broken down racecar extraction stories in baja..

[randy s]

at one time or another, a lot us us have had to retrieve broken or crashed racecars and trucks in baja somewhere out on the course. some of the places are very difficult to access. i was wondering if there are some stories behind these little adventures of misfortune out there worth sharing. they couldn't all be a piece of cake..

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[GMS739]

I would say I have had some issues out in baja n we have only sent out people that really know what there doing n wait till the morning or the slower cars have gone by .

[kats]

Oh boy I have many to choose from but here is a short version of this past weekend:

Blown engine on KTM RM 135.5 rescued in a Raptor with worn out paddle tires towed to RM 152 (silt beds)
Sound dumb to do that but is Sunday just after noon, not much time to be picky, a guy from Mexicali came thru with his toy from the dunes so we took what we had and made it work

[mexgamer]

oh wow, this thread has great potential.
A long time ago, I don't even remember what Baja 500 it was, but I do remember it was one that did Mike's loop and was run clockwise; we were pitting for a 5/1600, Cova's Racing. We were waiting for them in Santo Tomas I think (I was just a kid back then, I hardly remember it), it was late at night and we didn't have a radio or anything to communicate with the racecar. I was with my dad and my uncle in a Chevy S10... so I remember that someone (another racer) gave the driver and the co-driver a ride to the pit; the racecar had broken down somewhere between Erendira and Santo Tomas for what I remember. We had no way to extract the car at that time, it was very late at night, other racecars were still on the course and our V4 S10 could not make it that far off-road and then tow the car. So we decided to wait until next day and just leave the car there; my dad, my uncle, the driver, the co-driver and me squeezed inside the S-10 and went to Uruapan where we had some food before going back to Ensenada. The racecar was extracted the next day I believe, but I wasn't part of that.

[randy s]

one of our other drivers , arturo told me about a guy who ran off a cliff at night and he walked out to try to find some help and when he got back, his buggy had already been totally stripped. prolly pretty easy to winch that thing out i'd imagine..

[az_amsoil]

2009 Baja 1000, we're done fueling both CL1's and repaired the BMW's front brakes in Borrego and were heading back towards Ojos to wait. Just past Valley T, we get word that our Chevy CL1 is stopped near Mike's and we have no other info. We double back and wait in Valley T to see if we can get any more info. About 2 hours later, we get word that the idle bearing has seized...our trailer from San Felipe is heading back to Ensedana, so we intercept them to get a bearing and wait for our Pre-runner to take the part out to fix the car. The car was in a nasty wash area and the pre-runner is having a hard time finding them (since bearing was siezed the guys didn't want to keep the radio on and kill the battery). The air temp is now hovering around 20 degrees (enough that the camelpacks have frozen in the CL1). About 1/2 mile from the car, the pre-runner (Ford F-150) blasts into the side of the wash, pushing the passanger front tire into the well. The guys start digging the truck out...when BAM! A class 12 decided to make a hat on top of the pre-runner. Now we have two vehicles disabled in the same sh!tty area...LONG story short, the bearing made it to the race car and the car finished in the mid-afternoon with the guys driving on two busted rear shocks from around Santo Thomas to the finish (25 hours, 33minutes). The Pre-runner was recovered (with the help of the McMillians trailer) and brought back to Ensenada. We Spent about 33 hours on course, then drove back to Phoenix (by way of San Carlos) that Sunday! IT WAS AWESOME!!!

While leaving Ensenada, our "ride" hit an F-250 at the Pemex station and blew out the dudes steering rack...that's ANOTHER story!

[mawtrophykart]

2004 Baja 500-Rolled a couple miles past Mikes,both of us KO'd,when we come too about 20 locals are stripping the car while we are still in it! Tool bag,spare,radio,Jack,and steering wheel all taken. Still love Baja!

[BEAM BRIGADE]

Stumpy's Dude Ranch todd & scott stemmerman code race Jucume Mexico 7 years ago class 5 open racing for the Win! lost all brakes on downhill! 3rd gear barrel rolled 4-5 times and landed against a fence to a 200 foot drop off! took 6 + hours to get car out and my brother got lifted over border fence and air lifted to hospital with broken ribs on 1 side---here is only photo we have of accident---

[K_Whitted]

I remember an "incident" in probably '95 at the Baja 500. I had just handed the car over to my brother, somewhere around Ojos Negros I think. Anyway, he was chasing down another car and was in heavy dust and some of the locals had put a large boulder in the middle of the course. The guy he was chasing went around it, but my brother didn't see it in time. He hit it and rolled the car down an enbankment into a creekbed. With the car on its lid and the antenna broken off, he asked to locals to help roll the car over, to which they declined. With no working radio, he had no choice but to pull the coil wire off and walk a mile or so to get back to the pit area he just passed through for help. When we got back to the area, there was no car to be found. We did, however, find it about a mile down the race course. Apparently the locals had turned it back over, rigged up a coil wire, started it and drove it until it ran out of fuel (I guess, thankfully, they didnt know it had an electric fuel pump switch). Luckily, those guys were gone, and we hooked it up to a tow strap and pulled it back to Ojos, done for the day. Up until then, we never really had any problems with the locals. Knowing what I know now about Baja, I dont think we'd ever leave our car again around "spectators".

[mexgamer]

Cool stories; sad to hear about the "bad" locals, thanks God there are more locals that really love Baja and instead of creating problems help the racers when in trouble.