Anyone Pre-running the Baja 1000

[Iowa Pete]

Anyone planning on pre-running?? If so lets hear your plans as we might cross paths.

Chris Reilly (Moss Bros) and myself are going to try and head to Ensenada on 11-16 and get some prerunning on the bikes over the 3 days before tech.
I am going to be hauling my bike from Iowa in the back of my truck and meet up with Chris in SD on the 15th.:p

Chris has a 91? DR350 and I have a 85 XR600R. This will be the 3rd year we have pre-run(06 & 07 500's) and this will be the 1st Baja 1000 for me. I usually make the trip out for the 500, but the 1000 worked out this year. It is just an absolute blast and the Moss Bros Team are a bunch of great guys to "learn the ropes" with.

Not really sure on all the details this year, but our goal is to not get our coolers stolen out of the back of my truck on the first day. :mad::mad:
We have been talking about camping out on the course:eek:, but we will have to wait to see where the course takes us to plan it out.

Another year older and another year wiser.:rolleyes:

[Joe Rockhead]

Keep Chris away from Coleman lanterns! He almost burned my truck to the ground at a Fud race!

[straightaxle]

Keep Chris away from Coleman lanterns! He almost burned my truck to the ground at a Fud race!


:eek:

[petepecas]

We will be pre running the weekends of Nov. !st/8th/15th. as follows:

Weekend of november the 1st., San Felipe loop to Valle de la Trinidad.
Weeekend of November the 7th., Ojos Negros to Borrego.
Weekend of November the 14th., Valle de la Trinidad to Ojos.

We will be in a white '72 Ford Crew Cab with baja plates and a bunch of KTM's

Be safe.

[Blanco]

Damn, I wish I could go for this. :o

[Rocketman]

this is still our plan...

Saturday November 15
Border crossing at Mexicali somewhere in the vicinity of 8 am. At about RM 148 we'll pick up the course and follow it (this is called prerunning) to about RM 220 where we'll jump back on the pavement at the Hwy 5 Causeway to San Felipe. hotel, drinks, food..
Sunday November 16
Head south out of Felipe after breakfast on the malecon. through Puertocitos and onto Gonzaga. Lunch at Alphonsina's?? Continue down to Coco's (closed) and on to Bahia de Los Angeles. Accommodations should be readily available in Bay of LA as the race does not go that far south. Either Motel or camp .

Monday November 17
Many options here. Chelada? Panga and snorkel? Beach and Beer? Quick run to Animas Bay?? All day at the taco stand? Bone Beach?? Day trip to San Borja?? Find a welding shop? Another night at Bay Of LA.

Tuesday November 18
Head north, this time via Hwy 1. At Catavina we'll stop for tacos at Santa Inez. From Catavina we'll pick up the 1000 course from last year and run it backwards to El Rosario. About 100 miles. spend the night in El Rosario or San Quintin

Wednesday November 19
Head up San Telmo Road and pick up last years' course again to Mike's Sky Rancho for the night.

Thursday November 20
Down from Mike's to Valle de Trinidad and then on Hwy 3 to the pit area at Borrego. Race Mile 285/405. Those who need resupply or have business to tend to (fireworks) in San Felipe can head into town and TCB.

Friday November 20
2008 Baja 1000 race day. Lots of work to do. Gonna catch the bikes and cars twice at our pit.

Saturday November 21
Close down the pit and get it loaded back on the trailer. Head north. Cross the border at Mexicali/ Calexico East. Head back north towards home.


But this will change as it always does have a change or two on the fly....

[gunit]

I am going down on Monday the 17th and staying all week. The plan right now is to prerun RM 50 to 280 on Tuesday, overnight at Mike's then do RM 430 to 590 on Wednesday. Run the start then tech on Thursday. I do not know yet where I'll be on race day.

I'm staying at the Hotel Villa Fontana downtown, look me up.

[AngerIssues]

I think we had another 08 thread going somewhere.... but this might be about pre-running.

At the risk of violating the thread - :D we are aren't pre-running but rather spending Thursday night near the border of Mexicali. We will head south early Friday morn. We might catch the early vehicles in the borego or three poles once... but my plan is to try to convince my pop that heading south before the TT's get past town is the hot ticket.

The reason I say this. I am NOT going to try to spend the night at the Borrego junction. Every local within 800,000 miles knows the race course doubles back there. YIKES (no offense Brian!).

