BFDA Dinner at Laguna Seca, April 31 2011

(photo above, by Gary Kuntz)

Baja 1000 1968 by Bob Winkelmann                  It was 3:15 am on the bitterly cold November morning in 1968 when Al Maxey and I limped our battered English Ford Cortina past the finish line at La Paz, ending one of the most violent and challenging events of my life.              The official mileage on today's map gives a distance of 854 miles from Ensenada to La Paz over the road but the road had not yet been built and the route we followed over mountain passes and sparsely populated desert had covered well over the 1000 miles advertised for the race. The $10,000 purse for a class win had prompted Al and his partner Robin Jackson to spend nearly a year to prepare his '66 Cortina for this event.              Al and Robin had already driven part way down the peninsula the previous year and had some idea of the conditions to be faced, i.e., very rough moon-like terrain and lots and lots of sand. They had witnessed the start of the inaugural race in '67 and been bitten by the off road scene and the large purses offered for the first three class finishes. We were all experienced road racers but at that time, no promoter had offered anything more than shiny cups and trophies for a win. Road racing was strictly amateur and ten grand was an enormous sum at that time.              My invitation to co drive had only been offered just days before the race, Robin had been presented with a family emergency at the last minute and had to pull out. With a prepared car and a $350 entry fee paid, he did not want to disappoint Al. So with the added incentive of an airline ticket for my return from La Paz I agreed to take his place. The plan was to test drive the car the 800 miles from Sausalito to Ensenada on the premise that if it was going to break we might as well break it before crossing the Mexican Border. Al's dad, Jim Maxey, was going to dead head an empty trailer from San Francisco to Mazatlan on mainland Mexico, and if we made it to the finish, Al was to put the car on the ferry in La Paz and meet him in Mazatlan for the return trip. Not considered was what to do if we broke down before completing the course.              With all these plans in place, we packed a few tools, sleeping bags and sandwiches and left Sausalito for the 800 mile drive to Ensenada. Arriving the evening before the race, already tired after 11 or 12 hours in a stripped out race car with a straight pipe and no muffler, our first requirement was to register at Race Central. The second was to visit the Pharmacia and stock up on stay-awake pills consisting of 15 mg Dexamils, one of which was supposedly good for 12 hours of wide eyed alertness.              At this point, a few words about Ensenada would be appropriate. The first town after the border crossing of Tijuana and the nominal capital of Baja California Norte, Ensenada was a wide open border town where anything and everything was available. Boot leggers, drug dealers and prostitutes hawked their wares at every street corner. Cantinas and strip joints stayed open till dawn. What law existed, in the shape of a few armed police, was virtually ignored by the locals and visiting gringos.              It being one of the biggest events ever to happen in Ensenada the locals had been in a state of carnival for a week. With 250 or so entrants cruising the town, the level of excitement the night before the race had reached fever pitch. There were nine or ten classes ranging from dune buggies, production cars, jeeps, motor bikes and trucks. There was even a stripped down Winnebago on enormous tractor tires. I witnessed him drive up the back of an unseen VW Beetle waiting at a stoplight, crunching the beetle into the ground.

