2012 Mexican 1000 - and back again - part 1

The race ended with two nights at the Cabo Azul Resort which was relaxing and much too nice.

When it was time to go we took Rhonda to the airport and the rest of us headed north.

This was a tradition of my dad's.  Drive to the starting line, run the race to La Paz, and then turn around and drive back.  It's a great testament to my family's love of Baja and the durability of the Toyota Land Cruiser.

We needed to stop in La Paz to check on some of Mary's friends and on the way we swung by Rancho Leonero.

Now a hotel, when I was a kid Rancho Leonero was the house of a family friend, Gil Powell.   In 1974 Gil passed away and the house was eventually sold and turned into a hotel.  My parents drove by it at some point and hated it.  They described it as too fancy and exclusive and not the "real Baja."  So Mary and I were a little surprised when we turned down the dirt road and saw the hotel.  It was really nice.  A series of rock bungalos and Gil's house had been converted into a bar/restaurant.  Even though it was much much larger it kept some of the spirit of the original place.

We wandered around the hotel and into the bar where we ran into Tom Swift and his son.  They had raced the Stroppe Edsel and were spending a couple days at Leonero to recover.  We hung out and chatted and had a beer..

I found these photos on the Rancho Leonero site.  We got our first Lab from Gil.

As a kid I spent hours snorkeling around the far rock, looking for eels.

Mary spreading some of dad's ashes

Even though we really wanted to stay at Leonero, eventually we headed to La Paz where we realized we'd missed Mary's friend.  So we stopped had dinner on El Malecon and decided to stay at the same hotel we stayed on the way down.  It was on the northern edge of town and we'd miss the La Paz traffic the next morning.

our adventure continues here

2012 Mexican 1000 - Day 4.2 -video update!

our adventure continues here

2012 Mexican 1000 - Day 4.2 -to the finish

There was a sharp left that took us off the freeway.  Later I heard that most cars overshot it and went down the road and turned around.  Me - I decided to lock up the brakes and go for it.  I managed to get the car on three wheels and was very lucky not roll it (there’s a picture out there somewhere).  It was the one time Rhonda really snapped, by calmly saying "dude, seriously, if your going to pull that sh*t, I'm getting out and walking."

That was the start of the second half of day 4's only stage.

Once we got off the road we slowly started to climb.  We'd been informed there would be some rough mountain roads but this didn't seem too bad.  I spent twenty mile trying to pass Bob Land's 38 jeep and annoying Rhonda by sitting in it's dust cloud.  Eventually I passed it and felt like a race car driver.  I'd pull off a couple miles later to start the camera and he'd pass us.

We were cruising along pretty nicely and then in the middle of the first real climb was the 38 jeep.  It turns out the reason he was going slow enough for us to pass was one of his differentials had gone out.  Now on the hill the other differential had died.  He'd gone from 4 wheel drive to 2 wheel drive to 0 wheel drive.

It wasn't a great spot.  He couldn't really roll backward to a good parking place and couldn't go forward.  So we squeezed by and offered to tow them to the next pull out.  While we hooked up we were passed by the Stroppe Edsel and my favorite motorcycle the 1973 Yamaha SC500.

The zebra fj40 may not be fast but it is definitely strong.  We pulled the jeep like a champ and deposited it at the top of the hill.  Then we were on our way and the climbing began.

There had been a fire through the area within the last year and now the hills seemed to consist of rocks and sand.  I'm not a huge fan of heights and as we climbed and the roads got narrower and narrower I got slower and slower.  For me this was not a place to race but more or a place to get through.  I was happy that the fj40 was so narrow and wondered how some of the wider trucks got through. 

We eventually hit the pass and started down.  Down was a better road but you had momentum working against you.  The array of shrines along the side of the road weren't that comforting.

Christmas shrine

We passed the Edsel, the yamaha,  a manx buggy that was limping along on what sounded like one cylinder.   We also passed goats, cows, trucks and trucks with cows in them. Eventually the road straightened out and leveled.  Then we hit a paved road, turned right, went for a couple miles, turned left and were off the road again.

cows

trucks with cows

We skirted an off road park and dropped into a wash.  The rest of the race was sand, whoop dee door and trying to figure out which of the 4 parallel roads we should be on.  Basically the end of the race was a medley of things I found annoying.