I'd rather pick a great spot in the wash at RM340 and have a remote pit.

I expect we will be a "just in case" pit for TT #7 and whatever Sykes races.

Anyway, that is my plan. Then we take my Negro south to Bay of LA on Saturday... and San Juanico/Scorpion Bay on Sunday. Wait till you see Negro with the new bumper, bimini top, roof rack, MP3 compatible stereo, amp, woofer, and fuzzy dice! Well, ok.. maybe not that last one.

[Broncodawg]

Some good prerunning notes from PCI.

http://www.race-dezert.com/forum/showthread.php?t=52352

Rocketman, will look for locos mocos pits at Borrego altho with the crowds getting around could be tough.
Chasing from Mexicali to Borregos, so will come up on Locos mocos freq. when I pull in there.

[petepecas]

Back from first leg of our pre run,
Changed original plans and pre ran from ojos to saldana sat and sunday.
Fast road from ojos to junction with compadre road, run on it for about 10 miles, hammer down!.
Jump on side trail at about RM 65, go about 5 miles, nasty long up hill, lotsa loose stone and dirt, steep!! (hats off to class 11 if they make it up) then it opens up all the way to Rumorosa downhill. IT'S DARK NOW, what a beautiful view of Mexicali at night from up there!!
Three real tight switch backs on that downhill, had to back up my crew cab on those, SCARY!!, reach bottom to whoops, not big, for some 15 miles. Spits you out to laguna salada after you cross Hwy, fast and open till you hit RM 160 ish, rocky, sandy, woopy wash forever it seemed:mad:
Finally get on some firm ground for bout 15 miles, drops you into another wash, kinda like Huatamote, sandy, gravely but fast and fun, get out of that at around RM 190, gets silty, but passable so far, lots of turns and switch backs, then on RM 200 or so, opens again to Laguna salada, hammer down!!
Got out to Hwy 5, called it a day.
More next weekend.
Be safe.

Pete.

[straightaxle]

Back from first leg of our pre run,
Changed original plans and pre ran from ojos to saldana sat and sunday.
Fast road from ojos to junction with compadre road, run on it for about 10 miles, hammer down!.
Jump on side trail at about RM 65, go about 5 miles, nasty long up hill, lotsa loose stone and dirt, steep!! (hats off to class 11 if they make it up) then it opens up all the way to Rumorosa downhill. IT'S DARK NOW, what a beautiful view of Mexicali at night from up there!!
Three real tight switch backs on that downhill, had to back up my crew cab on those, SCARY!!, reach bottom to whoops, not big, for some 15 miles. Spits you out to laguna salada after you cross Hwy, fast and open till you hit RM 160 ish, rocky, sandy, woopy wash forever it seemed:mad:
Finally get on some firm ground for bout 15 miles, drops you into another wash, kinda like Huatamote, sandy, gravely but fast and fun, get out of that at around RM 190, gets silty, but passable so far, lots of turns and switch backs, then on RM 200 or so, opens again to Laguna salada, hammer down!!
Got out to Hwy 5, called it a day.
More next weekend.
Be safe.

Pete.

We may have seen you out there, we did the same section to RM 140 and called it a day. There was a crew cab running with a Jeep and something else. We also came across an F150 that had flamed out in the trail. Turned out it was just running rich and had flooded out. We were in a Toyota pickup. Had a late lunch at the Ponderosa.

[flyinbronco]

We may have seen you out there, we did the same section to RM 140 and called it a day. There was a crew cab running with a Jeep and something else. We also came across an F150 that had flamed out in the trail. Turned out it was just running rich and had flooded out. We were in a Toyota pickup. Had a late lunch at the Ponderosa.

Well how does that section of the course look? Did you see Tom and Julie? Tom said he was thinking of going down last weekend.

[straightaxle]

Well how does that section of the course look? Did you see Tom and Julie? Tom said he was thinking of going down last weekend.

We did not see Tom and Julie, didn't even think to look for them. We were actually suprised at how few people we did see. It was a last minute decision to make the trip.

This section of the course was described pretty well on RDC. It is tight and technical for the entire first 120 miles or so. There will be NO side by side racing and I am sure the dust will keep the passing down to a minimum. Dan was impressed with cactus side by side with pine trees. The Rumarosa grade is breath taking, and it took 3 point turns to get Dan's Taco around quite a few of the turns. When you go off the top, it is 4000' to the bottom and some of the steepest mountain slopes I have ever seen. The road is not bad and not steep, but could be affected or even closed by a slide. With everyone going down hill, it should not get chewed up, but there will be some cooked brakes. Just after the course dives off the Compadre trail at around RM 65, there are some steep hill climbs that will be a problem for the limited engine classes like 9 and 11 or maybe a broken 7 or Protruck. The 1600's should be OK.

