Its Times like These.....

Where to begin?
What exactly am I doing at my age playing in the dirt and fighting against the elements ?
Have I gone mad?
...and all I really wanted was a good Fish Taco.

The wife thinks that my sojourns to the war ravaged drug infested sands of the Baja desert are a threat to my sanity and hold the potential for dangerous elements to take advantage of yet another tourist from "El Norte".

Such is the tale of our latest trip to the SCORE/Tecate Baja 1000.
The four of us, Ray Jr, Raquel, UB and I were working with MAG 7 a contract Pit Crew Service operating out of San Diego, CA, providing pit service for entrants to what is arguable the Biggest Off Road Race in the World.

Prologue...
Roll back the calendar...........
June 2009
We started preparing for the race in early June by contacting all of our past crew members to see if they were interested in working this years race. We got a lot of positive response and had a good 15 or so people express an interest.

September 2009
We sent out periodic reminders to the crew advising them of the new Passport requirements and confirming their participation. You see it takes a good 6-8 people to run a smooth pit stop as we are busy for a full 24 hours and we need to work in shifts to stay sharp and safe. I mean really, we are working with high octane racing gasoline and hot engines sharp objects power tools you get the picture.
Around the middle of the month, it started, I can't get out of work...I can't afford to go... I just got a new job...I just got married...I moved to texas and can't leave right now... I just broke up with my boyfriend and now he and his friend are out...
We are now down to six.

October 2009
This no need to panic because we have been here before and besides, I have the A team the most reliable hard core crew ever assembled my family!!! So in the event that every other crew backs out we still got each other!

November 2009 Race week...
I can't go I have a listing going into escrow and I need to be here to respond to any questions.
We are down to 4

The Race, (or how we survived the madness)
Ok, we are professionals, Right? We can do this, Right? God I hope so. We have done this so many times before. Loading up the truck and trailer was no big deal after several years at this, we have it all organized. Our equipment is in rolling crates, easy to grab and go so we went.
The day we left I wasn't feeling all that well, I've had some minor health issues recently and with the threat of the swine flu and other maladies swirling around, I truly believed that I was suffering from some sort of tropical fever and I was most certain this was going to be the trip that would send me to my maker.
We left at 5 in the morning and the trip to San Diego was pretty uneventful as was the run to Ensenada where we had to stop to pick up the race fuel. We had some contact via radio with the other pit crews and we had a good meetup at the fuel depot with our buddies from MAG 7.
Around noon we headed out to our Final Destination Pit 7 or as it's more commonly known as Race Mile 375.

When we got close to our location, it was still light but we knew the darkness was coming. It seemed that the road had changed in the last year. The Mexican highway department had installed barbed wire fences all along the highways and this made it difficult to find a entry point to the area we needed to get to. When we did make legal entry we were five or so miles down the road from where we needed to be and that meant driving down the race course in my 2 wheel drive truck while pulling a 16 foot trailer loaded with our gear. Thats when it got crazy. As soon as we decided to go forward, it seemed like someone was trying to tell us something. They were sending us a message from above to the effect that if we were to proceed on this path, we would be sorely tested in our faith and mechanical skills and as it was said so it was written and so it happened..
First, the darkness fell and soon after the 5/8 inch thick steel trailer hitch tongue broke off!!

This has never happened before but we knew we could get through it. I rummaged around in the truck and found a pulling hook that fit the hitch and so from the broken parts we rigged up a Baja Style tow hitch that worked good enough to get us out of the mess

We got off the course and found a frontage road and promptly hit a fence, smashed the trailer fender, broke a tail light, and got stuck, axel deep, in the soft sand...all in the distance of less than a mile.
We ditched the trailer, dug out the truck and went to find a place to camp for the night. We needed to get the heck away from the scene of the crime which I'm sure is some sort of Federal offense, which carry's a penalty for violating of a life sentence in some sort of purgatory right out of Midnight Express.

We found a spot and unloaded the truck and returned to the trailer to unload the gear.
There is an old saying that when the going gets rough the tough turn pro! We hitched up the trailer to the Quad and with everyone pushing we were able to move the trailer to hard ground.

That night, which officially ended at midnight, we slept under the stars as we were too exhausted to pitch our tents and we all had a greater appreciation for our ability to survive. We felt humble looking at all those brillant stars, said our prayers and fell asleep. Desert 0 Team RDZ 1.

Early the next day after massive quantities of hot Coffee, we scouted out the site and found that there had been a access point a mere 50 yards from where we finally ended up. We had endured all that misery for what? a team building exercise? right there in the daylight, mocking us, was a hard road off the highway marked by a pair of shorts tied to the fencepost. Crazy huh? Oh well ,we had a race to do so we set up our pit and waited for the helicopter which signaled the first rider coming our way.

The race was a very difficult and slow one as we saw only about two thirds of our riders. We finished up on Saturday at noon, packed up our gear and headed for San Felipe to buy a new hitch and gorge ourselves on Fish Tacos.

Postscript
God I love my family!
Now, we are not rookies at this. We are prepared with all the right tools and knowledge to survive but none-the-less It is so awesome at how well we stuck together, worked through the myriad of problems, how we didn't panic, ultimately we learned that we could absolutely depend on each other to do what needs to be done without any disagreement.

Lesson learned and validated, Don't go out in the desert unprepared and don't go alone.

--rr