J2 races Baja: The long way home, an adventure in itself

John's souvenir of Baja

With John collected it was now time to get him to a hospital. That was not such an easy thing to do. Jason concludes the story. Read yesterday's installment here.

The "road" turned out to be another billy goat trail like the ones we'd been riding all morning. It seemed to run more or less parallel to the race course through an adjacent canyon. After a couple miles our amigo on the quad stopped, pointed us in the right direction, then waved goodbye as we passed. He was headed back to the race course. The Pathfinder continued along the trail ahead of us, finally stopping to let us by after he was unable to climb a steep rocky hill. Rod's CanAm crawled up it like the Itsy-bitsy spider, and I also managed to top it without incident after waiting through several of the Pathfinder's ill-fated attempts. He finally backed down to let me go past.

We were on our own now. No more escorts. We had to trust our instincts, and our faith in the battery life of modern technology to get us back to the truck. We moved very slowly so as not to unsettle John's arm more than necessary. I knew he was struggling to maintain his composure as they bounced along over the rough terrain, but John's tough, I knew he could manage this little vacation incident.

Grunt, on the other hand, was fed up with the slow speed of rescue travel. I could hear her boiling again. Rod told me to go ahead and run a little bit to cool her off. I had no idea where we were really going, but I have an uncanny natural sense of direction and I knew we were generally going the right way. I didn't want to get too far ahead though. Needed to conserve fuel since we didn't actually know how far off course we really were at that point, and if something happened to John and/or Rod along the way then I'd have to double back and then ultimately cover the same tracks again. So it was best not to stray too far.

We eventually began seeing course markers and ribbons in the bushes where teams had marked their lines. John said it was from a previous year's race, but I wasn't so sure. We reached a junction in a really heavy silt bed that gave us enough pause to warrant a look at the GPS. Rod whipped out his iPhone and began Google-mapping, looking for a road. I was amazed he could get a signal in that canyon. Even the Garmin eTrex Venture HC navigator I had didn't show the river wash we were in. Zoomed in almost as far as it would go, it just showed our position in a blank space.

Useless technology

At that point, technology was almost useless. At least Google's blue squiggly line that lead to a solid line nearby was enough to tell us that we might be able to detour from our current path a little deeper into the wash en route to another nearby trail or road that might lead us directly to the swap point. This little side adventure would soon prove to be a mistake.

As we veered right, away from the silt bed and further into the wash, we followed a cattle trail until the canyon walls started to narrow and get considerably steeper. Finally the vegetation was so thick we were literally moving at a 4-stroke snail's pace through the dense undergrowth, deeper and deeper into the wash in search of the Northwest Passage.

At one point all I could do to move forward without being decapitated by desert scrub was to put my face on the gas tank and pop the clutch every few feet and just plow through slowly.

I finally stopped, realizing the absurdity of our little detour, and looked up to see Rod, John, and the CanAm rolling over to the right in slow motion. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Or why, for that matter. I was speechless. We'd been in Mexico all week, running some of the most hostile terrain on the planet, sometimes at breakneck speed, and now the three of us are stuck in dense river wash scrub with two of us falling off the quad and laying there like a couple of upside down turtles who can't right themselves. They had their feet resting on the quad to make sure it didn't roll over any further than it had. I have no idea how they managed to roll doing only 1 mph. The physics just don't add up.

So we take a break and kill the engines for a couple minutes as we reassess our situation. There was a clearing on either side of the crap we were stuck in, so Rod headed up one side, then the other, looking for a way out. No dice. He came back and the unanimous decision was made to get the hell out of there and back to the silt bed road. At least that thing was headed somewhere. so we slowly steamroll our way back through the brush and back onto the cattle trail, make it back to the silt bed and head up the road.

The gully wash eventually turns back into a fairly smooth graded road and pops up out of the canyon onto higher ground. I ran ahead to let Grunt cool off. As I crested another small hill, I spotted a Honda pit and Kawasaki pit. At last--civilization. I knew we were on the tail end of this year's course where it eventually begins to double back on itself toward the finish.

Velmar Hospital, where John was treated

I pulled into the Honda pit to verify our location and get final directions back to the swap point near Ojos Negros. One of the crew looks up as I pull in, then checks his watch and says "You're doin' GREAT, man!!!!"

"Uh, no, not really. We’re a little early." (Only about 8 hours had elapsed). I pointed to the quad following me and said "We're out. My buddy's got a broken wing, and we're just trying to get back to the RM40 swap point. Are we close?"

"Yeah, the course runs ahead here and turns left at that gate up ahead. Just keep right and follow the trail over that hill and keep going. It’ll bring right out at the swap point."

"Great, thanks!"

"Hey, do you need to top off your fuel?"

"No, thanks, I'm good. But she could use some coolant if you've got it."