Eventually we came out of the wash and onto paved city streets where policemen directed us to the finish line.

Brutus' front axle was held in place by a come along for the last chunk of the race.

We crossed the line and were done.  We parked next to Brutus and I mooched a beer off the co driver from the Oly Bronco.  It was the best Bud Light I've ever had.  I dug through the back of the land cruiser and came across my dad's favorite cocktail, the Canadian Club Martini in a bottle.  Rhonda and I had a celebratory toast and joined the crowd to tell and listen to stories of the race.

the story continues here

2012 Mexican 1000 - Day 4 Stage 1.1

Day 4 started early.  Rhonda and I checked the car over as the sun rose (we'd been a bit too exhausted to look it over the day before).  Even though we were tired it was a beautiful morning.

 

Ned Bacon's "Killer Bee"
It wouldn't get out of the lot until noon because of an electrical gremlin(?).
Even with the delay he'd finish second in class.

For this last stage of the Mexican 1000, Norra would throw a bit of everything at us.  Straight fast gravel roads, horrible whoop dee doos, traffic, towns, highways, straight stretches along the Pacific Ocean, hilly dirt roads, sandy washes and some of the narrowest steepest mountain roads of the race.  Add to this the cars left in thre race were a bit beat up after the previous three days.

The Zuercher/Norton Bronce showing surprising little wear from it's roll onto it's side.

Arwen, Mary and the kids came down to send us on our way.

Stage 4 would be  a 17 miles of transit from the hotel to the start and then140 miles off road from La Paz to San Jose del Cabo.  The cars started to line up and the zebra land cruiser (which had now become “A Land Cruiser”) would be at the back of the pack with the handful of other DNFers. 

Most of the Broncos were at the back too, so it made for good company.  We lined up, started and were immediately stuck in traffic.  It was a Wednesday morning in La Paz  and the 17 miles to the off road starting point was heavy with traffic.

We made our way across town with Brutus and another buggy eventually finding the turn off to the dirt road and the start of the fun part of the race.

The first section was  pretty easy to drive but harder to navigate.  The roads were well used which meant a lot of turn off forks, and small towns to get lost in.  

We learned to go wherever the locals pointed.  This wasn’t the sort of race where there was much misdirection and, being at the end of the pack, I think people were rooting for an underdog.

As we moved along the plant life got larger until it was a literal cactus forest.  I really didn’t want to go off the road.  We hit some sand and gnarley whoop dee door.

I’d gotten the hang of it but it was still annoying.  We were passed by many and passed many along the road.

Eventually we got to the Pacific Ocean.  Long strips along the ocean of beautiful road that would abruptly end in a 90 degree turn.  This is where we lost a bit of time.  On a paved freeway the land cruiser maxes out at around 70mph.  On these straight dirt roads we were consistly doing 60-65mph but most of the other cars were cruising at 80+mph.

We hit the northern edge of Todos Santos and made a hard left up into the hills.  Cutting through a semi deserted development and a totally different environment.  We’d climb through brush until the GPS and some orange ribbon told us to go right and off the road.  A thin trail, that looked like it was made for this race, took us down a steep embankment and onto the highway.

1.2 coming up!  featuring mountain adventures! right here!

2012 Mexican 1000, Day 4 Part 1 - Video Update!

Here's a video of the first half of day 4.  La Paz to the Pacific Ocean.

and the text part of the adventure continues here

2012 Mexican 1000 - Day 3 - Stage 2

May 1, 2012

We finished stage 1 and headed down the freeway.  At the Pemex we filled up the tank and ran into the Stroppe Bronco team.   We told them that we had seen their car by the side of the road but that’s all we knew (see 1:58 on the Day3 Stage1 video).  It would turn out they were having electrical problems.

Arwen and Mary hadn’t caught up, so we left a note at start of stage 2.  We’d heard that the start was going to be horrible.  “4 feet of silt” was the term that was thrown around and awful mountain roads.   Rhonda and I talked about it and decided I should drive.  I was really getting the hang of the zebra and she was getting better at juggling the map book and GPS. 