Baja 1000 1968 page 2                Race day saw the first car leave at 8 a.m. Starting at 1 minute intervals in the order of its racing number, each car drove up onto the starting ramp while pictures were taken and drivers interviewed over the PA in English and Spanish. Check points and refueling stations were roughly 200 miles apart and since the first stage was over some reasonably paved roads I elected to start the race. At 9:11 am I left the ramp and accelerated through a mile of spectators reluctantly opening a path barely wide enough to give us room. I aimed at the middle of the uncontrolled crowd, it was like watching a flower open as they moved out of the way to let us speed through. It was quite un-nerving but this was to be standard procedure every time we approached a settlement. This event was the biggest show they'd ever had in Baja Territory since the Spanish established a chain of Missions on this isolated peninsula and everyone wanted to get close to the action.              The car ran beautifully on the torquey 1600 crossflow Al had built and handled well on the pavement on the 6 ply truck tires that he had discovered in a 13 inch size. Blow-outs are a major concern for any wheeled vehicle on rock trails and this proved to be one area for which Al had prepared well. We actually checked into the first refuelling station with a faster time than the Carlson/Peterson Saab work's car. The Swedes were in our class and favored to win, they had arrived a week earlier for practice and exploratory runs in both directions to plot the fastest route. With more than one car plus a plane to fly drivers to various areas for repeated runs they'd already established a formidable reputation. Consequently, our faster time was encouraging news to hear as we gassed up and checked the oil. This was the end of the hard paving and Al, who knew what was coming, took over as we entered the desert.              Up to this point I had passed many slower vehicles that had drawn earlier starting times but had also been passed by a lot of big stuff including Parnelli Jones in one of Ford's team of Broncos had blasted by us on a winding mountain road with his 'chase plane' flying low and slow and able to stay just above and behind him. He was to crash and roll a little further along and when we caught up with him he was busy straightening his wing with a hammer. A little later he passed us again going full tilt as if nothing had happened.              Despite the one minute intervals at the start it hadn't taken long before groups travelling at similar speeds ganged up, got sucked up with the draft and began dicing with each other at unsustainable 'sprint race' speeds, myself included. Well, are we racing or not?              In general we cruised between 4 and 5 thousand rpm, but the plan when we saw a car up ahead was to increase the revs to 6 and a half to 7 thousand, to get out of their dust and blast past in as intimidating a manner as possible to create the impression of a much faster car that would strain their milk if they tried to keep up with us. Dust was the problem, the lead car had a clear shot and if you got passed you were flying blind and had no choice but to slow down and let them put some distance between you. After showing an aggressive pass we could drop back to cruising speed and still pull away without engaging in a wheel to wheel adrenalin fueled challenge.              It was still fairly early in the race when we came across a sobering accident. We were chasing the dust of other cars over a reasonably level desert. Not visible was a steep dry riverway cutting across our path which had to be negotiated by carefully driving down the bank on one side and climbing out of the gorge on an angle at the other side. We had seen a helicopter land before we got there and were aware of activity taking place and slowed down accordingly.              What had happened was, Bruce Meyers, driving one of his own Meyers Tow'd Dune Buggies, deceived by the dust had driven off the edge at high speed and crashed into the bank on the other side, much like an aircraft crashing into a hillside. He was badly hurt, his legs shattered but was being tended by several people and with a chopper standing by we assumed they would have him back to Ensenada and in a hospital in short order. We found out after the race that the helicopter couldn't carry a prone body and poor Bruce had spent several hours bouncing around in the back of a pick-up truck before getting to the hospital back in Ensenada.

