Come to Baja they said. Baja will be fun they said. Well, they were right! This is a Baja newb / ****** review, could probably be a long read, but so much happened. Baja is: fun, amazing, beautiful, dangerous, and BRUTAL! I'll try to explain it all.
EXO - IMO, if you're thinking of going, give these guys a hard look. They are excellent at what they do. Jeremiah was always an email away after signing up, letting me know what was needed / expected, and answered all my questions when I emailed. They also supplied the file for the Lowrance, so you could follow the trails (very helpful). From the logistics of the hotels, to the banners flying as you drove into the hotels, to Matt handing out your room key and remotes, to him and Pedro handing out beers and tequilas! Gordon, who was the lead on all trails, had a talk with the newbs. He was very honest, stating check your ego, there are very fast drivers here, some x racers. You're not expected to keep up. The line will easily stretch 20 miles. Drive within yourself. He told us to use 70 percent of the truck, 70 percent of ourselves, and we should be fine. He said there were highly modified trucks, and stock trucks, and he laughed as the stock trucks usually make it, and the modified ones break a lot. From being in the SXS world for so long, I knew he was right.
Fun - After the drivers meeting, we left to cross the border. When we got into Mexicali, there was construction and detours everywhere. Picture two groups of Raptors trying to get through, and failing miserably. Out of nowhere, a bike cop pulls up, talks to the leader of the first group, and he comes back on the radio we're getting a police ******. The bike cop radioed ahead and there were cop cars and trucks blocking each intersection. We were blowing through red lights everywhere! Pretty cool.
Amazing - It was kind of gut-wrenching to see how most of Mexico is. I mean you kind of know, but.... All the people we encountered were happy to see us, and you should have seen the smiles on their faces when we handed out stickers, to both kids and adults! I felt like a rock star, LOL! They would all stand around the trucks, some had candy, some had stickers. I had asked Rugged for a brick of stickers, cause I'm tight with them, and I handed most of them out. We also brought Milk Bone dog treats, because there are so many dogs down there. Doing both of these things were highlights of many for the trip.
Beautiful - The land itself, the sunrises / sunsets, the plants, the rock formations, ocean and sea. Pretty incredible!
Dangerous - For those that have gone, they know. But those who haven't (me included), and we were made aware / warned of it, I'm not talking about drug cartels, I'm talking about the highway!!! Highway 1 stretches all of Baja, and is mostly 2 lanes, and each lane coming or going is wide enough to support a Raptor. You have the center line on one side, and roughly an 8 - 10 foot drop on the other. Tight doesn't describe it. I was more scared driving the highway, than on any trail! A case in point, we had 2 incidents, first one a group driver smacked mirrors with a local, and both were pretty upset. However the local got the police involved, the driver of the Raptor had to pay him $200 or go to jail. The other was similar, except the local didn't stop. The Raptor driver's mirror was hit so hard, it went flying into his front window and shattered it.
BRUTAL - I'm probably at fault here for being naive. Most YouTube videos I saw was sandy roads or dirt roads. Yeah, there were plenty of them, but also plenty of rocks! Truck breaking rocks! I called them rock gardens, that went on for miles. Beat the Hell out of us, and the truck. Wash outs that were three feet deep, whoops, g-outs, hills, descents, you name it, we drove over it.
Breakages - Lots of them, including me! I had "the breakdown", LOL! More on that later. Most breakdowns were flats. One girl shredded a tire three straight days! She got the nick name tire shredder! Electrical problems, broken / bent tie rods, broken UCA / LCA. As I mentioned, BRUTAL. I would guesstimate that out of 22 trucks, 18 suffered something.. But the cool thing is, with the EXO chase trucks, they had almost everything (me again), roughly 20 front / rear live valve shocks, and older shocks. UCAs, LCAs, tie rods, you name it. Now for me, I was down there with guys that if you added their years up in Baja was we over 200! And everyone said the same thing. " I never saw that failure before in Baja"! We were all on the trail to LA Paz. Gordon told us that the mountain trail leading down would scare the **** out of us. Well, I never got the opportunity. I had just left an accident, a guy came into a turn too hot, blew through the berm, and range fence. There were 3 trucks helping, and they said they had it, and they would catch up. I left, about a half mile up the road, right before the start of the mountain, a warning came on the dash. I didn't pay much attention because we were all tripping warnings. I saw it said charging system check. I pushed the OK button, and continued on. 10 seconds later it came on again, and this time I saw my temp gauge was red with a 265 reading. Pulled over, shut it off, and noticed antifreeze dripping. I called the sweep trucks, who were at the accident, and they came shortly after. What they "surmised" was that a rock kicked up perfectly behind the alternator, which froze it, which somehow made the compression spring blow the pulley right off. ( trust me, I'm not making this up, and it gets better). The belt (which didn't break), decided to keep whipping around, hit my oil filter, and put a hole in it! I was easily in 50+ miles, Jeremiah told the sweep team that there was no way they were going to tow me over the mountain, so they had to tow me back out to the road, through the stuff I had driven through. That was one long *** tow!!! There was an incredible fix, but it would take more typing, LOL.
All in all, I had the time of my life! My "dance card" is full through March with 2 Mint 400s and dune season, but I'm definitely going back. Can't wait. Hope you enjoy the pics. First is meet and greet. I can only post 5 pics, so I'm trying to pick the best ones.