[petepecas]

Hey straightaxle,
probably not us, my crew cab is a 72 short bed, white, there was one of the old Walker Evans ramchargers running with us till the bottom of Rumorosa, around 8 saturday evening. We actually got stuck when missed the turn to salada and ended in some sand dunes around 140....wish you would have been there, we had a hell of a time getting out of the sand:o

[flyinbronco]

We did not see Tom and Julie, didn't even think to look for them. We were actually suprised at how few people we did see. It was a last minute decision to make the trip.

This section of the course was described pretty well on RDC. It is tight and technical for the entire first 120 miles or so. There will be NO side by side racing and I am sure the dust will keep the passing down to a minimum. Dan was impressed with cactus side by side with pine trees. The Rumarosa grade is breath taking, and it took 3 point turns to get Dan's Taco around quite a few of the turns. When you go off the top, it is 4000' to the bottom and some of the steepest mountain slopes I have ever seen. The road is not bad and not steep, but could be affected or even closed by a slide. With everyone going down hill, it should not get chewed up, but there will be some cooked brakes. Just after the course dives off the Compadre trail at around RM 65, there are some steep hill climbs that will be a problem for the limited engine classes like 9 and 11 or maybe a broken 7 or Protruck. The 1600's should be OK.

Maybe we need cutting brakes on the Bronco for the switchbacks? Ha Ha

[straightaxle]

Maybe we need cutting brakes on the Bronco for the switchbacks? Ha Ha

Nah, you just cut over before you get to the turn, cutting off the point of the turn. Sometimes it drags a little bit........

We did not see the 72 crew cab or Ramcharger, we were across the border again by 8.

[roach]

my plans..............

saturday:
riding my bike from my doorstep to the Tecate border. head on the toll road to where the race course meets the hwy and kick onto the race course. race course to Mikes (minus the san felipe part, we are not doing that part). stay the night at mikes.

sunday: mikes to valley T, fuel up and head to Ojos on the hwy. we are not doing the beach run, been there done that for years. instead we head up to ojos and kick onto course again take the course right back to where we jumped on and come back home the same way.

no chase trucks, just bikes. carry all our gear on us, pemex stations for fuel. and make an adventure out of it..............BONUS: no border wait!!!

anyone intersted?

[Chris_Wilson]

Nov 8: Will be at the Tecate border 6:30am this Saturday in my yellow bronco for a day trip. Compadre trail to Ojos, prerun RM 40-130, Toll road back to Tecate. We should have a couple other prerun trucks and a pack of bikes. Be on Weatherman. Anyone welcome to run with us (safety in numbers).

Nov 15: Will be at RM 130 mid morning in the 4-seat buggy for a go-fast prerun to San Felipe (helmets). Was on the course marking crew with PCI in my bronco so this is the second pass on this section.

[straightaxle]

Just a heads up, there was no gas at the Pemex on the highway in Ojos last Saturday. No idea if that was temporary or what. We saw the sign and didn't even pull in. Luckily Dan insisted on getting gas in Ensenada on the way out.

[petepecas]

Same deal at La Ventana, had to go back to La Puerta on the higway to Mexicali, just before it splits into a 4 lane...by the way, cheater pumps on that gas station, charged me 10 per cent more quantity than delivered....:mad:, told the attendant and only paid what got into my containers.

[petepecas]

Hey All,
Did another segment this weekend, from RM 200 to RM 280, took me about 3 hrs. Laguna Salada is open, fast of course, at the end some silt beds are getting pretty bad. Then it throws you into mostly rocky, sandy washes, tire eaters. Takes you out of the washes at around RM 260 ish. Pretty chewed up all the way till you reach the highway at borrego. Us limited suspension classes are gonna suffer here, my lower back is still sore.
As a side note, got a flat in a wash at RM 255, my jack failed, then this 3 seater type 1 prerunner comes by and I ask for help. They whip out this King hidraulic jack and Impact gun (I want one!). PRESTO. Big thanks to Gustavo Vildosola Jr. Saved my day, great Kid.