Rick
New member
Saturday morning, I thought I was dreaming, I heard Brent’s KX coming to life….I looked at the clock and it was 5:45am!! I got up and asked my wife what the heck was Brent doing? He asked if he could go and watch the start of the bike and quads, she gave him permission to ride out to the power line. The bikes and quads started at 6:00am sharp and he wanted to see them blitz the whoops sections. Go figure…I came to see the heavy metal. Brent returned right at 7:15 am. The trucks would be the first to start after the bikes, which gave the bikes a 4hour head start. So packed up the Super Duty F-250 4x4, Laurie and I rode separate quads out the power line. When we reached the intersection of the Zoo Road and power line we followed the power lines north, about ½ mile, looking for an open spot to park next to the course. Picture this, if you have ever been to the Rose Parade or seen it on T.V then you’ve seen people standing 3 to 4 deep, lining the street. Well, picture all types of vehicle’s and people, lining a whooped out as far as the eye can see dirt lane. Ohhhh, yea, the power line structures are right in the middle of the course, with people sitting on the structure…Like I said, anything goes down there! If you have never seen the movie “From Dust to Glory” I highly recommend you buy it, rent it, but watch it! We waited about for the thunder of the Trophy Trucks to come trough, during that time, I saw a quad pulling a taco wagon, a 70 Chevy CST Blazer, with the top removed and a plapa type roof, selling pineapple & rum drinks. They take a knife, hack off the top of the pineapple and remove the pulp, put that in a blender, and add some rum and stuff, throw the pulp back in, 2 straws, a cherry and umbrella…..sure it the spot!!!
It was getting close to 10am, and the crowd was moving…..yes moving onto the race course? I looked at my brother-in-law and asked what the heck was going on??? He just smiled and said….You’ll see! I looked at my watch and it was about 15 pasts the hour, and all could hear was a faint siren I looked to the south, I see a massive cloud of dust coming our way, I looked up to see the first helicopter following it’s truck. I was standing on the edge of the course, when all of a sudden, the siren was right there, and a 700 horsepower, 20 inch plus suspension Trophy Trucks was coming at us at what seemed like 60-80 mph, the crowd parted the course as the truck came closer with the siren screaming. The roost coming off the rear wheels, the suspension was working, the cab of the vehicle was level and the earth was shaking, and the smell of race gas was in the air!! The trucks are sent off the line in intervals, and by the time they reached us, they were racing for blood! My brother in law had his HD camera filming as they rocketed by, I could not control myself, to witness so much shear power, and guts of those drivers to go hauling azz with the crowd standing mere feet away was the craziest thing I have ever witnessed. I have seen some crazy stuff in my 20+ years of service in the Marine Corps! But this is insane! There were trucks passing each other in this section…all you could hear was the sirens. The unlimited buggies are a shear picture of beauty floating across the whoops as well, but nothing, and I mean nothing is more wild than a full blown Trophy Truck! We continued to watch as the different classes of vehicles cam through our section. We decided to pack up about noon and move towards the finish area, as the top team bikes would be finishing soon. Getting out the power line area was a bit of a zoo, hundreds of people trying to leave an area and move to there next favorite site. To witness this disorderly confusion was pretty funny. Being on a quad make it really easy and painless, the Ford Super Duty was another story. Never the less we made it out and stopped by the casa to drop off the quads, and Brent’s KX which he rode out to the course. We stocked up on adult beverages and snacks and proceeded to a massive open plot of desert right near the finish, about 1/8 of a mile from the Red Bull jump. The race starts and finishes under the town’s arches. A nice breeze started to blow, as we moved across the open desert to look for a nice picture spot. The course made a sweeping left hand turn, and I though that would be a great place to get some photos of the race vehicles coming off the turn….. indeed it was. As we got settled in, bikes and quads were coming through our area, flat out WFO around the turn, people yelling and cheering on everybody who came buy. Parked next to us was a quad race team; they blew the tranny out of their Honda 450 quad at mile 100. They had a couple of external speakers on the roof of their pickup listening in on the SCORE radio and BFG pits. It was really cool to hear what was going on behind the scene all the chatter. I was listing when a medivac chopper was requested at a pit stop of a race vehicle, it appears a crew member was hurt during the stop and needed to be flown out to San Diego for care. Mean while I was scanning the skies for a helicopter…which in turn meant a Trophy Truck was getting close. The same craziness followed us to our location; off on the horizon you could see dust, and a helicopter coming our way. I was listing to the radio and I hear chatter about the lead trophy truck had made the last checkpoint and was coming to the finish. Within a few minutes you could see the dust cloud