Baja 1000
Jan 24, 09:05 PM
If I could compare the Baja 1000 to anything it would be a
woman. This Girl is so hot and you want her so bad but your
relationship sucks. She is so fun sometimes but she can be extremely difficult, almost impossible to deal with at others. Your relationship is up and down and you never really know what will happen next. When its all said and done you are beat down, your spirit is broken and your wallet is empty. You say I’m over it and you date other girls but none of them excite you and challenge you like she did, you end up thinking about it all the time, how you almost had her, you almost beat the odds. With the time away from her you think about the mistakes you made and how you could have done better in some areas.
You devise a plan, you prepare, you psyche yourself up and convince yourself that this time you will succeed, you dream about how you will finally have her. Your ready to go back, you load up and head south to try to win back that beautiful Mexican bell.
This year was my third attempt at the Baja 1000 and once again she slipped through our fingers, but not before my team and myself were so close to the podium we could taste it. Unfortunately in baja that doesn’t mean jack until you cross the finish line.
Like always Team Mammoth provided us with a beautiful machine to race. Our Honda XR 650 was fast and looked even faster. Prepared by XR’s Only with suspension by Precision concepts it finally looked like we had a motorcycle that we could ride at the front. I called upon all my awesome sponsors for support and before I knew it we all looked like posers the day after Christmas. Fox had the whole team decked out in new gear with plenty of spares. Bell made sure we had the nice new moto 8 helmets and to top it off Smith sent a huge box of goggles and lenses. So we look cool and we have a bad as bike, all we have to do now is race through the most grueling non-stop off road race in the world.
Giving the play by play on such an epic race would take
days.As I sit here looking at a bike that was brand new a few days ago and is totaled now I realize the condition of the bike tells the story. Broken triple clamps, busted head set bearing, horribly bent bars, smashed stub can, flat tire, wheel in the shape of a stop sign with no tire, broken plastics, silt caked air cleaner, blown shock,an eight thousand dollar bill for an emergency air medivac, and a beautiful shiny fourth place trophy next to it.
Another year in the books, a piece of wood with a four on it, and a life time worth of memories to go with. Cactus spines embedded in our limbs, bruised and battered we talk about how we will perfect our formula for next time. We start the preparation the day after the race because it will take three hundred and sixty four days to be ready again.
Where is the money, where is the glory, were are the girls? What are you risking life for? To the average person this might not make sense but to the ones who have experienced it, it is crystal clear. It is about beating Goliath, about reaching deep down and finding the strength to continue, it is about man and machine walking that fine line between order and chaos. And when you cross that finish line you know you are a man who is stronger and better than before, you know that nothing can stand in your way. You know that with your own hands you have made the impossible possible.