This is my friend Blair's response to that video based on his experience and his very recent trip to the Baja 500 (which I posted elsewhere in this forum - I recommend you read it if you haven't -
here's a link)
At all SCORE races the route is never closed. Racers are told to always keep an eye out for traffic on the course. That said, running the wrong way on the race course is generally not a very good idea. Its only advisable near the end of the race, when traffic is strung out. And only if you can see a LONG way up ahead at all times.
When Ken and I were southbound on the race course, south of Erendira, we would eyeball that no cars were coming based on lack of dust. The coast near Erendira is wide open grassy areas and you can see the dust very far off--and trophy trucks kick up a lot of dust. So, we take a long look and really be sure we don't see any dust, anywhere off in the distance, before we drive on the course. And, keep in mind, I'm talking about driving perhaps a couple hundred yards until we could jump off onto the next "side road" (off the actual track that was the course). Even considering all that, when we went down into a small wash and couldn't see the oncoming view for even a few seconds, it was tense. If we were crawling up out of a wash when a trophy truck came down into it at speed, it would have been bad. Gave me chills just to think about it.
By the way, 2+ people on motorized vehicles is uncommon (and is illegal depending on the vehicle) in the USA BUT it is VERY common outside this country. If you've ever been to China or India (just to name 2 countries) you'll often see whole families on a motorbike or scooter!!! It's true - father, mother, kids, even pets/future food
