Crossing the Line Baja 1000: What Secrets Starts as Fortune Might Cost Him His Life

Copyright © 2011 by James D Huss jr.

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ISBN: 978-1-4620-2502-2 (ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

iUniverse rev. date: 05/24/2011

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my crew

David, Don, Art, Greg, Bobby and Shawn for their speed and accuracy in pouring beer on me after setting me on fire.

Chapters

Acknowledgements

Prologue

The Switch Out

Chapter 1

Sponsorship

Chapter 2

Pay Phone

Chapter 3

Baja 500 party

Chapter 4

Grandfather

Chapter 5

Mountains

Chapter 6

Enter at your Own Risk

Chapter 7

Pre—Running

Chapter 8

Technical Difficulties

Chapter 9

Start of a Long day

Chapter 10

The Switch Out

Chapter 11

Fire

Chapter 12

San Felipe

Chapter 13

Rocks

Chapter 14

On The Desert Floor

Chapter 15

Poncho’s Race

Chapter 16

Back On Track

Chapter 17

Ojos Negros

Chapter 18

Cafe

Chapter 19

Finding Shawn

Chapter 20

Military Check Point

Chapter 21

Crossing the Line

Prologue

The Switch Out

I was standing next to the water pipeline. Two men in leather jackets, armed with machine guns were standing on the far side of the race track watching for other cars. Meanwhile, Poncho and Andres were unbolting the fuel cell exposing the fuel bladder pulling it out and replacing it with the 20 gallon fuel bladder, filling the excess space in the 30 gallon fuel cell in the race car.

I could hear Bobby calling out over the racecar radio, FOXFIRE 921, come in Jay are you all right? About every ten minutes Bobby kept calling on the radio for me to respond.

I walked over to Poncho as he was bolting up the fuel cell after placing the new fuel bladder in with cocaine.

Poncho, I said, I’m late. They are going to start looking for me. He didn’t say anything and just kept working. I walked over to the pump house and started pacing back and forth. Thirty minutes had gone by; I could hear Bobby in the distance over the race car radio checking with SCORE officials to see if I had gone through the checkpoint.

Checkpoint 4 radioed back. He went through here about one hour ago. I started putting my helmet back on, one of the guards watching the race track came over to me to help and then motioned for me to get in the race car.

Poncho had the fuel cell with the cocaine in the racecar. Another guard came over started helping me with the radio plugs on the helmet and the seatbelts. I could see Andres running over to the race car with a 10-gallon can of gas.

Poncho popped his head in the window of the racecar, You ready? he asked.

Yes, as I pulled my visor down.

Poncho cracked my visor back open, You have enough fuel to make it to your pit stop, and then he went to the rear of the race car.

Andres ran to the front and pointed at me to start the car. He yelled out, the engine turned over, no fire. Again, Andres yelled out.

At the same time I could hear Bobby over the radio in my helmet, FOX FIRE 921 come in. Now it had been over 45 minutes. I pumped the throttle. I turned the start switch on. The engine turned over and no start.

I tried again, Fire you son of a bitch! The racecar engine wouldn’t start. It turned over and over but there was no life to the engine.

Bobby came over the race car radio again talking, Let’s go find him.

I lifted my visor on my helmet and yelled out, They’re coming! I hit the starter switch again, the motor labored, firing slowly, the battery started getting low from turning the engine over so many times. I could see Poncho in my rear-view mirror squirting fuel in the carburetor.

He looked at me, Try it again. I hit the starter again; the race car started. I jammed the car in gear and spun the tires in a rage. I was on my way, thirty minutes behind.

Chapter 1

Sponsorship

Racing the local off-road tracks in Southern California on the weekends, I always looked to the future of racing with the pros off-road like Ivan Ironman Stewart, and Walker Evans. Even if I didn’t race in their class I would know they were racing there beside me, on the same track. I won a few local short-course, off-road races and a national points title. Then a magazine called Vw Trends picked up on my success. I thought this is it; I’m going to live my dream, the BAJA 1000 in Ensenada, Mexico. Now, I just needed the money to compete. The entry was $1400 just to race the event. The issue of Vw Trends magazine hit the stands with a story about me, Jay Huss, and my plans to run the SCORE BAJA 1000 race in November. A story followed with pictures of my off-road race car. Two weeks later I received a phone call from a prospective sponsor wanting me to race the BAJA 1000 and pay me $10,000 for sponsorship using his product called FOXFIRE, an oil additive for engines. This product was supposed to protect engines at extreme temperatures and from harsh environments; even if they were to run out of oil. The perfect place to test man or machine over the toughest terrain known to mankind would be Mexico’s BAJA 1000. From forest to sand to deep canyons, the terrain could take you up to 125 miles per hour or to climbing rocks that you could only crawl at a snail’s pace. A pace that with one wrong move could cost your life with a 500-foot drop off a cliff.

Eric Basson, the owner of FOXFIRE was a French Canadian living part-time in El Mirage, California. He ran his business during the week here in the United States and then returned home to Toronto, Canada on the weekends. We had several negotiations over the telephone with Eric after our conversation about sponsoring me in the BAJA 1000. We came to a conclusion about the contract and he would complete the details. I didn’t hear from him for a while, but after all, I still had more than six months to go until the race. Eric had said he would contact me when it got closer to the time of the testing and maybe even run a local race as a test for BAJA 1000 to make sure the race car was ready.

It was now June and one afternoon I was hanging out at Rev Power Race Engines with owner, Klinney, who had been rebuilding my motor in preparation for the BAJA 1000 in November. While I was there, Klinney asked if I was going down to Mexico to watch the SCORE BAJA 500. He had some pistons for Bob Gordon’s racecar that needed to be delivered to him in Ensenada at the El Sid Hotel. I thought it would be nice to watch the race and also go to Mexico for the first time. I went to my house in Redlands with the pistons that needed to go to Bob Gordon. Klinney had said someone would be waiting for me to deliver them to the hotel. I packed my things and then called Eric from FOXFIRE. I hadn’t heard from him since the initial conversation about sponsorship. I still wanted to know if he was interested in sponsoring me. I was worried because he hadn’t called me back for weeks.

I got Eric on the phone. Eric, I said, I’m going down to Ensenada to watch the BAJA 500 and check out the race track and also watch how they race down there.

You ever been down to Mexico? Eric said.

No. But since I’m going to race there, might as well check it out in advance. Eric said he knew some people in Ensenada that he wanted me to meet and he would call me back in fifteen minutes. I finished packing my pickup truck with a few days of clothes and an ice chest for beer; then went back inside to wait for Eric to call.

A half hour later, I was ready to go. Eric called. Jay, are you all packed up ready to go? My friends will meet you at the border in Tijuana. I agreed and was to take Interstate 1 to the first exit and his friends