San Vincente pit was surreal. Dozens of campfires and an ongoing mexican battle of the bands (via car stereos). We were parked between a class 12 chase team and a group of mexican spectators. Lots of laughter and the locals soaked up plenty of suds. A group across the course had their music so loud one of the guys from the class 12 group asked them to turn it down so we could hear the radios. They did, for a couple of hours then it went back up. One of the locals next to us said he knew how to quite them down and pulled an AK 47 from his truck. We told him that wouldn't be necessary and had a good (although somewhat tense) laugh as he put it away.
Most intense time for me was when Mike and I were standing at the finish line. Lance radioed in that he was 10 miles out then the handheld radio died, battery was dead. We didn't know what else Lance was going to say. Of course the thoughts of the car stuck or stopped or broke abounded. No other radios even close that had our frequency. No other handheld in the area with a battery we could borrow. Mike made a call and said tracking showed the 1700 still moving but after listening all night to the tracking delays and errors it was a tense 15 minutes. Then I heard that wot and Lance turned the last corner. Wow, what a relief.
Sadly, according to the Sunday Ensenada newspaper , on Saturday 3 guys at the Yonke (wrecking yard) who had given me Valdez Transmissions name and address were murdered. The pic showed the exact spot I had been standing just a few days earlier.
So this year I decide to go down and just spectate rather than officially try to help out. Along for the trip is Gary, good buddy who has chased for team Pirate/Shaffer the past two years. Jesse, good friend of Garys, first time Baja guy and Jeremy, good friend of mine and also first time Baja guy. Rented a van and staying in San Felipe area having a good time.
Drove out to RM310 or thereabouts and set up shop to watch the race... of course we are having a few brews while there but I am maintaining myself knowing full well that others may not.
It becomes clear to me that Gary and Jesse are going to really be getting it when the Tequila started flowing.
Jeremy and I are doing our best to keep in tune with the race action while Jesse and Gary are standing around talking and drinking for hour upon hour.
Some cool guys from TT86 team came over and shot the shit for awhile as did a guy that was parked about 30 feet away and helping out with a driver change for a stock full team out of TN.
Sometime around... I dunno, 10:30 or 11 Jeremy and I head out into the desert to gather some more firewood.
We were probably gone for about 10 minutes and are draging wood back to camp when I see Gary stumbling around worse than previous and I see blood all over his face. I can tell he is pissed but not hurt too badly so I rush over to find out what is going on. Gary is yelling incoherently about... "He Hit ME! That Mother fucker hit me!" bla bla on and on as drunk guys do. Jesse is passed out on one of the van seats.
After 30 seconds or so of confusionI finally figure out that the guy on the full stock team was the guy that hit G which was somewhat of a relief, at least it wasn't a robbery or something. As far as I know the guy was cool earlier in the night, there was no bad words exchanged and I didn't get any bad vibes from the guy.
Gary is making a half assed attempt at wanting to fight the guy but he is way drunk and barely able to stay on his feet. TN guy is a big boy and I wanted no piece of him, considering where we were it would have been a bad idea regardless.
Through the Chaos I finally figure out that apparently Gary was over near where the other team was pitting and as they were getting ready to do the driver change, the dumbfuck asshole, rather than simply tell Gary to go away just decided that sucker punching the drunk guy in the head was a better option.
So Gary is bleeding, irate, drunk and yelling like a mad drunk guy. It's dark and there are bonfires all about and people are starting to gather. Rather than try to make this situation right I decide getting the hell out of dodge is the best plan of action.
Jesse and Jeremy are working on getting the seats back in the van as we had taken them out to sit on earlier in the day, while I'm holding Gary and trying to keep things from falling apart worse than they already have.
I see that the driver or co-driver on the stock full team are on a sat phone, sure enough another chase truck rolls up and 3 or 4 more guys pile out.
So at this point I figure there is driver, co-driver, Dipshit Dumbfuck that hit Gary, a local assisting there team and 3 or 4 more guys with them. Dumbfuck TN guy is really getting loud yelling "Let your buddy go and I'll give him something to be mad about" or something along those lines...
