Two Larrys would like to make an apology for leaving Ryan Crook of CBCFS Racing #1116 (also on Facebook at the CBCFS Racing Group) out of our briefing of the Baja 1000 below. We weren’t aware that he attended, but glad that he did! The following is Ryan’s personal account of racing in his first SCORE Baja 1000, with Eric Solarzano:
Baja 1000 2012
Tj arrival 8pm; crossed the boarder and got lost as usual. Found eric and his “shop” once again.
After rebuilding erics car for a 7′ 350lbs silt driver and putting the car together all night, 3 days before the race, having no electronics the day we arrived, no seats, belts, radios, lights, no brakes, no skidplates, and the list goes on.
3DAYS later we find ourselves leaving erics shop in tj at 3 am thursday (Race day) on no sleep to make late tech at 5:30 in ensenada. No showers. Have been camping in TJ for 3 days on the streets. we also now know all the best taco stands in T
Planning helps especially when you find yourself buying fuel while racing from finished trophy trucks and dirt bikes headed north. Also the fact we had to chase and pit the whole way.
Baja 1000 completed. 36 hrs of sleep over 7 days. broke a spring plate at race mile 200 and then the other side again near bay of la just after el crucero baja pits. Fully custom chromoly spring plates housings opened up like a can.
paul got in the car after the fix in bay of LA. he ran a great section that we did the summer and almost took out mark naugle. orlando and him found themselves stuck with the two front wheel in the air above a 10 foot deep hole. after an hour and a half down they got it out. met them at road crossing in vaizcano then they headed into the nigjt and into 60 miles of silt. taking out more than 50 cactus withiut a flat and getting stuck plenty of times they had to stop for a break for the motor which was running at 300 degrees by then. made it to san ignacio where we did some quick fixes and off it went again.
Found myself in a section of woops by cuidad insirgentes around race mile 840. We had pre ran this in july the Spiders that make cob webbs while your doing 30 mph and hundreds of terantulas, scorpions and huge puddles. We got cold and wet since we had to kick the windsheild out because the body had crack.
Sounds like hell but it was the best time ever!
We know we can do the 1000 and what not to do. Planning starts now. next year we will finish in time, we mever gave up even though we were hours behind. our goal was the baja 1000 and we did complete it in 63hrs. and only rolled once within 20 miles of the finish line!
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