Alright, so I promised a write-up and some pictures and videos of B1k13 in the Blacktor. This was my second trip down there with the privilege of getting to volunteer and work with the Locos Mocos pit crew. I had big plans of meeting up with the Locos Mocos EcosCircus which is normally several days of offloading baja prior to the race. I also had plans of meeting up with the RPG guys on my way right when the RPG chaos hit.
Equipment carried: clothes for all weather, comfortable socks, comfortable shoes and boots, camping equipment (no stove and pit has a kitchen tent), bottled water from the US, beer from the US, tons of Patron (from the US), first aid kit, couple of fire extinguishers, go pro hero 3 with several batteries and memory cards and USB constant charge in the frame case, sleeping bag, tarp, tools (I carry a lot of tools including big torque wrenches, battery operated grinder and impact tools, electrical tools like soldering/desoldering irons, impact sockets wrenches, etc, etc, etc...too many tools...but I needed a lot of them on this trip). two spares. 5 gallons of US fuel in a VP Racing fuels jug (fits perfectly in my outlaw raptor bedrack). Yeti cooler stuffed full of ice and lunch meats, fruit, juice, etc...) Lowrance navigation, 2 ton jack and lots of music, blah, blah, blah...
The drive from CO to LA was uneventful. Did it pretty much in one shot minus a couple hour nap. Met up with Corey at RPG the next day and decided to do the race line rear bumper and dovetail. Looks sweet and this was pre baja.
Met a pit crew buddy and last year's codog and his family for dinner that night down in san diego (he was also the pit trailer puller this year...which is multiple stories in and of itself...but, all around great guy). Went to bed fairly early because I was crossing early AM and planned to head all the way to Guerro ***** to catch up with the ecotour/ecocircus. This was still a few days prior to race day.
Half way to Guerro ***** I get coms from Trey that they are actually in Bahia De Los Angeles (Bola from now on) because of a broken down truck. Cool with me...less driving, but still didn't make it until after dark. Lucky no run in with the Bandidos or Federales....
Got a cheap hotel in Bola ($25/night) and got a good nights sleep after about a 14 hour drive through the baja peninsula.
Find the ecocircus the next morning and find out there are several trucks broken (from bearings, radiators, etc) so I basically spent 1.5 days in Bola (which is a cool little town way down in Baja Sur on the Sea of Cortez), but didn't get a lot of offloading in...
I saw these signs in Bola after whooping through some Vados to a hotel we were mooching wireless internet off of (no cell phones, etc down here). I remembered them the rest of the trip...they came in handy.
Saw a traditional funeral procession in Bola. The truck had the coffin in the bed and friends and family followed the truck around the strip in Bola (on foot) the ENTIRE day. Interesting culture to absorb.
Get all the trucks fixed and meet at the photo-op spot overlooking Bola and the Sea of Cortez. From here we head out to meet the pit trailer/convoy and get ready for some work.
It's an hour or so drive to the turnoff (which is part of the baja race course) that we need to make off of the highway. Then it's about 50 or so miles of baja course, silt beds, rockiness and sandiness to the pit location. This turns out to be an all day wait. As I was trailer chase vehicle last year I decided to head back north and leave the rest of the team to try to see if the trailer had problems, etc. I finally met the trailer about two hours north of the meet up location and there were problems. The trailer tow vehicle had radiator and transmission problems and one of the pit leaders vehicle (awesome bronco pre runner) was having cooling fan problems.
Anyways, we get all this hacked together and head south. We finally meet up with the rest of the ecotour guys well after nightfall and realizing we have a long way to go off road over treacherous terrain before we even get to the pit site. Then we have pit setup, etc...it will be an all nighter...
Showing how cool all these guys are, they offer for me to go point on the caravan (including pit trailer) since I haven't had much off road time due to breakdowns, etc. I gladly accept the offer. The videos I post later (and some earlier) are of me in point of about a 15 truck caravan including a heavy off road trailer (king shocks, etc).
So, I'm rolling. No CORe race map loaded on my lowrance, so I'm flying blind. I've never been on this two track and was going WAY faster than I should have (probably because I realized I'd made it almost three miles short of pit/camp) so I thought I had bagged it.
Anyways, I hit a wash...Ripped the entire passenger side front end apart starting with the Knuckle and Lower ball joint on the LCA...once all that was gone (realize I was still at speed) everything bound up and I ended up sitting on my spare tire. IWE lines and IWE were toast (I thought). Half shaft was ripped out and was leaking axle grease. Brake line was stretched beyond capacity. Knuckle broke at the good neck right at the weakest point. Here are some shots (I hadn't done anything to the truck at this point. This is how it landed):
I was out of radio contact with the crew as I was so far ahead (this should have been a clue to me to slow the hell down, but I wasn't smart enough to figure it out). Treypal and One were the first to show up. By this time I had the front end apart and ready to take to the pit in the hopes of a miracle weld job to get me back to the highway (about 50 miles). Trey said the crew was coming so I threw the Knuckle, half shaft and rotor in Val's truck and then jumped in the pit trailer truck to the pit.
Baja Jones hooked me up to his son's diesel and we literally dragged my truck off of the course into the cacti and brush just so my vehicle wouldn't hold up the race (scheduled to start in about 6 hours at this point). Once I got to the pit I set up my tent and crashed. Exhausted and stressed.
I woke up early the next morning figuring my truck had been turned into a parts truck, stripped, robbed of all my tools, etc. We have a gas generator that runs a 220 stick welder and we just so happened to have some no-rod on the trailer as well (first time in 10 years I was told that we carried no-rod because we never weld to cast). In any case there were several GREAT welders there from Total Chaos and other groups and they did a CRAZY trail fix job of getting my Knuckle back together. I would venture to say their fix was more sturdy than stock. Here are some pics of the trailside fix of the knuckle:
We did all this at race mile 460...no running water, cell, electricity, etc. Tools at hand and what we brought. I was lucky to be in the presence of these guys and even more lucky that they spent a good part of the morning make this fix.