Baja 1000 1968 page 3                When Al took over the trail was still fairly well compacted over the course that the future road would take and he could maintain a fairly steady 70 mph and scratch over 80 in places. However, it was still rough desert and at this point unsafe to go anywhere you couldn't see a tire track. Our first incident occurred when Al generously moved slightly off the beaten path to allow to a faster car to pass and promptly got stuck. It was our first setback, one minute we were boogying along just fine, and the next, we were buried to our hubs. Spinning the wheels only buried us deeper, we switched off the engine to ponder the problem.              This was our first setback and the enforced stop took some of the adrenalin out of the highly charged competitive situation and helped settle us down for a longer haul. The suddenness of the desert silence created quite an emotional shock, as we were also very deaf and could barely hear our own voices. At this point we had been in the car for about 34 hours counting the 800 miles from San Francisco to Ensenada and the Dexamils were wearing off. Additionally things were beginning to fall off the car. The straight pipe which had deafened us for two days had cracked just below the manifold explaining the change in decibels and the head-ache lurking in the background.              We took the opportunity to open our sandwich bag but the first tooth grinding bite of our long awaited lunch was the next cruel blow, our sandwiches had become real SAND wiches with a liberal coating of Baja real estate and were utterly inedible.              Total Bummer!              Revised Menu: More Dexamils and Gatorade.              Action: Dig out the 'come-along', find the closest cactus to tie a rope around, dig ramps in front of all four wheels and crank it back to harder ground. When we got rolling again we swore "No more good guy stuff!" From now on we weren't moving over for anyone!              About this time hints of other problems began to appear. The clutch wouldn't release properly and shifting became difficult. The cause of the broken exhaust made itself known when the second motor mount broke and the engine settled down on Al's beautifully crafted 1/2" thick skid plate. We stopped for an inspection; the bolts holding the plate were worn down and polished smooth, nothing short of a torch was going to get that plate off! So we decided to keep moving.              But the starter just clicked. We had to remove the starter to investigate, with the plate in place. Not easy. It was a pre-engaged type and the solenoid had to come off first. We lost a lot of time fiddling around with long extensions but eventually got it off. It was jammed solid with sand to the point where it had lifted the brushes off the commutator. Our only option, was to drain some gas into a plastic lid, disassemble the starter, wash it, reassemble and fiddle `around putting it back on. We would only get one start out of this procedure and we had to repeat this every time we let the engine stop. The clutch problem was analyzed as sand getting into the bell housing through the clutch arm. Al had sealed all the openings in the tin plate but the clutch arm rubber boot had taken a whack and split. The clutch cover was packed solid and never would release for the rest of the race. We had to start in gear but somehow we got it going and simply crashed the gears with every shift.              That night, when we were about a hundred miles from the next checkpoint and navigating only by the moon and a compass our bodies crashed. Things had been getting a bit blurred we had both vomited from the exhaust leak and had violent head aches. The floor mount shift lever had broken off at the box and we were shifting gears with the box end of a 9/16" wrench on the stub sticking out of the box, the co-pilot doing the shifting when the driver lifted his foot and yelled "Now!".              We got quite good at this but sometime during the night exhaustion overtook us and we just had to call it quits. We had lost so much time that I knew we weren't competitive and our best bet was now to concentrate on survival. One track rod had bent and the wheels were toed out. The engine, resting on the skid plate had cracked around the drain plug and we were losing oil. We were about half way down the peninsula and the very thought of turning back to retrace our path to Ensenada never entered our minds. The engine was still running, so we agreed that when it got light we would just limp on to the finish. In La Paz, Al could put the car on the ferry to Mazatlan and I would catch my plane back to SF. It was inconceivable that it could get any worse by continuing. (It did...)              Sick as we were, the relief at accepting that we were out of the running took the pressure off. We rooted around the jumble in the trunk and fished out our sleeping bags. It was then that I discovered I had picked up one of my kid's bags which barely reached my armpits. I am tall. So, laying alongside the car with my Ford Rally jacket wrapped around my head to stop my ears freezing I shivered my way to sleep thinking about tarantulas and scorpions.

