2008 Baja 1000 AutoZone Slime Croc Race Report

The 41st Tecate SCORE Baja 1000 was a successful event for me and my team despite a mediocre 5th Place finish. This race above all is the longest and toughest continuous off road race in the world and sometimes just finishing can feel like a great accomplishment. My team overcame a mechanical failure that put us way behind early in the game and this allowed us to come home feeling good about just taking the checkers.

As far as the race course itself the total mileage was only 1018 kilometers (631 miles) starting and finishing as a loop from downtown Ensenada. That sentence right there however does not accurately describe this race. The words “only 631 total miles” stands out significantly to me as being very understated because of the sheer difficulty of the marked course along with many hours of dusty nighttime driving. The average winning speed this year was one of the lowest in history. As an example the overall winner completed the course averaging just forty nine (49) MPH. This compared to one of the fastest Baja’s on record in 2002 where the winner blazed a trail at sixty two (62) MPH.

The first 135 miles of this track were very difficult to say the least because it included very tight and twisty roads weaving through the pine and boulder covered Sierra De Juarez mountains and just when you thought you could catch your breath you would loose it as you nosed the car over the famous La Rumorosa grade dropping 4400 feet in just a few miles with shear drop offs throughout the trip down. From 4400 feet to below sea level on Laguna Salada and over the very rough Borrego crossover into a San Felipe loop, this track had it all including the normal silt beds and foggy coastal night time driving.

Pre-race activities included an appearance at the local AutoZone store in Ensenada where we gave away free “Fear The Croc” DVD’s, signed posters and many team stickers. The people of Mexico are very passionate about their Off Road Racing and it’s a lot of fun to interact with the enthusiastic local people. Thank you to AutoZone and Slime for supporting me and my team in our bid to win the Baja 1000.

Race day morning was very relaxing because we had stayed ahead of the preparation game from the beginning and because Jake and I didn’t leave the starting line until about 11:00 AM. The problem with the late start is the fact that we would only have six hours of daylight meaning most of the race and certainly the most critical racing period would take place at night! Shortly after leaving the starting line things started happening quickly. At about race mile twenty (RM 20) we had already passed many cars that had slid off the road and we also came upon our first bottleneck where we had to stop and wait for other racers to clear the wrecked and stuck cars. The bad part about this is it allows the guys behind you to catch up, so depending on where you are in line it could be a positive or a negative. We cleared this first jam up in about 5 minutes and we all were back on our way down course. Unfortunately coming into Ojos Negros (RM 35) I had a tire go down and we came up about a half mile short of making it to where our chase guys were staged. Jake had to get out and change the rear tire before it came apart so badly that we would risk damaging the car. During the slow down and tire change we lost about another five minutes and a slower car that started behind me was able to slip by. After stopping to get a fresh spare Jake and I were back on the road but now chasing slower dust.

The next 35 miles was really difficult because the car in front of me was running “dust free” but not driving a consistent fast pace. This is one of the most frustrating situations in off road racing. I would rather have somebody blow me away than hold me up. Experience tells me that you just have to keep calm and keep telling yourself that most everyone competing for the win has to deal with these same things. We did finally get a chance to run up on the guy’s rear bumper and believe me I am polite but I wasn’t messing around this time. Yes he did move right over after the little wake up call we placed. The next seventy miles went very clean and we passed quite a few cars including the eventual winner and things were definitely looking up. By the time we got to the La Rumorosa grade (RM 130) we were the second car on the road. About halfway down the decent there was another jam up with nowhere to go. This time Jake and I would benefit from the situation because the car that was stuck was the current leader and this allowed us to catch him on time. Once we starting moving it was a dash to the bottom and a search for clean air. By the time Jake and I got to our first pit stop twenty miles later at RM 150 we had passed the leader and put a couple minutes on him putting us solidly in first place. During this first pit stop we put the light bar on the car and we got ready to put the hammer down.

Things were going great and just as planned and we definitely benefited from running out front. Also this section along Laguna Salada was very fast and The Croc loved running in the correct RPM range. Man I was feeling great. Wait a minute this was Will leading the Baja 1000 again and that has been very dangerous and an unlucky position to be in the last 27 years.

Sure enough my Baja 1000 bad luck would continue when the stupid snap ring ($2.00) on the end of the axle came off and allowed the axle to fall out of the CV joint damaging the inner star and splines on the way out. Not good! Talk about the highs and lows of racing, it was tough believe me. However, I did get over it quickly and started thinking positive because that’s what I do. Thankfully I had Jake with me because he is a great problem solver and he too has a very positive attitude when faced with problems. What else are you going to do? It’s kind of like trying to fight through the dust of that slower running car.

We were stuck on the backside of the mountains with no radio communication but we were only about twenty miles from our chase crew and they had parts. All we needed to do is fix the car good enough to limp it out! Easy right? Well not really because with all the fast running the transmission and CV joints were at maximum temperature and hot grease and transmission fluid do not mix well with skin and sand. We had a mess on our hands but we made it work by flipping the inner star over and pounding the axle back through in an attempt to forcibly clean up the splines. Guess what, it worked and things were looking up again. After about two hours and after sundown we were back on the road again and on our way to our chase crew which had all the supplies we needed along with fresh rags and gloves because we needed them for sure. This next stop took us about twenty minutes but we lost a total of about two hours of valuable “daylight” racing. On top of that we were now behind all the slower classes. It felt good to be patched up but now we were back fighting major hanging dust in the still of the night.

At RM 280 Jake and I got out of the car and handed it off to veteran off road racer Rick Munyon and his navigator Richie Hudson. Rick has driven for me before and he is one of the few people that I trust to drive my car. It was great to get a 2 ½ hour break and Rick did an excellent job of driving the San Felipe loop for me. Rick had no issues during his 120 mile drive other than fighting through major traffic. I know it was frustrating for him as well.

During our break I got a good handle on how far back we were from the lead and it wasn’t good. I made the decision at this point to just bring the Croc on home and drive a conservative pace once we got back in the car just to make sure we finish. Besides being way back we didn’t have a spare axle over on the Pacific side and I was really worried about that. An axle is one part of the car that can’t be borrowed or fix if it were to fail. We had 220 miles to go and that’s a long way under the circumstances and the difficult track ahead.

Nothing really eventful happened from here on out other than more tough night driving conditions that included fog and light rain along the beach where we had to drive with our face shields open for many miles. We played it conservative and stopped at each of the chase points to check the CV boots and sprinkle some fresh holy water on the car and it worked! Jake and I finished at dawn with a total time of 19 hours 7 minutes.

Thanks to team work and the will to succeed, I feel very proud to have finished this year’s event.