear but don’t just click it into gear for him. Instead they will help balance him while he puts his bike in gear. The next few seconds are either hilarious or a nail biter depending on who you are while watching this whole mess unfold. “Big Chief Lefty”, remember his right leg is in a cast, brings his left foot up to click the bike into gear and begins to tip to the right side where the well meaning officials are supposed to provide support and make sure he doesn’t fall on his bad leg. They are either not paying attention to the weight shift or just not strong enough to support him and the bike, rider and an official end up on the ground when the green flag is waved! You hear a gasp from the crowd all around the starting area and start seeing flashes from cameras going off everywhere! I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the first crash on the starting line of any Baja race in history! Several people run over to help pick them all up and get the 501-X bike on its way. Big Chief and his bike make it the 25 feet or so to where the rider is waiting and make the switch without any further incident and the team is on its way.

 The rest of the race goes according to plan without anyone else crashing the bike or having any real mishaps the whole day. No mechanicals, no flats, no problems. Our 501-X bike crosses the finish in 9^th place overall and first in the 50+ class by 35 minutes! Everyone did a fantastic job in their sections and had a good day blessed with good luck after such a rough week.

Good job guys and heal up quick Big Chief!

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