"Nope, sorry. No coolant." (Which I found a little hard to believe but didn't press the issue).

We headed up the trail according to directions and sure enough, came out just below where the truck was parked.

What a hell of a day. The girls tended to John, helping him out of his gear and giving him food, while Jaime, Rod, and I loaded the trailer and tried to make contact with Weatherman (the head communication guy who tracks all racers' progress) to let him know we were out of the race.
I was feeling extraordinarily good at that point despite all we'd done so far, and probably could've continued to race. John needed to go to the hospital though, and having only one chase truck made any attempt to finish the race a logistical nightmare. It just wasn't feasible.

To the hospital

After a slow, agonizing trip behind local traffic going nowhere fast over the twisty mountain road back to Ensenada, we finally reach the hospital. They immediately take John in for X-rays and a SCORE Insurance rep comes out to talk to us and give some instructions on how to handle John's insurance claims, for treatment he received in Mexico and any follow-ups once he got back to the States.
After dinner, we knew we had to get the mandatory IRC tracking device back to the officials somewhere near the finish line. Ashley, John, and I headed to the staging area. We talked the local law enforcement officers into granting us passage, showing our wrist bracelets and explaining our situation.

I turned to John and said "well, if we can't finish this thing legitimately, you could at least walk the tracking device across the finish line." He liked that idea and we started making our way very slowly across the 250 yards toward the Tecate arch. We didn't get far, however, when someone stopped us and asked what we were looking for. I told the guy who we were and that we needed to turn in the IRC tracker. He pointed to someone we'd just passed and said they could tell us where to turn it in. So much for walking across the finish line.

We were instructed to return the device to a hotel on the corner back in the direction we'd just come from. So, hobbling back down the staging area where only a few hours before the street was swarming with adrenaline junkies, race officials, media hounds, and race fans, we were humbled by thoughts of the past 12 hours. we weren't entirely disappointed. We did what we said we were gonna do, which was to live out our childhood dream of competing in the Baja 1000, for better or for worse, and we did it. And we have t-shirts, battle scars, and plenty of Mexican dirt to prove it.

Jason, exhausted, crashes at the hospital

What's next?

The whole trip has been one the most memorable experiences of my entire life, and I'm pretty sure John's as well. And we don't plan to quit either.

Just yesterday he mentioned Pike's Peak. I looked at the website for that race and thought, "Oh yeah, we're definitely doing this!!!" I've got more folks interested in joining our little venture so it's just a matter of really putting a plan together and figuring out the details.

Also need to figure out a vehicle. I think Grunt could handle that mountain fairly well once we tune her back up after the abuse we dished out in Baja. What a great bike. I have an '81 KZ 1000 that's completely disassembled and waiting for a custom resto. Time and money are the big issue there, however, but that would be a killer bike to haul up Pike's.

A former neighbor of mine here in Ohio has a 750-hp turbo-charged, nitrous-boosted 4-banger Honda motor that he built and dropped into an Acura Integra. Someone bet him he couldn't build a car that would outrun a Hayabusa GS 1300. They lost that bet. CJ said he spent about $30K putting this car together. He's parting it out now because he just wanted to see if he could do it. The 'busa beat him off the line, but was eating Honda dust after the first 100 yards.

I asked CJ if he thought we could drop that engine in my '99 New Beetle. It’s paid for and I'm ready to strip it down and turn it into some kind of race machine. We have to do some custom fitting but it's do-able. We could enter the Unlimited class at Pike's and give Nobuhiro Tajima (the current record holder for the PPIHC at 10:01:41) a run for his money.

Acknowledgements

J2 Racing would like to thank all the other ADVrider enthusiasts (Springs, SurfnRide, Frog, bajaboundmoto, StrongBad, AirborneAndy, Torags, BDKW1, ironmtnracing, racinace, amazing ricardo, BikePilot, Corky1, and cross-country) and folks from other online sites like Seve from Baja.net who provided insight and encouragement on how best to tackle the mother of all off-road races in the western hemisphere. Also a big thanks to Carlos and the guys and gals at Baja Pits. All of you had very positive comments, and a couple stern warnings, which did NOT go unheeded.

I, personally, would also like to thank my wife Ashley, and Rod's wife, Liz for their support during this trip. I realize it wasn't the vacation of a lifetime for them, but they did an excellent job of keeping the morale up during the week and providing much-needed assistance before, during and after the race. Hope you two had a good time. And to Jaime Fuentes, our "Sherpa" for the week, Oscar, and Mr. Steve at El Faro Beach Resort, a sincere thank you for all you did for us. We'll definitely look you up when we come back in the future and recommend you to anyone else who could use a helping hand down there.

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I (Ken) also want to thank Jason for the tremendous job he has done providing this up-close, first-person, blow-by-blow tale of J2's trip to the Baja. Next year I hope I'm reporting from there in person.