What happens when you take a handful of sixties-spiritied off-road enthusiasts and throw them in Baja California’s empty wilderness of endless desert? The NORRA Mexican 100 Rally, a trippy, dehydrated race with its first official start way back in 1967. Since then, many have tread the 849 miles from Tijuana to La Paz.
According to the King Rose Archives: “The Baja 1000 is part of the SCORE Championship Desert Racing Series that include the Baja 500, San Felipe 250 and the new San Felipe Challenge of Champions in place of the Primm 300 which had been the only SCORE race in the United States. The Baja 1000 allows various types of vehicle classes to compete on the same course — from such small and large bore motorcycles, stock VW, production vehicles, buggies, Trucks, and custom fabricated race vehicles. The course has remained relatively the same over the years with the majority of events being either a point-to-point race from Ensenada to La Paz, or a loop race starting and finishing in Ensenada.”
King Rose also has this short, “27 Hours to La Paz,” showing the first Baja 1000, including the cars that ran it, such as a Ford Ranchero and a couple Meyers Manxes.
This is awesome. So, so, so awesome. The kind of awesome you get when you sit out in the sun way too long (per your preferences, with or without peyote) — it sure as hell isn’t good for you might damn well kill you, but the visions you see of yourself and your surrounding environment are unparalleled.
And let me be clear that Mexican desert racing is, indeed, very dangerous. Sam Smith writes for Wired: “People die… It doesn’t happen regularly, but it happens often enough to talk about. As in any form of motorsport, drivers are at risk. But during this summer’s Baja 500, American legend Robby Gordon hit a spectator with his race truck. (The spectator survived.)
“Two years ago, motocross champion Kurt Caselli died after hitting an animal with his motorcycle. The same year, in the shorter Baja 500, San Francisco-based driver Kevin Price lost control of his buggy and killed a spectator. In 2011, motocrosser Jeff “Ox” Kargola sustained fatal injuries following a crash during an eight-day race from Mexicali to Cabo San Lucas.”
The dying? Not so awesome. Nonetheless, like with any action/extreme/vehicular sport, the community is built tough, bringing together a group of passionate people to rally around one another to keep each others dreams alive.
And it is in that which we would like to echo the Jalopnik site which introduced us to the race so aptly flies it flag in screaming: TRUCK YEAH!