Once the fix was complete, we figured out a way for me to ride with Vorra in his truck back down to mine (luckily only a few miles away) to get the frontend put back together. The only problem is that the race had started and bikes and quads were already at our race mile. So, we had to jump on the course and watch out for oncoming racers as well as try to keep my dust cloud down as to not obstruct racers.
Luckily the truck was only a few miles away from camp. And MIRACULOUSLY it was untouched. It sat overnight with all these upgraded parts on it on the side of the race course with tools, etc in it and wasn't even touched. I call that lucky or divine protection.
In any case, Vorra and I had my front end back together in less than an hour. He made sure I was turned around and operational and then he headed back to camp and I headed down the race course to the highway (about 45 miles away off road on the baja course). I had to ratchet strap my UCA to my LCA (!!!!!) because I had also broken/separated the ball joint from my LCA:
hold up time for another shot of patron and amstel light...
...ok, good now....
At this point I'm rolling at about 5-10 MPH back towards the highway with race traffic coming up behind me. So, I try to keep my dust cloud down so as not to obstruct their times and I try to get out of their way as fast as possible...which included several scratches to my truck (Battle scars).
After only a few miles I ran into a competitor MX'er whose throttle was broken on his bike and he had injured his shoulder. Baja trail Karma kicked in (as how could I turn him down after what I'd been through).
He asked if I speak Spanish (which I don't). Luckily he spoke better english than most locals I met. He asked me to take him to the highway. The only way I could carry his bike was to throw it on top of my Yeti cooler and tailgate and ratchet that sucker down. His shoulder was busted up, so I basically had to load the bike myself. I offered him codog seat, but he wanted to ride in the back. I had him call out oncoming race traffic to me so I could pull over and let them pass. After a few hours we made it to the checkpoint which was at the highway and around race mile 500. I helped him and the bike out of the back and all the locals were gathered around taking pictures and videos. He gave me a bro hug, graciously thanked me and told me to stop by his mom's restaurant in El Rosario on my way back to Ensenada and I would eat for free.
My goal was to just get to the highway and then I would call insurance and have it towed or whatever and then deal with the insurance on the next steps. I got the same insurance that Trey got when he had a problem, so I was relatively confident I'd at least get home. But, my truck was handling so well after the fix...even with the ratchet strapped UCA to LCA (!!!!!) that I decided to try to make it north on highway 1 up the baja peninsula as far as I could.
I stopped in El Rosario on the way and it turned out the MX'ers mom's restaurant is my favorite taco stop in El Rosario. I showed his mom this picture and she hugged me, cried a little and treated me like a king. Baja is great. Everything works out down there somehow it seems. Although there are fatalities and injuries and busted vehicles, it just seems like such an awesome adventure every year.
Anyways, I had cell phone service again in El Rosario so I gave Corey at RPG a call. He had mentioned if I had problems when I was at his shop before I left to give him a call. Well, I called him on that offer and let him know my circumstance. I was bleeding brake fluid everywhere and the half shaft boot was torn from getting all bound up in the accident so it was spewing axle grease everywhere. I went through a whole bottle of brake fluid on my way to Irvine.
So, on the phone with Corey, he tells me exactly what was wrong (from my description) and offers me his shop (on a closed Saturday) to work on my trucks.
Say what?!?!?!
I know Corey is amazing, but to throw me his keys and alarm code and to actually say, "My shop is your shop" was amazing. He even let me use his parts guy to get a new knuckle, wheel position sensor, LCA ball joint and half shaft from his parts guys (delivered!!!!) at his cost by lunchtime. Corey had family obligations, so I had the run of the shop for the better time of the day. During that time I disassembled the front end and tried to get everything installed. Had some trouble with the LCA lower ball joint as we didn't have a press, so had to sledge that sucker out. Here are some pictures of the damage once everything was disassembled:
wheel position sensor cable fried by offroad welding...
Got most everything back together but was still having trouble with the LCA ball joint and guess who shows up...Corey and his family...Who better to help me with reassembly???
At this point we get everything knocked out and even trail prepped for the drive back to CA. Amazing man, wife and kids...
Patience is definitely one of their virtues.
Even Corey's daughter kicked in to help...
I took a quick spin around the block and the truck was riding great. Alignment was off, but only a fraction compared to the ride up the baja peninsula (this was straight prior to getting to Corey's shop - notice my instrument cluster lit up like a christmas tree...)
After the fix above, I headed straight back to CO. Slept in vegas and had my last in-n-out burger for a while and made it home.
At RPG, I found a busted shock cap on my fox 3.0's. Turns out it was an aluminum cap. Corey replaced it with an updated steel one. He also has reservoir relocation tabs that can be welded to the outer part of the UCA mount. I welded, painted and relocated mine when I got back to Denver (just an FYI):
I can't thank my Locos Mocos crew enough for getting me out of there. I can't thanks Corey and his family enough for letting me use the shop and his family for letting him help me out.
I have to be honest: When I had this accident 1000 miles from nowhere I dropped to my knees and prayed to God that he help me out of here (if he saw fit). Well, I guess he did because everything worked out and actually fell into my lap. Actually made it home a day early. Never so happy to see the wife and kids after twelve days...
Hope you enjoyed. I'm not re-reading this right now so sorry for typos, syntax problems, mis-spellings, etc. Enjoy the story. I'll still get those videos up eventually.
Phy
