Confessions of the Cameraguy: A San Felipe 250 Story
by Michael Flores

names have been changed to protect the innocent

Wednesday evening, 4:30pm: We (Rob, Steve and myself) shove off from Costa Mesa and begin our four and a half day adventure to the desert racing mecca of Baja California. Already running well behind schedule, we decide to stop for gas before jumping on the freeway. We decide on a frequency to use our radios on, but there is a glitch with my buddies' radio (glitch is synonymous with forgetting how to program radio). Luckily I had the foresight to pack along the Icom manual, and we had the glitch taken care of before the El Toro 'y'. With radio communications in order, we were ready for the drive to San Felipe.

Approximately 6pm: San Ysidro... the last good gas, and time for mexican insurance. We fill our tanks with SCORE approved 76 fuel, and make our way over to the drive up window at instant mexican auto insurance. Now it's time to make our way to the border- slowly.

6:15 (or so): Cross la linea internacional without incident. I can already taste the cheap cerveza and fish tacos... mixed with a lot of garbage and stinky exhaust. We're in TJ now, and in the chaos of mexican traffic.

?: The time is already beginning to blur... who cares? !Estoy en la hora Mexicana! after racing down the toll road, we make the first scheduled stop, in ensenada. We each top off with magna at the pemex, and set sail for El Chinero.

HWY 3 keeps us on our toes. Blind curves abound, this is dangerous driving and we're forced to slow down. Roadside memorials remind us constantly of the peligro. Ojos Negros and Independencia whiz by us at well over 120kph. Military checkpoint at Valle de Trinidad is closed. We stop somewhere past the cut-off for Mike's Sky Rancho to relive ourselves of the 32oz sodas we purchased before crossing the border, and to fiddle with the offroad lights on the exploder (more glitches for Rob & Steve). We make it through the checks at El Chinero (three poles) with zero delay, and make our way down the 5. They head into Pete's camp to turn in for the night, I continue on to town.

11:00pm: I pass the arches. I have arrived, and it feels great. I make my way straight for the Bar Miramar. Had a great time, and a couple cervezas. A protruck driver who will go unnamed to protect the innocent drove a golf cart into the bar. Good times. I ended up going back to the condo of some good friends of mine and crashing there, south of town.

Day 2

I spent what was supposed to be my relaxing day running around like a chicken with it's head severed. I made my rounds at all the campgrounds, including a few runs back and forth from Pete's camp. Cruised out to the zoo road crossing in a 4 seater, that was a lot of fun. We had a Coca Cola once we got there, and bumped into a few people we knew who were out prerunning. Went down to Club de Pesca and met up with another buddy of mine. We each had a couple fish tacos and a Dos Equis. I remembered why I love San Felipe so much. I bump into Jerry Penhall, and he takes me out on the course in his v8 ranger prerunner to take some photos. Riding out to old puertocitos road in Jerry's ranger was a lot of fun, and I'd like to thank him for giving me that opportunity.

I headed back to Pete's camp and just chilled out with my buddies... enjoyed a piña colada from the green van. Buddy Feldkamp and Danny decided to take the 1 car for a little test run from the start finish to zoo road. So I went out to catch them there and get a little video of the car. When I got there Scott Steinberger and BJ Baldwin were out prerunning. Got them jumping their trucks on video, and Steinberger and crew digging out a rock from the middle of the course that caused a flat. We had some fun with that, it's not too often one sees a trophy truck driver on his knees in the dirt digging out a rock. After that, it was back to Pete's.

For the night, we mustered up the posse and rode into town to go hang out at the Bar Miramar. It was going off, people standing shoulder to shoulder, wall to wall. We all stumbled out a few hours later, some stumbling more than others (I was one of those folks). Surprisingly enough, I was able to assemble my tent and operate the electric air pump to inflate my mattress without aid. I fell asleep as soon as my head touched down on the cold vinyl.

Day 3 - Contingency

Not sure what time it is, but I'm awake. My cell phone's clock is an hour off, and I don't really care too much about it. I need to head into town and photograph the goings on at contingency. It feels too early, and I have a touch of a headache... a throbbing reminder of the great time I had the night before.

I arrive near the main drag. Apparently it's about 8am. People are beginning to line up to go through tech. I chatted with a few different people, including Rob Mac and one of the guys from Enduro racing. Pro Dirt is out weighing 1 cars, and Damen Jefferies has just arrived and made weight. I'm going to grab some food and get something to drink. I'll report later...

Gotta love the tacos and beer... having too much fun to keep writing this. Photos photos photos.

It's afternoon and I'm cruising down to the Herman motorsports condo to go visit the guys and see my friend from vegas, Nicole. Things are hectic, and the crew is making last minute preparations for the race. I need to head off to la hotel las missiones and do my media registration for SCORE. It's not really necessary in Mexico, but the little badges and BF Goodrich tires lanyards are cool. From there it's off to the Collins Motorsorts pit so I can show BJ Baldwin the video of him at zoo road from the day before. He's not there, and Robby Goerke informs me that he's out in the TT on the course stuck. I'll come back down later.

After showing BJ the video, I make my way back out to Pete's and prepare for the big day ahead of me. I eat BBQ with the All-ways racing team, and tape up my video cameras (keeps the dust out). The guys give me some great advice for spots to go and film from, and I make my course notes on a map and get ready to hit the sack. Hitting the sack includes a short walk up to the Pete's camp bar for a piña colada to go. Bedtime. See you in the morning bright and early.

