Made it home early from the Baja 1000 Race. The whole team was disappointed at 0430 yesterday morning when the engine in the Trophy Truck blew up at Race Mile 589, or less than halfway through the race. SCORE Int'l race rules do not allow engine changes, so that was it for us.
I personally had a very long and tiring two days. Was up Tuesday morning over the beginning of the race course solo providing radio relay between about 4 race teams for the first two hours. I then landed at Ensenada, picked up some guests and flew them to San Jose del Cabo, near the Finish Line. There I picked up my co-pilot and radio operator and we blasted off on an 8 hour flight to provide radio relay again during the night hours. We finally landed at Loreto around 4AM and got a few hours of sleep in the airplane, as there were no hotel rooms available in town. We were awakened after sunup with the bad news, so we had some breakfast and I received my orders to pick up da boss' wife and son and return home.
Here are a few pics. Sorry everyone but I was no where near the actual race action, so you'll have to go to the race team website or SCORE International website for race pics.
Pic #1: Small forest fire in the San Pedro de Martir national forest. Top of the mountain range is 12000ft, and the base is in the desert at around 1500ft within 20 miles of the Sea of Cortez near San Felipe.
Pic #2: Sal Fish (Left, with headset), Director of SCORE International listens in to the radio chatter on the race safety channel while hitching a ride with us from Ensenada to Cabo.
Pic #3: A couple dejected members of the team return home, along with a bunch of racing gear in the back of the Platypus.