Baja 1000 1968 page 4                Day 2:              It was a fitful sleep but we must have dropped off for a couple of hours and had enough rest to get going at the first welcome sight of sunrise. I remember the pleasure of getting warm again along with the relief that we were no longer racing and could continue in a more relaxed manner. We had parked on a slope in order to coast start but the puddle of oil reminded us the pan had drained while we slept. We had started with a case of oil but had been leaking at an increasing rate and had less than a half a case left. We put in 4 quarts took a couple of Dexamils for good luck and got on our way at a leisurely pace, me driving.              Our luck improved about a half an hour later when an unexpected rancho came into view with smoke coming out of the chimney. With dogs and chickens running out from under parked trucks we were assured of food. We were greeted like conquering heroes. Apparently the route we chose had put us on a different side of Baja and we were the first race car they had seen. We didn't need our limited Spanish to negotiate the best breakfast I've ever tasted. We were starved and for the first time in weeks, were no longer in a hurry.              So, fed, rested and armed with local knowledge we headed west to the beach. We were told there's at least seventy miles of flat beach going south. It was a little out of the way of the direct route to the next check point but we would more than make up the extra distance we had to travel because we could go faster. In spite of all the problems, the engine was still purring along even if it was a pretty loud purr. Our wire and string job on the exhaust still left a big noisy hole up front and fumes were still coming in the 'office' but when got to the beach sure enough you could drive at freeway speeds for miles. I picked a path between surf and soft sand and even on our hard skinny six ply truck tires we could indeed do seventy. As I got better at picking the path neither of us spoke. Waves don't leave sharp edges and minimal steering only involved following the gentle curves they leave in the sand.              I increased the revs. It was so smooth! And we were still heading south.              After thrashing around inside a tin barrel for hundreds of pounding miles using every muscle to hang on it was another sudden change in our senses. The suspension doesn't move up and down, there are no rattles, (not that we'd have heard them), there are no bumps. With the flat sea on one side and the cliffs on our left rushing by it felt like a train ride. It was a rush, the car was falling apart but you wouldn't know it. We hadn't had to go through our gear shift drill in miles. Apart from keeping an eye on the oil gauge I had little to do except sit back and enjoy the ride. After all the drama we had gone through it was too enjoyable to slow down.              So I didn't.              Al and I have been good friends for years and still are, he has never complained or back seated my driving which would terrify me if I were the passenger. We are comfortable without a continual conversation so the long silence that ensued as I held my foot on the floor was not unusual. I knew he too was enjoying the moment while it lasted and I didn't argue when he finally turned to me and said, "We're racing again, aren't we?"              Our spirits had indeed picked up but the anxiety returned again with the shock of watching the oil pressure drop when we only had about three quarts remaining … nowhere near enough to reach the next check point. The drain plug had broken the pan in a jagged irregular shape and was dumping a quart a mile. So to save what little was left we drained the pan and broke out the plug with the pan threads attached. We had a knock off hammer for general bashing and we sawed off the wooden handle and took turns to work it in and out of the jagged hole to make a plug the same shape as the hole. Then we bashed it into the pan and duct taped around the plug to make it as tight as possible. This slowed down the leak to just a fairly fast drip but the need for more oil was still critical.              We repeated the procedure of dismantling the starter to get another start, and had to jam it into gear to get going because the clutch no longer released at all. But get it going we did and we pressed on south, still on the beach. As luck would have it we came across a fish camp just as the beach was changing from sand to rocks. We had to head inland at this point anyway to hit the next check point.The camp was a wandering village of fishing boats that set up temporary camps with plastic and old bits of corrugated iron. They had rarely seen a car at this time, and certainly never seen a race car. We couldn't shut off the engine but managed to shout our urgent need of "Huile?" to the crowd of kids that surrounded us. They dashed off around the camp and came back with 4 quarts of four different brands of various viscosity but oil was oil and and we didn't care what grade it was. We gave them more money than they expected, poured a couple of quarts in the still running engine and headed inland for the next check point which we reckoned to be about 20 miles away.              We had one more bit of drama before leaving the beach. Rounding one jutting point we could see a dune buggy facing in our direction. This was weird… one of us was going the wrong way and I knew we were still going south. They waved as we passed and we returned a cheery greeting but didn't slow down. Then I saw why they'd stopped. There was a very fast moving river crossing the beach right in our path. I was on it and in it before I could slow down. As I hit the water, a wave threw the car sideways and filled the car with water through the open window on Al's side. At the same time the wheels started sinking in the sand and I barely had time to yell "NOW!" for Al to jam it into second as I momentarily lifted my foot. The engine bogged down and I had visions of bailing out the window and watching the car sink into the water and sand, and disappear forever. (Camping on the Oregon Coast I had once seen a young couple lose their Beetle to an incoming tide and I knew how fast they had to get out before it was buried to the roof line.)              Al's torquey crossflow started to bog down but then with the wheels spinning furiously it gradually started to get a grip and push the needle back up the tachometer, barely getting us to the hard sand on the other side of the river ... That was a pheeeew and a half!! The dune buggy guys must have watched in awe since they hadn't wanted to tackle it even with their much bigger tires.              We were now back to grinding over rocks in second and third gear and the car was now splitting apart with the spot welds all coming unglued. The front fenders had split from the headlights to the windshield and the McPherson struts fell in onto the engine. The fix for this was to hook the 'come-along' into the strut mount, pass the cable over the fender and under the engine, hook the other end into the other mount and crank the struts upright again. We even found a fairly substantial piece of cactus to jam across the valve cover to help keep them in place. The trunk had also separated behind the rear window and the tail now drooped down like the rear end of a walking bumble bee.              It was still light when we reached the penultimate check point with less than 200 miles to La Paz. We stopped the engine to add another half a case of mixed brands of oil, gassed up, washed down a taco and a couple more Dexies with black coffee and got a push start for the final leg. This was reasonably smooth sailing by comparison. The road had been graded for the proposed highway but had not yet been paved. The gravel had been washed into a corrugated wash board by the violent storms that frequently sweep across the narrow peninsula but there was no need to worry about getting lost any more. We rattled along at a pretty good rate, skittering sideways with a wandering front end and unpredictable steering. We were now so high we were 'visiting'... chatting away to each other figuring out what changes we'd make for next years car to make it more reliable.              I do remember suggesting the McPhersons should have a 12 foot travel.

Baja 1000 1968 page 5                We could see the warm glow of the enormous bonfire at the finish line for miles before we pulled into its light. It was after 3 in the morning but the unexpected welcome we received from the crowd of spectators and the Mariachi band that had hung around long after midnight went a long way to convince us that our race was finally over. We were among the last to finish and when they stamped our card we saw that we had been on the 'road' for forty five hours and forty five minutes since rolling down the ramp in Ensenada... but we had finished! And even though that was more than twice the time of the previous record we still weren't the last car to finish.              As a postscript, we were covered in oil with a thick coating of dust. My jeans would stand alone when removed. I didn't find out the promised motel didn't have hot water until I had given my clothes to the maid to be washed and gotten myself under the shower. The next day, after only a single night’s sleep, I boarded the plane wearing jeans still soaking wet from their rinsing.              Al got himself and the car loaded on the ferry to Mazatlan and met his dad with the trailer to bring it back home. They got back to San Francisco in time to put the dirty beat-up car on a stand at the entry hallway at Brooks Hall Motor Show but to my knowledge and regret no-one took any pictures.              -- Winkster

Copyright by Bob Winkelmann 2011
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