Real tough guy with his 5 or 6 buddies ready to beat up on drunk Gary.
We finally get all the shit in the van including G and peel out.
Of course now G is out of control hitting shit and pretty much well just out of control and wanting to get even.
We hightail it across to RM365 or so and after being there for about an hour there is still too much BS in the air and I'm getting ready to pack it in and head back to camp... Can't take the drama anymore and don't want to chance anything else going down.
Luckily as I was heading to the van I catch 1700 come flying across the road crossing, which was my main goal of the night... stoked! This is when I reluctantly hit him up on the radio. After that it was back to camp for some arguing amongst ourselves and eventually sleep.
That's the story. Bad karma must have caught up with those guys because on the way back to camp I saw one of the vans they were in with the hood up and best of all there race truck didn't finish the race.
879
Drove out to RM310 or thereabouts and set up shop to watch the race... of course we are having a few brews while there but I am maintaining myself knowing full well that others may not.
It becomes clear to me that Gary and Jesse are going to really be getting it when the Tequila started flowing.
Jeremy and I are doing our best to keep in tune with the race action while Jesse and Gary are standing around talking and drinking for hour upon hour.
Some cool guys from TT86 team came over and shot the shit for awhile as did a guy that was parked about 30 feet away and helping out with a driver change for a stock full team out of TN.
Sometime around... I dunno, 10:30 or 11 Jeremy and I head out into the desert to gather some more firewood.
We were probably gone for about 10 minutes and are draging wood back to camp when I see Gary stumbling around worse than previous and I see blood all over his face. I can tell he is pissed but not hurt too badly so I rush over to find out what is going on. Gary is yelling incoherently about... "He Hit ME! That Mother fucker hit me!" bla bla on and on as drunk guys do. Jesse is passed out on one of the van seats.
After 30 seconds or so of confusionI finally figure out that the guy on the full stock team was the guy that hit G which was somewhat of a relief, at least it wasn't a robbery or something. As far as I know the guy was cool earlier in the night, there was no bad words exchanged and I didn't get any bad vibes from the guy.
Gary is making a half assed attempt at wanting to fight the guy but he is way drunk and barely able to stay on his feet. TN guy is a big boy and I wanted no piece of him, considering where we were it would have been a bad idea regardless.
Through the Chaos I finally figure out that apparently Gary was over near where the other team was pitting and as they were getting ready to do the driver change, the dumbfuck asshole, rather than simply tell Gary to go away just decided that sucker punching the drunk guy in the head was a better option.
So Gary is bleeding, irate, drunk and yelling like a mad drunk guy. It's dark and there are bonfires all about and people are starting to gather. Rather than try to make this situation right I decide getting the hell out of dodge is the best plan of action.
Jesse and Jeremy are working on getting the seats back in the van as we had taken them out to sit on earlier in the day, while I'm holding Gary and trying to keep things from falling apart worse than they already have.
I see that the driver or co-driver on the stock full team are on a sat phone, sure enough another chase truck rolls up and 3 or 4 more guys pile out.
So at this point I figure there is driver, co-driver, Dipshit Dumbfuck that hit Gary, a local assisting there team and 3 or 4 more guys with them. Dumbfuck TN guy is really getting loud yelling "Let your buddy go and I'll give him something to be mad about" or something along those lines...
Real tough guy with his 5 or 6 buddies ready to beat up on drunk Gary.
We finally get all the shit in the van including G and peel out.
Of course now G is out of control hitting shit and pretty much well just out of control and wanting to get even.
We hightail it across to RM365 or so and after being there for about an hour there is still too much BS in the air and I'm getting ready to pack it in and head back to camp... Can't take the drama anymore and don't want to chance anything else going down.
Luckily as I was heading to the van I catch 1700 come flying across the road crossing, which was my main goal of the night... stoked! This is when I reluctantly hit him up on the radio. After that it was back to camp for some arguing amongst ourselves and eventually sleep.
That's the story. Bad karma must have caught up with those guys because on the way back to camp I saw one of the vans they were in with the hood up and best of all there race truck didn't finish the race.
879