Day 4 - Race Day

I wake up to the sound of VW engines blaring. $h!*!!!! it's 8:30 am and I'm late for the race! Crap! i get ready to go in about 10 seconds, and start running off to my truck when I see the rest of the Hovey crew getting ready to take the car to staging. Damn cell phone, it was actually 7:30am and I had plenty of time to get out to where I wanted to film (less than 10km from Pete's camp). Not wanting to waste any time, and still hoping to catch some of the bikes come through, I hastily gathered my gear and headed out. I was already over-hearing medical calls and incident reports on the weatherman channel, It sounded like some careless chasetruck driver had gotten himself into some serious trouble, little did I know how this would relate to me later. This was going to be a long day.

When I got to the course I realized there were going to be a lot of people there, making it really hard to get decent video. So I decided to hike down the course until I found a suitable location to film from. I ended up walking a couple miles down the course. All this walking killed the time, so I only had to sit and wait for about 15 minutes for the first trophy trucks to come screaming down. And screaming down they did. My walking proved to be a fruitful exercise, the footage turned out great. I stayed at that spot until most of the 1/2 1600s came through, then would head off south and try to catch them as they came through.

I hopped back on the 5 and start heading south, I need to go south of Percebu, and I'm worried I wont make it in time to catch the leaders coming through. I find the access road, but I'm not sure if it is the correct road or not. I take it anyway, figuring a little offroad adventure in baja wont hurt, and that it would have to hit the course at some time. The road goes on, and on, and on. Thoughts of being lost start winding through my mind. I'm glad I packed a 5 gallon gas tank with me. As it turns out, I was on the correct road... never been so happy to see a bunch of chasetrucks and spectators. I cruise up along the course to find another suitable spot. The leaders come through, but there is time separating them all. Very few people have made it through so I start to head back down the course and work a couple more spots.

I bump into Klaus from RDC, out filming for the next installment of the dezert people series, and we chat for a while. We talk about our favorite offroad videos, and critique some of the other ones. Then I decided to climb to the top of a hill to get a better view of the course. Klaus moved on further up the course, and I waited for a few cars to go through before heading back down to my truck. I was starving, and hadn't really had anything to drink all day, save for a few sips from my bottle o' water.

I make myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on my dirty bedsides. I figure I've been eating dust all day long, what's a little more going to hurt? Thank the almighty for squeezable penaut butter and squeezable jelly, it made it so much easier and less messy. I drank a Coca Cola and decided it was time to head back north to San Felipe and see who won.

I stopped south of town at the Herman MS compund to see how they did, and much to my chagrin the car looked really clean and to the untrained eye, ready to go. They must not have made it very far. A question or two later, I find out that a bad water pump ended their day just past the zoo road crossing. Mrs. Hasbrouck, a.k.a. the "Racemom" had made some killer bean and cheese dip and invited us all to have some. It was gone in about 15 minutes. By this time I'm exhausted, and decide to head back out to my tent at Pete's camp.

I arrive and share some of the video I had taken with the All Ways Racing team. I met Eric Allen, and Seth from Amplified Performance. Then I got the grim news. One of the people involved in the serious accident that I head about on weatherman was an older man that had been staying in the same spot as us at Pete's camp. He wasn't part of the race team, but wanted to go check out the race after hearing all of us talk about it for the previous few days. He was nearly killed, and not satisfied with the treatment he recieved, a couple of the guys (and gals) from Chuch Hovey's team took action and drove the man back to the states so that the man could receive proper medical attention. I wouldn't find out until the next morning, but the gentleman had to be airlifted to UCSD trauma center shortly after arriving at the hospital in the US. The doctors reported that the man would likely have not survived the night had he stayed in Mexico.

Later that night I traded one of my burned DVD race videos for a hot shower in a nice motorhome. It was my first shower since tuesday night, and boy did it feel good. I was ready to make my way back into town and check out the action at the Miramar. The Miramar was filled to capacity, and everyone was telling stories and lies about the race that took place today, as well as races of year's past. I think everyone had a great time, I know I did. Beer and dancing and telling war stories was the perfect way to cap off a great time in baja. I think I meandered out of the bar at around 2:00am, and then headed back out to Pete's to crash. But the adventure wasn't quite over...

The next morning, I decided to stop at the pemex "7 lleven" to top off before heading back home to the US. When I walked into the store, there were a couple locals in there and one of the men had cut his hand badly and was bleeding profusely on the floor. He was arguing with the attendant, and for the first time I felt a little nervous. Trophy trucks and class 1s whizzing by a few feet away don't scare me near as much as shady looking people bleeding all over the place. I paid my pesos and filled up and then left, in a hurry. An air mattress never felt so good.

Day 5 - The Trip Home

Woke up around 7, packed up and got ready to leave. Ate breakfast with the All Ways Racing crew (mexican style omelette with beans, corn tortillas, and an orange juice) and shared a few stories from the week. I met back up with Rob and Steve, and we headed back up to the US, taking the same route we came down on. It was a beautiful day, and the drive reflected that. The surf looked great between Ensenada and Rosarito, and Steve kept reminding us of it (Steve is an avid surfer). The border was backed up pretty bad at TJ, so we were re-directed to Otay Mesa. Once we crossed, we were home free.

Another great adventure in Baja... I know this because I wish I was still there.

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