I got home Saturday night at 1120pm, and while it felt good to be home, I am really missing Mexico, my team, and the race a lot! Huge thanks to Kaysinger Racing, TZ and our crew this year. It's a huge accomplishment to finish this race(especially THIS year), and awesome to podium, and even more awesome to come 2nd in a field of 5 Broncos that were all state of the art in terms of their build, when compared to our 'circa 70' build. So I'm super proud of all of our efforts.
This year the race was a lot rougher than previously, both for us and for everyone out there. Lots of breakage, rollovers, and DNFs. Pretty surprising as the terrain comes into view, but once you leave the start line, no matter what comes your way - you just try to power through it and or find a line.
Contingency was great fun, but really packed and slow moving through tech. We grabbed our maps and registration material and Todd and I found Bukin67 and introduced ourselves and checked out his immaculate yellow Bronco. Some tacos and Tecate, and more waiting and finally we were off to the drivers meeting, which also ran pretty late.
This year, instead of Todd starting out, my co-dog Jake and I started the race. We started first in our class this year, followed each minute by another Bronco. Directly behind us was Boyd Jaynes red/white Bronco, the previous years winner. Since I don't daily drive this racer, I take a few miles of "warm up" to get to speed. After several miles, and in an area of switchbacks, I caught a glimpse of the red and white Bronco a couple hills back and decided I'd better pick up my pace. I passed two buggies pretty quickly after that and was feeling pretty good, so continued to chase another dust trail up ahead. Meanwhile, I'm noting the course is pretty rough and challenging...and gaining on the Ranger pickup ahead of me. I caught him in a sandy section and soon realized he was trailing a Baja Bug. So we had a "train".... no fun. No one wanted to pull over to let anyone pass, and to make matters worse, a fast vw bug was gaining on me. First day red mist, kept me in the dust and on this Rangers bumper. Not able to see the terrain as well, I swung the left rear tire into something sharp and ended up with a flat. I let the bug by and pulled over to a safe place to change the tire. During that time we were passed by 66 (a bronco), and 332, Chris Sullivans Bronco. We were down about 25 minutes but got the tire done and were soon back on track and passing cars. Soon we caught a military Blazer and a Porsche 911. Neither wanted let us by so we ate their bumpers for a long time before getting creative and passing each. Since there's no nerfing (bumping to pass), you are typically supposed to move over and let faster cars by when it's safe. Maybe it was first day excitement, but it seemed none of the 6 cars we passed in that 40 mile stretch after the tire change wanted to give up their spot, tho they were clearly slower than we were. Something I hadn't experienced in previous NORRA events. We got caught in the silt during that stage but were only stuck about 8 minutes total. During our tire change I had expected Boyd Jaynes to pass us, but he never did, so I was wondering what had become of last years winning Bronco. He later told me that he had tried to catch us fast and early and had gone over a rough spot too quickly and broke his driveshaft and rearend yoke. That first-day red mist or impatience got both of us that first stage, me with my flat tire trying to rush the ranger for a pass.
After the first special stage Jake and I handed the Bronco over to TZ and Angelo and myself, enesset and crew rolled into Bahia de Los Angeles to wait for them to finish the day. That was day 1. Maybe Todd has some stories from his day 1 experience... Meanwhile here are some photos. More soon!