Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

; • • .----/ ~ AVE. FRANCISCO MADERO E ~ 00 0') ~ l!') CN ..Q + U M co;S N ::?1 ® ® Rllce Heedquertera Hotel Lucerne Contingency Verification edjKent to C81lmex © Tech. Inspec:tlon & Impound @ ® ® DrivenlRlders Meeting Golden DnIgon Restaurent StertUne FinishUne @ Awerds Pr_ntatlon La Mision Restaurant @ Cemping CD Holiday Inn o ® EI Cec:henille Mote. wlCentinele Coffee Shop Los Buffalos Restaurant How to partyhearty :Making the bestof :Mexicali By Nina Vermillion To be perfectly honest, Mexicali isn't that much fun. ("You have to make your own good times," your mother always said.) There isn't that 'much to do so life is not a giddy whirl of . one fascinating activity after another, The reason seems to be that Mexicali is well integrated with Calexico, her sister city 14 across the border, and both places are very commerciaJly-oriented. When you first arrive, in the hean of the business district, you may well 'be wondering what son of scene, exactly, you're getting into. Persevere and drive through town to Boulevard Benito Juarez, make a right and you'll find the rest of the racers and all the action. The Holiday Inn and the Hotel Lucema are located about a block apan, facing each other across Boulevard Benito Juarez. The Lucerna is race headquaners, but the Holiday Inn has Contingency Row in a parking lot right next to itself. The Lucerna sports a good patio coffee shop, a disco and two bars as well as a beautifully done pool and waterfall in the courtyard of the building. There is an additional pool back in the other quaner that is much quieter. The "Aquacade" pool is located facing the two bars and, consequently, on race day is the place to be. The crowd grows as the afternoon wears along with bikers in half·off leathers mixing freeley with barely bikini·clad ladies as the four-wheel drivers come trickling in from the course. The Holiday Inn has a pool and patio area out back that is pretty, but most of the people that stay there hang out at the Lucerna. The Holiday Inn bar is located overlooking the pooll patio area and is nice for a wake up beer after siesta, if you take one. Adjoining the Holiday Inn is a very good restaurant/bar called the Mexicali Rose Saloon. Done in early hoosegow, the bar hal swinging cowboy doors and is elevated over the restaurant area with jail bars for walls. The place is small, with red-checked tablecloths and a determinedly Old Western flavor. On the same side of the street as contingency row, but fanher down the Boulevard, is a restaurant called Los Buffalos. The decor is simple to say the least - benches and wooden tables and wine bottles with plants growing in them - but it is suitable to this part of Mexico and really very charming. Because service is slow due to the milling hordes of racers, pit crews, press and fans, Los Buffaloes provides an hors d'ouevre that could very well serve as dinner - crisp hot taco chips with several sauces and a big serving of sauteed chicken livers that at frrst glance appears to be a soup bowl full of big round brown mushrooms. The food is excellent and two recommendations are the came asada and the garlic lobster. A generous lobster half is broiled with butter and garlic chips and if you like garlic and/or lobster you just may think you've died and gone to heaven. They serve the excellent beers and wines of Mexico here. The Mexicali Rose Saloon is the place to grab a quick drink before showering the course' dust off your body and putting on your cleanest dirty jeans for dinner. If you decide to dine there, they have an ex~lIent salad bar with all kinds of goodies and very courteous service, When they had to change our table after making us wait half an hour, management brought us -aJI a glUl of red wine. Theit: beef is very good and seems to be IDOJ'e flavorful than our American style. If you can't clean up yout: plate - and after salad, 'pinto chili bean soup, a baked potato the size of Chicago with all the ainnDinga, mandous bot bread and a generous portion of meat, don't be surprUed if you can't - the waiter, instead of giving you a ~ doggy bag, will take a piece of aJummum foil and wrap the leftover meat very cleverly into a silver bird for you to take home. The grave concentration our waiter gave to this task was charming to see and revealing of the general desire to please there, If you survive race night roaming around the Lucerna watering spots, you will probably want either a heany breakfast or an early lunch. A good place to go is the Centinela coffee shop in the EI Cachanilla Motel just down the street from the Lucerna. Their machacas - eggs scrambled with onion, green pepper, tomato and barbecued beef - are superb and the hamburgers the best in Mexicali. And the waitress doesn't think it's odd if you have a beer with your breakfast. If, lilte a lot of racing degenerates, you cut worlt and drive down on Friday you should be there by early or mid· afternoon. The day before a race is always quiet (tinltling wrenches in the pit area) and this is a good time to get checked into wherever you are staying, unpack, check out contingency row and get in some pool time. After that you might want a drink at the Holiday Inn bar overlooking the patio before getting ready to go out to dinner. There really isn't a tourist shopping area per Ie, but you might want to buy your duty free liquor at the super· market now and get that over with. The Mexicali Rose is good for a Friday night dinner and you'll probably want to retire early - along with the drivers, pit crews and support personnel (the press never sleeps) - to be brisk and bright-eyed for the race at dawn the following day, The ~ORE press room, located across from the Lucerna pool, can give you a copy of the course map and you can plot how far out you want to go and observe. Because this is a shon race, the bikers stan coming in around I p.m. Classes, by checkpoint, are posted in the corridor outside the Lucerna coffee shop for your reference. At Mexicali the emphasis is on racing much more than in Ensenada (with insidious Hussongs) , but even though it's a small town there on Boulevard Benito Juarez, you can still have a ·very good time indeed. •

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