Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

~ ~ OFF·ROAD AI Baker on Baja you. You needed food, lights, water, canned goods. It was a race of survival. Now it's a race of machine survival. Then it was human survival. They started the race in back of cars. It was cold and drizzly in the morning on the coast to Camalu. There it warmed up. I wore a jersey for a while. The sun went down at El Arco. I raced of nowhere. No one was around in the night. I went to sleep. Then I saw a big white horse looking at me. I thought: 'Man! That's my way out of this place.' Zap. I tried to lure the horse with water and food. It was wild. I wanted out. To be successful in the Baja, the pits are your life. They are your partners. Now, everything is so close, there are so many more people. The worst time was 1973. It was the survival of my life. Man, I thought I would die with no water. It was the last NORRA race. I was riding a 1972 Kawasaki 450. The International Six Days (in Massachusetts) were just over. with Keith Mashburn. I got so tired, an airplane took me to El Arco. And around Punta Prieta, M.ashburn slept for hours. I got so mad. But you get so physically exhausted. We had gas pits every 80-100 miles. From San Ignacio to Constitucion was 210 miles. There was nothing in . between. We were on our own. We would ride on pilot jet and gas on. I ran out of gas riding into Con-. stitucion about 150 miles from La Paz. Full throttle, choke on, sun coming up and the piston seized. I took a hammer, beat the piston out of the cylinder. The piston was loose and the ring was loose. Would not kick start, so a truck towed it to the gas pit. W~ got the engine going, kept the throttle high, and it was enough to get us to La Paz. We finished third or fourth 250 in 1968. That first year, it took us 30 hours. Back then, bandidos. stuck you up. We rode in 1971 or '72 and found a group of people wrapped in blankets and a sheet. Bandidos stuck them up, took all their clothes off, and drove off in their motor home. They didn't kill people. That was near Valle de Trinidad. In 1969, I went into a cantina there, we went to lunch and big Mexican guys were sitting at a table. Real grungy bandido types. You didn't understand what kind of verbiage they were throwing at us. But you knew what they meant. . In 1970, we broke down. I was past El Arco on the road to San Ignacio. Then, .they rode over the sand dunes. Back then, they had big trucks with four wheel drive, packed high with motor sOtuff. Spare axles, rear ends. The drivers were mechanics. It took so many days to go to La Paz. Back then, they just got along. When I broke, I was in the middle Gene Cannady and I rode. I pre-rode with Dick Miller. I got to the Bay of Los Angeles to El Arco. Preston Petty burned a clutch and used a block of wood to keep going. The Kawasaki didn't make it to El Arco. I just laid down and slept. Very few racers finished that year. Going over the Three Sisters took out many and Chapala Dry Lake took out the others. A lot of cars and bikes didn't make it. The sun came up and it was hot and sticky. I needed to get back to my job. I hitched on a grey flatbed truck right to the old mining town of El Arco. Then he goes to Guerrero Negro, further south. I had no food for 36 hours. Finally a Mexican truck driver takes me back to Ensenada in one and a half days. I had been without food for two days. I bum water. I didn't care if it was clean or not. I. guess Gene Cannady went back to work. They all were gone. Hey! where is everybody? I am ready to sell the race bike. I'm standing at a taco stand with little shops near the tourist area. I order some flour tortillas. I had no money. It was a big mistake. Nothing. No credit card. Not even a dollar bill in my tooi belt. There was a little sign on the counter. Guys make tacos. I ordered all the tacos and burritos. I ate and felt better. But I got no money. I am thinking I can trade tools or give him my helmet. Instead, I said 'Uno mas burrito' and I split. Bobby Ferro (a former District 37 racer who had a legendary career in Baja - he was the top overall car driver in four Baja 500s and one Baja 1000) just trucked his vehicle to town. He drove his pickup truck home from La Paz. He drove me back to San Diego. He rented me a car at the San Diego The charm of the unknown By Tim Carlson I Baker had been in a coma since a plane crash in August of 1989 and finally died in the early part of this year. While he made an indelible mark on the sport as the man who did the prototype R&D work that brought to life arguably the most popular dirt bike of the 1980s - the Honda XR600, as well as his work nurturing the motocross career of Johnny O'Mara, and then found a better way to ride and race for thousands of customers of his XRs Only shop, and had countless adventures racing dirt track, motocross and Six Days, there was one place that really stirred him - Baja. Baker won the Baja 500 in 1975 with Gunnar Lindstrom and won the Baja 1000 overall twice, in 1975 with Gene Cannady and 1982 with Jack Johnson. I met Baker just before the 1982 Baja 1000. We were the same age, but I had begun riding motorcycles just the year before and had a dream I wanted to do the 1000. I had trouble setting up pits, but frantically busy as he was, Al offered to take one of my gas cans to Punta Conejo and gave me some setup and survival