Nick Nelson's
2010 SCORE BAJA 1000 ATV Race Adventure ::Continued::
Many
ATV racers load their ATVs on special bed
haulers instead of pulling a trailer because
driving in Mexico is dangerous enough without
a trailer
On the return trip I decided to take another late
night run through a particularly nasty silt section
by Loreto. After blowing up Kenney's quad and nearly
Brandon's in the now seemingly impassable silt bed,
I had to unload my bike and spend another hour finding
a very questionable line around it. With two completely
roached ATV's loaded on the truck we decided it
would be better to chance a penalty than end our
1061 mile race at mile 733.
We arrived back in Ensenada late Monday so that
I could pre-run the start a few times Tuesday and
then again on Wed. while everyone else enjoyed themselves
at the Contingency fiesta. Wednesday night was busy
with the last minute race bike preparations and
loading of the many chase vehicles. A very short
night’s sleep ended with a 4:45 am wake up
call.
K&N
Airfilter's Nick Nelson waits in line for
his turn for the start of BAJA 1000 with
a 30 second gap between each team
The start line in Ensenada at 6:30 am would find
a total of 292 teams starting with racers from 37
states and 19 countries. On the start line Wayne
kindly informed me that my dreaded Loreto Silt section
had been deemed impassable and rerouted. I guess
it really is time to start sending someone to the
riders meeting. The Class 25 Open Pro ATV had six
teams with the Mexican/Italian team of San Felipe's
Felipe Velez and Stephano Caputo off the line first
followed closely by points leader and OA ATV winner
of the 250 and 500 Wayne Matlock.
The Class 24 450cc ATV Pro had 8 teams with me starting
our MXN 102a quad 2nd off the line followed by East
Coast Cross Country Racer Tom Wright and last years
champion 100a Craig Christy. I rode the first 34
miles to Ojos Negros very conservatively, passing
101a Canadian 24 team for the lead of class 24 and
then one of the class 25 teams as well. Coming into
the pit at Ojos the bike was picking up a tire vibration
so we gave up a little time swapping out the left
rear in our first pit. The first ATV to Ojos had
been the 2a 700xx of Felipe Velez followed by 1a
Wayne Matlock. While changing the tire in Ojos the
103a bike of Tom Wright passed us for the lead.
Michael Kelley had a solid ride from Ojos to San
Felipe swapping out another right rear at the 77
crossing before bringing the bike in to San Felipe
unscathed. The 1a Matlock racing 700xx completely
lost the clutch somewhere around the 55 mile mark.
After a frantic satellite phone call a spare bike
was raced into him and cannibalized on the side
of the trail in order to fix their race bike. With
over an hour lost at this point, the Matlock team
would have a huge deficit to try and overcome. Jorie
got the bike in San Felipe and completely lost the
rear shock only 15 miles into the gnarliest 30 mile
long rocky whoop section of the entire race. He
picked his way through to the Puertocitos Honda
pit where we decided to send him with the blown
shock through the much smoother next 100 plus miles
to El Crucero. If he could reach Crucero we would
have a full crew ready with a shock and linkage
available for swap.
BAJA
ATV Racing Legend & Multi-time Winner,
Mike Cafro, signed on to help out the MXN
team, which was a huge advantange for the
team
GNCC
Pro ATV Racer, Jarrod McClure, also made
the long trip from the North East down to
Mexico to help out while he was recovering
from a wrist injury
Jorie hammered down on the rocky dirt-road course
passing the entire class before getting to the last
10 miles of whoops before Crucero in which everyone
went back by him again. Jorie arrived at Crucero
in about 5th overall to find an ace crew waiting
anxiously to swap the shock and get him back in
the race. Kenney, Brandon, Brad, Kalani, Jamie and
myself were joined by MCR Racing’s Mike Cafro,
top GNCC racer Jarrod McCLure, and even Doug Roll.
The group had the now broken shock and linkage swapped
out, as well as installing the Lights, fueling and
changing the ever important K&N Airfilter Lid
in less than 6 minutes.
