Round Trip – part 2

The race was Friday.  It was the Sunday before.  Dustin and I climbed in the pre-runner, a second race car we used to pre-run the race.  These cars take a lot of punishment.  You don’t want to beat up your race car for 1000 miles and then race it.  Stuff breaks and the race car needed to be fresh on race day.

We headed out of town to the course.  We found it on our GPS and followed it.  I knew the sections.  I had been racing down here for ten years now, and many races use the same sections with a few new ones thrown in for variety. 

I thought about when Tanner and I went to find the racecourse to pre-run it 9 years ago, and we got lost before we ever started it.  We were going through farm gates, through fields, over hills…we were so frustrated.  Now I knew the area and how to connect these hills to that valley and how to get back to one of the two paved roads from most areas in the north of the peninsula.

Big ruts, washed-out sections, whoops 4 feet deep, rocks, steep hill climbs and descents.  Rough and beautiful.  We emerged on Route 1, the highway running up and down the Pacific side of the peninsula.  Acambero was a restaurant where the course came out, and there were race stickers all over the walls and race jerseys hanging from the ceiling.  We ate lunch and kept going.

Out to the coast and the Pacific Ocean.  On gravel roads used by local traffic near the water, and up into the rough hills, and back.  The ocean is beautiful.  We pull out onto the beach in a few places and take some pictures.  The people are poor, living at the intersection of parched brown sand and rocks and gleaming ocean with continuous streams of waves breaking white and dissipating into bubbles.

The course went on and on.  We had to go to mile 210.  Shouldn’t seem like a big deal, but it was.  By the time we got to the spot we had decided to pre-run to today, we were beat from getting bounced around all day.  It was cold now.  I was on Eastern time too, and it seemed past my bedtime.  My cough got worse with the stress. 

We were back out at Route 1 and drove north seven miles with our team chase vehicles to a hotel in San Quintin.  It was a remarkably clean hotel in great shape for this part of the world.  The hotel had a restaurant and we didn’t hesitate.  It was dark and cold.  The cook was the owner of the hotel.  To our surprise he was a great cook with an amazing variety of food – all delicious.

In the morning we started off again to pre-run from 210 to 400.  My hallucination was that Dustin and I would start the race and go to mile 400 and give the car to Javier.  Javier would go from 400 to 730, and then Dustin and I would take it to the finish – this year a total of 868 miles. 

This section started ok.  But as the miles went by there were some really technical rocky sections up mountains, whooped out sand washes with rocks mixed in, and just all-around crap terrain.  In a way, crap terrain is awesome when you conquer it – if you are physically fresh.  When we got to the end, we were beat – again. 

I was coughing and feeling sick.  I couldn’t deny it now.  I was very sick.  Didn’t I just get done with the Morocco Rally last month where I was sick the entire trip?  Ughhh. 

I decided to make a new race plan.  Going to Race Mile 400 was too much.  We’d be beat, and when you are beat, you slow down because it hurts. 

We got rooms at George’s hotel in San Felipe and went to eat.  It was very quiet.  Nobody out. I couldn’t wait to get back to go to bed.  Just as my head hit the pillow, the alarm in the empty building across the tiny parking lot decided to blare for seemingly no reason.  After twenty minutes, it stopped.  After another twenty, it started blaring again.  I thought about how the race started in three days and wondered if I could get better by then.  Right now I was getting worse, coughing my lungs out.  I put a pillow over my sick head instead of on it and managed to fall asleep – blaring alarm be damned, pondering a new race plan.

Round Trip – Part 1

It was a dry cough.  No big deal. 

Five days to leave for Baja. 

We had won the Baja 1000 race last year – when it was 1311 miles long, one way from LaPaz to Ensenada.  An epic win.  Winning the longest non-stop off-road race in the world can only be “epic”.  And of course, when you win, you want to go back and win again.  So that’s what I was doing.

I had set a goal to enter three races in Baja in three different classes and podium in all three in the same year.  I had finished second soloing the San Felipe 250 on a motorcycle in the 50 and over class.  Then I finished third in the Baja 400 on a motorcycle – solo again.  The 1000 I thought, would not be a problem to podium on four wheels since we had won it last year.  We had the speed.

But alas, Baja is a ruthless master.  What happens over 1000 miles of the toughest “racecourse” you’ve ever seen depends on a lot of things; some in your control and some not.  Luck played a part – good luck and bad luck; on your part and on each of your competitors’ parts.  Let’s see how this goes this year…

I flew to San Diego and met my trusty co-driver Dustin Gebers who flew in from Nashville.  We also met two friends who were there to help and experience it with us.  Dustin Coffey was from Knoxville Tennessee.  Two Dustin’s from opposite ends of Tennessee.  Dustin Gebers was not a small guy, but standing next to Dustin Coffey he looked small.  So we quickly coined them Big D and Little D.  I don’t think Little D was excited about that, but we all know if you protest, you’re going to get it even more.  Such is the custom among great friends.

My brother-from-another-mother, Bobby Miles, was there as he had been so many times before.  We also had Ted Waldron, my video guy, and Jesse Dostie from Florida.  Ted and Jesse made the Into the Dust series movies, and the band was back together for more moviemaking.

The team had the race vehicles on trailers already across the border. Two vans picked us up at the San Diego airport.  We headed to the border crossing and down through Tijuana along the coast to Ensenada.  We enjoyed pointing out the sights to Big D who had never been to Baja before.

I coughed yet again.  “What’s that about?” asked Little D.  Just a dry cough I’ve had for nearly a week now.   No big deal. 

I secretly hoped it was no big deal…

Life is simple

Master the basics – the fundamentals. 

Don’t complicate it by looking for a magic bullet.

Grand goals are made up of not-so-grand steps taken with concentration and self-discipline while nobody is looking.  

Even a not-so-grand but good, healthy, happy life is the same way.

Do you have the fundamentals right?

The right thing is not always fun

Self-discipline is necessary to succeed.

To achieve what we want, we have to do what we don’t want.

Can you do things you don’t really want to do by keeping your focus on your higher-level goal or purpose?

Ignore the man on the couch

The man in the ring, in the game, in the struggle to do better and achieve worthy goals, should ignore criticism and opinions from the man on the couch.

Choose a different set of risks

On one hand you risk getting to the end and never having tried, gone there, seeing it, saying that, accomplished that…. and dying with your song still inside you.

On the other hand you may be uncomfortable, look a little silly at first, be criticized, or stumble a few times before you get it.

Which set of risks do you pick?

Courage Required

Active pursuit of a better you and climbing toward something better requires courage.

Goals – Let’s go!

Re-think you

You’re life.

You’re in charge.

How’s this going to turn out?

What’s next then?

Trying Harder

For some, they need to try harder.

But for people who are really trying, trying harder is often not the answer.

The dead fly on the windowsill tried really hard to break through the glass with his head.  He gave his life trying harder.  Meanwhile there was an open window on the other side of the room.

Try something DIFFERENT.

Seeing Straight

Some people see obstacles.

Exceptional people see the way – they see possibilities.

What do you see?