advice. I got there 12 hours after AI's dad had left Conejo for the, victory celebration, but my gas was there. His last 1000 was 1988, and he theorized that a stock XR600 motor was enough to win and Larry Roeseler and Kawasaki proved him wrong. That year I was writing about the race and we talked over pancakes at the San Nicolas restaurant the morning after. Or rather, Al talked. Listen in. A ••• 18 My first Baja 1000 was 20 years ago. I have seen a big difference. I was 17. Now I am 37. Keith Mashburn was my first co-rider. He was a flat tracker. We rode a DT-1 Yamaha with a stock headlight. The sun came up on us! There's been a big change in 20 years. They ran the first one in 1967. Put together by NORRA. Ed Pearlman organized it. It was a big race - , Tijuana to La Paz. In 1968, I rode a Hodaka 90. I was sweeping floors in Bob Levy's motorcycle shop on Sepulveda Boulevard in the San Fernando Valley. He knew Bud Ekins. Bud rode the first-one in 1967. I pre-ran the race with my dad.on Hodaka 90s from Tijuana to La Paz. We got gas from a 55-gallon barrel. They had to prop it up on its side. Punta Prieta had a 55-gallon drum up on a platform. There were no course markers then. We raced by the tripleA map and knew which towns the checkpoints were in. Once you started, you were on your own. We jetted our DT-Ion the road from Ensenada to Estero Beach. Back then, there was nothing on it. The first year, we raced asphalt to Colonet and then the dirt started. It was the worst power drain. And we stopped to eat at the corner of El Rosario at Senora Espinosa's for lobster burritos. I have a picture: I am ready to race. Headlight and backpack. We had a Don Jones-designed fiberglass gas tank, 4.0 gallons for the DT-l. I also carried gallons of gas in my backpack, food for days, canteens of water, a toolbelt, vise grips on the bike, screwdrivers wired to the frame. You had to have everything with airport. I had to go to Kawasaki R&D - Bryan Farnsworth coordinated all the pits. Bobby gave me money. I finally pulled off the freeway on the Main Street exit in Santa Ana and a cop pulls me over. lie says: 'I want to see your driver"s license.' He says: 'This is a rental car rented to Bobby Ferro.' So, I give the guy the whole story. Ensenada to here, and talked my way out of jail. I am hot. Do I dress like this usually? Sometimes in Baja you can see death. Surviving, it's a matter of ... a natural ability to recognize danger. I don't know how you get the sense. Some sense tells you: A car is coming this way or that way. There are erosion ruts in the road. They are deeper here. Rain ruts are bigger on the right side than on the left side, because they are uphill. All Japanese and French racers don't know where to ride here. You can see there is a huge gap after the top five guys. This year we took Scott Summers and Randy Norman and I helped tutor Scott for this race. Scott was very sharp to pick it all up so quickly. For success in Baja, you need an intelligent person. Someone who knows the mechanics, someone who can see - and stay away from trouble. Sometimes you would race without pre-running. South of San Ignacio, you'd ride next to the tide table. Some roads follow next to water. You never know which way to go. It's night, and . everything looks different than you expect. If it looks dry, the tide is high. If there is a big wet area and it's dark, the tide is out. You have to race on the braille method. Somehow read the I land. My engine stopped once in 1982. You go too fast on a road, then you / see a cliff and some rocl<, you lock up the brakes and say 'Aw shit!' The bike is up in the air, and the lights go out. You land in the dark like you closed your eyes, thinking of the last place you saw and keep it in mind and hold on. It's a matter of luck. I remember 1982 on the XR bike, the tide was rising, so I got past the tidal flats as quick as possible. In the south, near La Paz, I was getting excited because I was leading. A calf zips out. It's a two track gashed out of high jungle. We fall in a heap and the engine must be over the calf. The calf got scared and twisted away. When I got going again, I pass a man I'd seen before. I'm going the wrong way! I asked: 'Donde esta La Paz?' He waves me back where I came from, and I'm gone. People are lined up 25 miles to the finish. Guys had fires down at the dump out of town. Wow! A city! Two miles to the finish, I see people on both sides opening up like a wave. Mexicans all want to get close to you to touch you. I am trying to get to the finish line through Sal (race organizer and SCORE President Fish). People wanted to touch me to see if I was real. Down there, you're like the winner of the Super Bowl. The winner is like a big national hero, because I did something they can relate to. All the farmers and fishermen and ranchers must travel those roads in the Baja. Everyone drives them. There were few TVs and telephones, so they don' ee much baseball and football. All mere is is this race. All these people touch me, they want to see if I am real. I have never seen anything like it. Chuck Miller's mom took a picture of me. A woman hands me an infant. The baby looks at me with full helmet and goggles and I have a helmet light. I look like a space man and the baby goes WAAAAHH! I was so tired. More from mental

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