straightaxle
12-17-2008, 09:29 PM
Part 1:
The 2008 Baja 1000 is in the history books, having finished up the weekend before Thanksgiving this year. This was the 41st running of the race, and this year it was a loop race, starting and finishing in Ensenada, with a total length of 631 miles. This year it covered a section near the California border that I had never been on, and I was able to fly down three weeks before the race to pre-run that section with Dan Thunborg. We found a nasty hill climb at race mile (RM) 54.5 that we predicted would be a problem on race day, and sure enough it was. We also had a chance to see and drive the La Rumarosa grade, a series of switchbacks that drops down out of the town of the same name, from 4000 feet to zero in about 7 miles. The road itself is not that steep, but the drop offs are vertical for a couple thousand feet in places. The road is literally carved out of vertical rock faces in sections. Pictures just don’t do it justice.
Chris Reilly and “Iowa Pete” Fix were able to come down early the week of the race and pre-ran much of the course on motorcycles. Robert and Susie were also there early and helped get Chris and Pete on their way. Cliff Sinclair, Craig Laws, Ken and I were able to drive down Tuesday so that we could be there for the BF Goodrich meeting on Wednesday. Greg Weirick met us down then, after he had driven down by himself. The BFG meeting is critical because we would use them for their pit services at 4 locations this year. You have to make sure each pit knows you will be there, that they have your radio frequencies, that they know how much fuel you will need, and where the filler is on the truck. The fuel supplier was also at the meeting and we confirmed that they had the correct amounts of fuel being delivered to each pit. We also picked up the latest version of the GPS route for the race course from BFG. Arriving early also allowed us to register early with SCORE, saving a huge headache on Contingency day. This year crew chief Dave Grundman had to stay home to supervise a critical phase of the construction of his house, and it just was not the same. The Canadian Crosson crew had a similar situation at home and was not able to attend either. Dan Thunborg, Dennis and Gary Dunn arrived Wednesday night and applied the new numbers and revised vinyl lettering.
Tech and Contingency day was another long day with approximately 350 entries lined up, and with the Mexican holiday in full swing, it was packed with people. The long day allows me to talk with the various sponsors and vendors and to make sure that we have the correct stickers on the truck. We have adopted KC Hi Lites as our major sponsor, and we were running some of their new carbon fiber 70 watt HID lights, in addition to some of last year’s 35 watt HID’s. We have color coordinated yellow team shirts and hand out several thousand of their KC stickers during race week. More about the lights later. Rick Bagwell, Autofab Jon, and Tom Weber arrived during contingency, and since they were going to be heading to San Felipe to pit for us, this was about the only time I had to talk to them.
Immediately after we finished with tech, Dan and I jumped in the Bronco and headed out to pre-run the first 42 miles of the course. SCORE had not provided the map for this section prior to Wednesday, partly because of heavy construction in that area, and partly because they don’t want hundreds of racers pre-running this heavily populated area for a month before the race. It was at this time that I noticed a slight vibration in the drive train, but since I had just had the rear driveshaft worked on again, I assumed that they had not gotten the shaft balanced correctly, and I kind of tried to ignore it. As we got within a few miles of the house, we noticed that there were no lights on any of the houses in our area. There is a single power line that serves the area, and it must have been knocked down or was being worked on by the utility guys. We stopped and grabbed some tacos, as they were lighting up the candles and continuing to cook on gas powered grilles. Ken and I then had to jump in a car and head back to town for the drivers meeting. You never know when there will be some information at the drivers meeting that will make or break your race, however other than watching the Tecate girls sing along with the Mexican national anthem, and to hear Sal Fish throw down a funny insult about hot dog wrappers to Robby Gordon and NASCAR racers, there wasn’t much new. By the time we got back to the house, the crew had solved a problem with the wiring of the new 70 watt HID lights, but the utility power was still out. With no lights or power, I didn’t have much incentive to take a look at the drive train vibration issue. Besides, the rear ring and pinion only had about 150 miles on them and were new at the Primm race in September. I worked on the alignment of the new KC lights on the race truck and on the F350 chase truck, and then I hit the hay.
By race morning, there was still no power, which meant no water or showers. We had calculated that our start time would be about noon, so we had time in the morning to hold our team meeting and load the chase trucks for the race. We go over safety, maps, communications, logistics and race strategy at the meeting. We have our own chase books with information the team will need during the race, as well the BFG pit books that have maps and race course access information. This race, we had radios and GPS units available in each of the 7 chase vehicles, as well as the race truck. We had satellite phones in 4 vehicles. This is a huge convenience to the crew, who can now tell where they are with the GPS units, as well as talk among themselves and the support crew back in the states. Each of the entries must now carry a GPS tracking device that is tied to a website that shows each on a map. The map is updated every two minutes with location and speed information. Once Dave finished with the construction work for the day, he joined my wife Daphne, and Ken’s wife Leslie feeding information to the chase crews via text messages. We had three major areas where the chase crews were concentrated, the Pacific side, the San Felipe side, and the Borrego area.
Dan and I were the first entry off the line in our class, with the Class 9 cars starting right in front of us. The Skilton Jeep was right behind us, with the Raffo Blazer and Wooden Bronco following. This year there seemed to be less crowd control in the wash in Ensenada, and there were spectators right up against the edge of the course.
