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Andy Lagzdins'
SCORE Tecate BAJA 1000 ATV Race Report
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| 2008
SCORE BAJA 1000
ATV Race Links |
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Ensenada, Mexico (11/28/2008)
– The Baja 1000 is one of those
things that I always dreamed of doing, but realistically
never thought would happen. I remember as if it
was yesterday I was sitting in my Trigonometry class
in 12th grade staring at a Hot VW’s magazine,
drooling over a super-trick Baja Bug tube frame
race car and imagining what it would be like to
tear up the desert in a machine built solely for
that purpose. Then the reality of the situation
would remind me that I was 4000 miles from Mexico
and barely able to keep my 1984 ATC200X running
much less build a desert race machine worthy of
contesting a 1000 mile race. That was 1986, but
now it’s 2008 and I just fulfilled my dream
of racing and finishing the Baja 1000 on a TRX450R.
After finishing third at the Vegas to Reno race
back in August with Craig Christy’s Duncan
Racing team, I was hooked on desert racing and
made the commitment to do whatever it took to
race the biggest desert race of all, the Baja
1000. I knew fellow GNCC racer Tom Wright was
just as determined to race as I was, and we teamed
up and started putting the program together. Tom
and I raced the 12 Hours of La Tuque in Canada
together back in May and had a blast. It became
apparent that we were both out to conquer new
challenges and experience racing beyond the regular
national series and normal racing events. Our
partner from the La Tuque race, Fred Rael from
New Mexico, was slated to be on the roster for
the 1000.
Unfortunately, Fred had a massive get off practicing
a few weeks before Baja and snapped his collarbone.
Tom got a hold of Pro Utility racer Jim Stack
as Fred’s replacement, and our team was
set for the 1000. Jim’s initial plans for
the race had fallen through, which is so common
leading up to this race. It seems a lot of racers
on the East Coast are either afraid of traveling
into Mexico, or not sure what the terrain is like,
or just plain scared of the unknown. Well, there
is good reason to be scared, because this is one
of the most potentially dangerous things you can
do on a motorcycle or quad.
During pre-running and racing, I don’t
know how many times I left my brain back at the
truck and went riding without it. Whether it’s
racing down a 7-mile long shelf of a trail overlooking
a 3000ft drop into a rock quarry, or pinning an
XR650R wide open at 100mph+ across a dry lake
bed for miles, or racing in top gear with only
a dusty headlight helping you keep from freefalling
onto the rocky shore of the Pacific Ocean with
its crashing waves ready to wash you and your
machine into its murky depths- you better believe
this is not for the faint at heart.
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Tom
Wright's BAJA 1000 Honda TRX 450R ATV race
machine |
We made it down to Mexico a week and a half early
to pre-run the course, which wasn’t even enough
time to ride the whole track. Imagine a 630 mile
long loop that takes 18 hours to get around. We
would ride a 100 mile section into the night and
then spend the following morning repairing the quads.
Blown tires, snapped pivot bolts, cracked frames,
air filter and oil changes- the place is hard on
equipment. I would get done a 50 mile section of
sand whoops, and I would be thinking “I just
rode the equivalent of the Florida GNCC!”
Struggling to finish the whole loop, we found ourselves
riding the sections at night, often by flashlight!
It seemed as much as we would load up with helmet
lights, headlights, and batteries, we would somehow
end up with the trusty Maglites taped to our helmets
by the end of the night. At one point I had no lights
at all, and had a Trophy Truck follow me for twenty
miles so I could use his lights to see the track-
there’s nothing like going down at 30mph and
hearing truck tires sliding through pea gravel 10
feet from your head! Did I mention this was dangerous?
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