Through some stroke of sheer dumb luck, or as others might call it, being in the right place at the right time, I hitched a ride to the 40th running of the Tecate SCORE Baja 1000 as a chase crew member for a class 3 (short wheelbase 4X4) team. Thanks to Class3racing.com I linked up with Chris Raffo of Raffo Racing, and was invited to join his chase team. After a short telephone conversation that was delayed by the San Diego wildfires, we agreed to meet in San Diego the weekend before the race, and planned to head to Ensenada B.C. on Sunday the 11th of November.
Initially I had some reservations about heading over 1000 miles in to Mexico with a group of people I had yet to meet, but the thing that gave me the reassurance I needed was that these people were racers. Over the years I have learned that the overwhelming majority of racers are good down to earth people, this proved to be true one hundred fold.
My conversation with Chris was relatively brief. I knew where to be and when, and had a rough idea of the race schedule and return trip timeline, but I didn’t really know the details. So I planned for as much as I could imagine, and was ready to work hard and have a good time doing it because I didn’t know for sure what exactly I would be doing and where I would fit in to the team.
Come the Thursday before the race I found out that Chris was having transmission troubles and was going to have to leave his chase truck in Colorado (he was traveling from Illinois.) At this point he was looking for a vehicle to replace his and was looking to spend around $1000.00, well I was walking into a meeting as I got this phone call but when I got out of my meeting I quickly scanned Craigslist and didn’t see much I would be willing to ride to Cabo in for that price. So I looked at rentals, and then gave Chris a call. Turns out he was looking to borrow or rent a vehicle, not buy one. He laughed and said “no I generally like the people I take to Mexico,” when I suggested that he wanted to buy something for $1000.00 and chase the 1000 with it. By this time he had already lined up a rental and was on the road again. As luck would have it Chuck and John Holtz who were towing the racecar, were not too far ahead of Chris and he was able to meet up with them and ride in to San Diego. But the time lost because of this meant that Chris was not going to be able to attend the mandatory BF Goodrich Pit meeting, so the first thing I contributed was clearing my Friday afternoon schedule (Tough break huh?) At this point Chris mentioned that he had worked me into the co-driver schedule. I would actually be navigating for a leg of the race. That is more than I ever could have asked for, and I got really excited about the way the trip was shaping up. Chris also made the call that we would get on the road Monday morning instead of Sunday afternoon.
When I got to the hotel that was hosting the BF Goodrich pit meeting the parking lot was full of race trailers, and high dollar chase rigs, along with a few race vehicles. There was a definite tension in the air as hundreds of racers were preparing to put months and in some cases years of hard work to the ultimate test in only a few days. My primary mission at the meeting was to acquire the BF Goodrich race/chase notes, a 100 page book with maps and detailed information about every mile of the racecourse (1296 this year) and all of the access roads to the course from the highway. I also needed to confirm radio frequencies and fuel quantities for each pit, I made a few frantic phone calls to Chris and Jeff Dolan and everything was set.
Saturday went by and I hadn’t heard from anyone because they were busy putting the final touches on the racecar, but come Sunday I got a call from Jeff asking me to get a couple more copies of the race book and then to come drop them off because he and a few others were leaving for Mexico that night. When I showed up they put me right to work, well right after they gave me crap about my San Diego Chargers shirt and my Bronco. These guys race a Chevy Blazer (officially it is the Class 3 #306 Fig Partners, Phil’s Inc., DiMare Fresh, Reid Racing, Ringers Gloves, Fresh Air Systems, Bilstein, BFGoodrich Tires, Chevrolet K5 Blazer,) so the Ford v/s Chevy thing is only natural. Before long I was handed a radio and a GPS, and was pointed in the direction of a silver Hyundai Entourage minivan and told to make it work (what is it with me and silver Hyundais this year.) So by virtue of being a Marine Communications and Information Systems Officer I was now GPS guy. Because we were dealing with a rental, we had to make low impact, i.e. no drilling holes, modifications. I played with a number of different zip tie combinations to mount the antenna to the roof rack but it just wasn’t going to hold up. Brie Corn eventually came up with a solution using plumber’s tape while I was working on the wiring. With the GPS antenna mounted, and the unit powered up, we then powered up the radio, and the HID lamps that Greg and Lisa had been installing. Everything worked like a charm, at this point I headed back to my house to get the GPS files that Jeff had emailed me and planned to meet everyone back at their hotel not far from my house. The Blazer gods must not have been pleased with my efforts because I rode home in the rain, it was more damp than soaking wet but the old school wipers on the Bronco are not very effective.
A few hours later I met up with John back at the hotel, and started trying to configure the GPS in his dad’s CJ8. It turns out they had just installed their GPS so he and I had about the same level of experience with a Lowrance GPS . . . going on ten minutes. We messed around with it until almost midnight, when we decided to ask for help at contingency in Ensenada. A quick nap later and I was loading my bag on to the roof of the minivan and headed to the El Cajon airport to pick up the racecar. My first experience riding with Chris “Rightfoot” Raffo behind the wheel was in an overloaded Hyundai minivan with lights and antennas on the roof, numbers on the window, and in morning rush hour. As it turns out that was one of the tamest rides I would take that week. After a quick stop at the border we were Ensenada bound.