growing, and in a split second in a full lock power slide, left front tire in the air, siren screaming, roost thrown into the crowd from the rear wheel, there was the lead truck, headed for the Red Bull jump, the crowd parted as the truck got closer, then it was gone, over the jump to the finish line. The next truck to thrill the crowd was the second place Monster Energy of Robbie Gordon, pitch’ in it sideways at who knows how fast, but those vehicle are hauling butt! A couple of unlimited buggies then came through, and more bikes and quads, cars and trucks. We cheered on the racers for a few hours and decided it was time to head into town to eat and have a look around. We left the finish area and found a place to park 1 block off of the main street. Parked down town were the 1st place truck, and the Monster Energy truck, along with their chase vehicles. I spent the next 15 minutes looking over Robby’s truck. This thing is a high tech junkies playground. The GPS, radio equipment was very cool. The suspension was massive, the shocks, springs, shock shafts, oil breathers, headers, drive shaft rear differential was all build to handle the roughest conditions. The engine is located behind and center the driver and navigator. The spare tires, jack, high lift jack, are just some of the items hanging off the back of the truck. The entire belly of the truck had a skid plate, which had fresh gouges in it. The suspension limiting straps (3) per wheel one of which was shredded, the rear differential housing had a small puddle of oil, all the shocks had oil leaking from the seals, and the transmission output seal was leaking as well. When I peeked on the floor pan, near the driver throttle, I noticed 3 bungee cords hooked to the seat frame stretching to the throttle pedal…No whisky throttle here! I was left looking over the truck as everyone one headed into the restaurant to eat. As I walked in, the entire Monster Crew was there finishing up dinner. I seen Robby sitting in the chair and congratulated him on the race. We talked for a few minutes and I went on my merry way, the adrenaline of watching this event still flowing through my veins. I had to start off with a ice cold Sol, then shrimp tacos as it would be my last dinner in San Felipe for this trip. The parade of cars, bikes, quads, buggies went on until we left for the casa. I was beat; I took over 600 pictures over the weekend. Now I need to go through and get them sorted and posted for viewing.
Sunday morning came really quick, I needed to get our bikes ready for the trip home, riding gear packed for my brother in law to bring the bikes home. He will be staying for another week…. Brent, my wife and I departed San Felipe at 10am. Laurie and I had to catch an 8:05 pm flight out of San Diego. But first we had to drive the 170 clicks out of San Felipe, get across the border, drop Brent off at his mom’s in Oceanside, driver back to San Diego turn in the rental, and get on the plane…..sounds simple? Right……..not really, 2:45 minute border crossing wait, 45 minute wait at the Immigration check point on I-8 west bound. Arrived in Oceanside, at 6pm, still needed to drive 50 minutes to San Diego, plus gas up the Mazda 5, turn it in, and check in for the flight home. Turned in the Mazda at 6:50pm, rode the shuttle from rental cars to the SWA area. Stood in line 10 minutes to get boarding pass. 45 minutes to get through security……only to find out the flight was delayed until 9:05pm! Got to sleep at 1:am this morning.
I hope you enjoyed my trip, and I will provide a link with pictures very soon. Sorry for being so long winded!
It was getting close to 10am, and the crowd was moving…..yes moving onto the race course? I looked at my brother-in-law and asked what the heck was going on??? He just smiled and said….You’ll see! I looked at my watch and it was about 15 pasts the hour, and all could hear was a faint siren I looked to the south, I see a massive cloud of dust coming our way, I looked up to see the first helicopter following it’s truck. I was standing on the edge of the course, when all of a sudden, the siren was right there, and a 700 horsepower, 20 inch plus suspension Trophy Trucks was coming at us at what seemed like 60-80 mph, the crowd parted the course as the truck came closer with the siren screaming. The roost coming off the rear wheels, the suspension was working, the cab of the vehicle was level and the earth was shaking, and the smell of race gas was in the air!! The trucks are sent off the line in intervals, and by the time they reached us, they were racing for blood! My brother in law had his HD camera filming as they rocketed by, I could not control myself, to witness so much shear power, and guts of those drivers to go hauling azz with the crowd standing mere feet away was the craziest thing I have ever witnessed. I have seen some crazy stuff in my 20+ years of service in the Marine Corps! But this is insane! There were trucks passing each other in this section…all you could hear was the sirens. The unlimited buggies are a shear picture of beauty floating across the whoops as well, but nothing, and I mean nothing is more wild than a full blown Trophy Truck! We continued to watch as the different classes of vehicles cam through our section. We decided to pack up about noon and move towards the finish area, as the top team bikes would be finishing soon. Getting out the power line area was a bit of a zoo, hundreds of people