The 2008 Baja 1000 is in the history books, having finished up the weekend before Thanksgiving this year. This was the 41st running of the race, and this year it was a loop race, starting and finishing in Ensenada, with a total length of 631 miles. This year it covered a section near the California border that I had never been on, and I was able to fly down three weeks before the race to pre-run that section with Dan Thunborg. We found a nasty hill climb at race mile (RM) 54.5 that we predicted would be a problem on race day, and sure enough it was. We also had a chance to see and drive the La Rumarosa grade, a series of switchbacks that drops down out of the town of the same name, from 4000 feet to zero in about 7 miles. The road itself is not that steep, but the drop offs are vertical for a couple thousand feet in places. The road is literally carved out of vertical rock faces in sections. Pictures just don’t do it justice.
Chris Reilly and “Iowa Pete” Fix were able to come down early the week of the race and pre-ran much of the course on motorcycles. Robert and Susie were also there early and helped get Chris and Pete on their way. Cliff Sinclair, Craig Laws, Ken and I were able to drive down Tuesday so that we could be there for the BF Goodrich meeting on Wednesday. Greg Weirick met us down then, after he had driven down by himself. The BFG meeting is critical because we would use them for their pit services at 4 locations this year. You have to make sure each pit knows you will be there, that they have your radio frequencies, that they know how much fuel you will need, and where the filler is on the truck. The fuel supplier was also at the meeting and we confirmed that they had the correct amounts of fuel being delivered to each pit. We also picked up the latest version of the GPS route for the race course from BFG. Arriving early also allowed us to register early with SCORE, saving a huge headache on Contingency day. This year crew chief Dave Grundman had to stay home to supervise a critical phase of the construction of his house, and it just was not the same. The Canadian Crosson crew had a similar situation at home and was not able to attend either. Dan Thunborg, Dennis and Gary Dunn arrived Wednesday night and applied the new numbers and revised vinyl lettering.
Tech and Contingency day was another long day with approximately 350 entries lined up, and with the Mexican holiday in full swing, it was packed with people. The long day allows me to talk with the various sponsors and vendors and to make sure that we have the correct stickers on the truck. We have adopted KC Hi Lites as our major sponsor, and we were running some of their new carbon fiber 70 watt HID lights, in addition to some of last year’s 35 watt HID’s. We have color coordinated yellow team shirts and hand out several thousand of their KC stickers during race week. More about the lights later. Rick Bagwell, Autofab Jon, and Tom Weber arrived during contingency, and since they were going to be heading to San Felipe to pit for us, this was about the only time I had to talk to them.
Immediately after we finished with tech, Dan and I jumped in the Bronco and headed out to pre-run the first 42 miles of the course. SCORE had not provided the map for this section prior to Wednesday, partly because of heavy construction in that area, and partly because they don’t want hundreds of racers pre-running this heavily populated area for a month before the race. It was at this time that I noticed a slight vibration in the drive train, but since I had just had the rear driveshaft worked on again, I assumed that they had not gotten the shaft balanced correctly, and I kind of tried to ignore it. As we got within a few miles of the house, we noticed that there were no lights on any of the houses in our area. There is a single power line that serves the area, and it must have been knocked down or was being worked on by the utility guys. We stopped and grabbed some tacos, as they were lighting up the candles and continuing to cook on gas powered grilles. Ken and I then had to jump in a car and head back to town for the drivers meeting. You never know when there will be some information at the drivers meeting that will make or break your race, however other than watching the Tecate girls sing along with the Mexican national anthem, and to hear Sal Fish throw down a funny insult about hot dog wrappers to Robby Gordon and NASCAR racers, there wasn’t much new. By the time we got back to the house, the crew had solved a problem with the wiring of the new 70 watt HID lights, but the utility power was still out. With no lights or power, I didn’t have much incentive to take a look at the drive train vibration issue. Besides, the rear ring and pinion only had about 150 miles on them and were new at the Primm race in September. I worked on the alignment of the new KC lights on the race truck and on the F350 chase truck, and then I hit the hay.
By race morning, there was still no power, which meant no water or showers. We had calculated that our start time would be about noon, so we had time in the morning to hold our team meeting and load the chase trucks for the race. We go over safety, maps, communications, logistics and race strategy at the meeting. We have our own chase books with information the team will need during the race, as well the BFG pit books that have maps and race course access information. This race, we had radios and GPS units available in each of the 7 chase vehicles, as well as the race truck. We had satellite phones in 4 vehicles. This is a huge convenience to the crew, who can now tell where they are with the GPS units, as well as talk among themselves and the support crew back in the states. Each of the entries must now carry a GPS tracking device that is tied to a website that shows each on a map. The map is updated every two minutes with location and speed information. Once Dave finished with the construction work for the day, he joined my wife Daphne, and Ken’s wife Leslie feeding information to the chase crews via text messages. We had three major areas where the chase crews were concentrated, the Pacific side, the San Felipe side, and the Borrego area.
Dan and I were the first entry off the line in our class, with the Class 9 cars starting right in front of us. The Skilton Jeep was right behind us, with the Raffo Blazer and Wooden Bronco following. This year there seemed to be less crowd control in the wash in Ensenada, and there were spectators right up against the edge of the course.