Back From Baja 1000 and Still In One Piece

dguetter

• November 24 2008
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• 7 comments

Words by Nick Nelson, Photos by Dan Guetter

My good friend and QUAD Magazine test rider Jason Greenhaw and myself have been going to Mexico every November to race Baja for the past nine years. While we don’t really have the budget of the top teams contesting the Score Baja 1000, we easily have as much heart and determination as the best of them. With only a few podium finishes and countless leads thrown away thanks to mechanical failures, crashes and just plain bad luck, you would think we would know when to throw in the towel… But as soon as we are financially recovered from the Baja 500 we find ourselves busy prepping the next “Baja 1000 winning ATV”.

This year after following the advice of my friend, and pro rider, Mike Cafro (who has had more success on an ATV in Mexico than anyone I know), Jason and I built a completely fresh 2005 Honda TRX450R with a very mild motor that would prove to be bulletproof. The entire bike was almost a carbon copy of Cafro’s Score Championship winning machine.

The team would consist of Jason Greenhaw, Brandon Brown, Jorie Williams, Zac Willett, Mike Bender and myself. After drawing 2nd off the line, we were on the right track. Unfortunately, our first weekend of pre-running led to two days in the San Diego trauma center. Jason must have decided he was tired of riding and walked away from the bike…at about 65mph. This led to a dislocated and broken shoulder and some of the gnarliest bruises I have ever seen. We now had a team of five instead of six riders.

A week before the race I headed to LAX to pick up Zac, who was flying in from Kentucky. While I was delayed in traffic for almost eight hours due to the L.A. fires, Zac was busy at the airport running back and forth to the bathroom throwing up everything he had eat or drink in the last two days thanks to a gnarly stomach bug. When I finally got to him he looked like he had already raced the 1000 solo. Zac got a prescription called in, but apparently he was a little confused about the border drug policy as they gave him suppositories…he quickly hid them where they would never be found.

We left late Sunday for Ensenada to begin pre-running the Pacific side while Brandon, Jorie and their mechanic Kenney went to handle Mexicali through San Felipe. Pre-running was pretty uneventful and we were finished up by Wednesday evening.

At approximately 6:50 the 3A quad headed out of Ensenada toward the first pit. I rode smart and quickly caught up to 2A, which was picked for first off the line. After a few botched corners I settled in behind them, waiting for a breeze to pick up and help with the dust.

I passed the bike to Zac Willett in Ojos—we were still in 2nd place but the two factory American Honda Teams were closing in behind us. Zac rode the first part of his section well but got out run by Cafro’s 700 on a straightaway, so he dropped to third. About 85 miles into the race Zac clipped something hard and was pulled under the rear wheel losing a little time and another few positions. The bike made it into race mile 120 with no damage and in 6th place but we were still within striking distance of the leaders. Mike Bender and Brandon Brown brought it safely to RM193 for Jorie still in 6th place but they managed to close the gap. Jorie rode the next 90 miles on a mission, bringing the bike into Borrego in third place less than 8 minutes behind the 1st and 2nd place Honda Teams.

At this point things were all starting to come together, and from my past experience this is also when something is bound to go wrong. After stopping to drill and zip tie the seat onto the bike Brandon found himself out on track and he was charging hard to get back around the 5A bike. He cased the skidplate out and the resulting G-out sent him into a full barrel roll with the bike. Luckily for us he used his body to protect the light bracket from damage, but a tie rod was destroyed in the process. After a lot of thrashing and a some valuable downtime Brandon had the bike beat back into submission. Due to lost time Jorie was forced to run the last part of his San Felipe section with only just his Nite Rider helmet light and brought the bike into pit 11 a little further off schedule. The skid plate was broken loose and it had caused the chain to derail. Since the skid plate mounting holes were stripped we opted to remove it all together. We reinstalled the lights, and adjusted the front end to straighten the handlebars before sending Bender off into Mike’s loop. During Benders loop something shorted with the light wiring harness melting the wire from the plugs to the battery. It was starting to spiral down into what looked like a total mess for our chances.

I had barely reached the pit at Valle la Trinidad before the quad got there. I jumped on the bike without my Nite Rider…Bender yelled to me how the wiring had caught on fire and he was running on the back up harness. I sped off into my section with the lead Trophy Truck only minutes behind me. Less than five minutes in,  one of my two lights flickered and kicked off. Luckily one of our Baja Designs lights was more than enough light to race but I quickly began to wonder if they were running solely off the battery and if it was not charging. As the Trophy Truck behind me started gaining on me I noticed I was racing through a section with a cliff on the left and a wall on the right…not much room to pass. Then the other light started flickering off and on. Just as the light was completely going out I saw a small ditch on the right and dropped the quad into it at speed. I quickly scrambled away from the bike halfway expecting it to get creamed by the 700 horsepower trophy truck that motored by a split second later.

After another near miss I pulled the bike further into the ditch and tore into the wiring harness to see if I could possibly rewire it to charge the battery. After a lengthy investigation with my mini Mag light I determined that I was truly screwed. It apparently had fried the wiring to the stock lighting coil as well.

As two slower sportsman class motorcycles came by I jumped behind them and did my very best to stay glued to their rear tires for the next forty miles using their lights to see the rocks and cliff edges. Eventually I made it over to Zac and our Pacific side Pit crew. They got to work right away to determine whether the electrical was salvageable or not. I jumped in my buddy Frank’s truck to see if I could borrow a spare Nite Rider battery from someone in the pit area. After quickly locating a friend with a spare battery I proceeded to back Frank’s truck right into a 1982 Nissan Sentra complete with missing mirrors and cracked windows. Fortunately for the owner it was parked right in front of a Federale who then forced me to pay them what they thought the dented hood was worth. Four hundred dollars later I was allowed to go return to my bike.

Since it was Zac’s first time in Mexico we decided it was in Zac’s and my best interest for me to get back on the bike with nothing but a helmet light and ride the next 145 miles. After one of the longest night’s of my life I finally made it to the last pit where I was ecstatic to find Brandon Brown fully geared up and with two helmet lights already fired up ready to take it in to the finish.

We finished at right around 6 a.m.—roughly six hours behind the two factory Honda teams that we were battling with for the first half of the race.

While I keep telling myself that the risk isn’t worth the reward, you can bet I know where I’ll be next November.