trying to leave an area and move to there next favorite site. To witness this disorderly confusion was pretty funny. Being on a quad make it really easy and painless, the Ford Super Duty was another story. Never the less we made it out and stopped by the casa to drop off the quads, and Brent’s KX which he rode out to the course. We stocked up on adult beverages and snacks and proceeded to a massive open plot of desert right near the finish, about 1/8 of a mile from the Red Bull jump. The race starts and finishes under the town’s arches. A nice breeze started to blow, as we moved across the open desert to look for a nice picture spot. The course made a sweeping left hand turn, and I though that would be a great place to get some photos of the race vehicles coming off the turn….. indeed it was. As we got settled in, bikes and quads were coming through our area, flat out WFO around the turn, people yelling and cheering on everybody who came buy. Parked next to us was a quad race team; they blew the tranny out of their Honda 450 quad at mile 100. They had a couple of external speakers on the roof of their pickup listening in on the SCORE radio and BFG pits. It was really cool to hear what was going on behind the scene all the chatter. I was listing when a medivac chopper was requested at a pit stop of a race vehicle, it appears a crew member was hurt during the stop and needed to be flown out to San Diego for care. Mean while I was scanning the skies for a helicopter…which in turn meant a Trophy Truck was getting close. The same craziness followed us to our location; off on the horizon you could see dust, and a helicopter coming our way. I was listing to the radio and I hear chatter about the lead trophy truck had made the last checkpoint and was coming to the finish. Within a few minutes you could see the dust cloud growing, and in a split second in a full lock power slide, left front tire in the air, siren screaming, roost thrown into the crowd from the rear wheel, there was the lead truck, headed for the Red Bull jump, the crowd parted as the truck got closer, then it was gone, over the jump to the finish line. The next truck to thrill the crowd was the second place Monster Energy of Robbie Gordon, pitch’ in it sideways at who knows how fast, but those vehicle are hauling butt! A couple of unlimited buggies then came through, and more bikes and quads, cars and trucks. We cheered on the racers for a few hours and decided it was time to head into town to eat and have a look around. We left the finish area and found a place to park 1 block off of the main street. Parked down town were the 1st place truck, and the Monster Energy truck, along with their chase vehicles. I spent the next 15 minutes looking over Robby’s truck. This thing is a high tech junkies playground. The GPS, radio equipment was very cool. The suspension was massive, the shocks, springs, shock shafts, oil breathers, headers, drive shaft rear differential was all build to handle the roughest conditions. The engine is located behind and center the driver and navigator. The spare tires, jack, high lift jack, are just some of the items hanging off the back of the truck. The entire belly of the truck had a skid plate, which had fresh gouges in it. The suspension limiting straps (3) per wheel one of which was shredded, the rear differential housing had a small puddle of oil, all the shocks had oil leaking from the seals, and the transmission output seal was leaking as well. When I peeked on the floor pan, near the driver throttle, I noticed 3 bungee cords hooked to the seat frame stretching to the throttle pedal…No whisky throttle here! I was left looking over the truck as everyone one headed into the restaurant to eat. As I walked in, the entire Monster Crew was there finishing up dinner. I seen Robby sitting in the chair and congratulated him on the race. We talked for a few minutes and I went on my merry way, the adrenaline of watching this event still flowing through my veins. I had to start off with a ice cold Sol, then shrimp tacos as it would be my last dinner in San Felipe for this trip. The parade of cars, bikes, quads, buggies went on until we left for the casa. I was beat; I took over 600 pictures over the weekend. Now I need to go through and get them sorted and posted for viewing.
Sunday morning came really quick, I needed to get our bikes ready for the trip home, riding gear packed for my brother in law to bring the bikes home. He will be staying for another week…. Brent, my wife and I departed San Felipe at 10am. Laurie and I had to catch an 8:05 pm flight out of San Diego. But first we had to drive the 170 clicks out of San Felipe, get across the border, drop Brent off at his mom’s in Oceanside, driver back to San Diego turn in the rental, and get on the plane…..sounds simple? Right……..not really, 2:45 minute border crossing wait, 45 minute wait at the Immigration check point on I-8 west bound. Arrived in Oceanside, at 6pm, still needed to drive 50 minutes to San Diego, plus gas up the Mazda 5, turn it in, and check in for the flight home. Turned in the Mazda at 6:50pm, rode the shuttle from rental cars to the SWA area. Stood in line 10 minutes to get boarding pass. 45 minutes to get through security……only to find out the flight was delayed until 9:05pm! Got to sleep at 1:am this morning.
I hope you enjoyed my trip, and I will provide a link with pictures very soon. Sorry for being so long winded!