The Mexican 1000 is an unmarked.  It keeps people from messing with the course, or driving on it, but it makes navigation a challenge.  Before the race I hadn’t realized how important it would be to have a good navigator.  Rhonda’s combination of being a flight instructor and super bike training made her exceptional. Oh and Arwen had told Rhonda not to let me kill myself (or her), so she kept me from getting too reckless.

 

We started the stage --- no silt.  It seemed the “four feet of silt” didn’t exist, it was miles of straight flat road.  Which was great, but also a little tense when you’re expecting it to be horrible.  Finally we started to climb and the road got interesting.

 

At 31.3 miles we came across a jeep, car 8.  The welds on the cross member that held the tops of the rear shocks had broken.  So, basically the rear shocks were gone.  To top it off they’d worn a small leak in the fuel line.  The driver was going to remove the shocks, patch the leak and limp on to the Mag 7 pit.

 

We headed up the road and continued to climb.  It was beautiful.  Deep canyons, weird rock formations, wild horses and the occasional oasis.  We made good time and Rhonda tried to keep me focused on the road and not the amazing environment.

We eventually ran into Sol Saltzman, Justin Rivera and Big Oly. 

Saltzman has built a duplicate of the original Parnelli Jone’s Big Oly Bronco.  They’d been shorted gas from their pit and were dry.  We had plenty but getting it was a challenge.  The roll over flap on the fuel cell made syphoning difficult.  Rivera tried to disconnect the hose from our carburator but the mechanical fuel pump only gave a trickle.  

Finally I pulled the feeder hose and we syphoned straight from the tank.  We gave them three gallons and everyone was on their way.  Good karma.

Spreading some of my dad's ashes by Big Oly

As we went on the roads got rougher and the views more spectacular.  There were boulders that were fuzzy and green from the copper  deposites.  Small ranches and moments when you thought you were driving through the 1800s.  I swear we saw Don Quixote with a horse and albino mule.

We reached Mag 7.  Big Oly gave us 5 gallons of gas.

We passed the Stroppe Edsel with one of it’s back tires off.  Luckily it’s chase crew had caught up to them and they would eventually finish the stage.

Then we started the climb.  Narrow roads and steep cliffs.  We didn’t get any pictures because we were focused on the road.  We also came across a new phenomena, the random concrete road.  Some of the steeper sections had been coated with concrete.  It could be a patch that was about as wide as our car, often with deep pot holes.  Or it could be an array of rocks cemmented together in the form of a giant unruly cobblestone.  It was odd and a bit unnerving.

We climbed and then eventually started going down towards the see of cortez. 

Going down a steep grade in the land cruiser is kind of nice.  The first and second gears are so low you really don’t have to use the brakes.  Just put it in gear and slowly roll down the hill.

 

Toward the bottom we ran into truck 19.  Their fuel pump had gone out and their spare pump wouldn’t pressurize.  We couldn’t really help them, so we gave them some water, wrote down their information and were on our way.  

Within a half a mile we ran into car 203.  They’d lost their steering.  We gave them our extra power steering fluid and once again were on our way.  There was one last steep climb and then we dropped down and starting racing along the coast.  It was beautiful

 

Until the car start lurching.

 

My worn out brain decided we were out of gas.  Rhonda knew that with our 32 gallon tank we couldn’t be out of gas.  Then Big Oly came by.  They offered to syphon some gas but they were still in the race.  Their times were good enough they might place, so I told them to go on and take a message to Arwen and Mary.  As soon as they left, I looked at the fuel filter….it was a mess. 

Luckily I brought a couple spares.  We changed it and were on our way.  The last thirty miles of the race was fast and smooth and we finished to 161 mile stage with a time of 4 hours 51 minutes (not bad but not great).

 

We made it to the hotel just as Mary was gathering up stuff to come get us.  Had some dinner, took a swim and headed down to the beach for a bonfire and some excellent tequila.

to continue go here

Mexican 1000 - Day 3 - Stage 2 - Video Update!

 I haven't had time to do a written update but here's an 11 minute video of the 4 hours and 51 minutes we spent driving stage 2.

adventure continues here