My husband, Tim, and I could not take off any more than one day from work for this race. So we had to leave San Diego and make the 5 hour drive to San Felipe on Contingency day. We got up early Friday morning and began to make our rounds in San Diego to pick up and drop off various people. We dropped our son off at school in Ramona and our daughter off at school in the College area, picked up our friend, Roli, in Point Loma, and then picked up Richie and Alan in El Cajon. Richie and Alan were new friends who are planning on racing a class 11 in the 2006 Baja 1000 for their first time and they wanted to tag along with us in this race to get familiar with the SCORE racing scene. This would also be their first time to Mexico.

The drive down highway 8 through the mountains to the Calexico border crossing was cold and wet. It actually snowed on us on the way and I knew already the weather was going to provide me an additional challenge in this race. The weather forecast on-line said that it wuld be mostly sunny with only a slight chance of light showers on race day but this weather was just too abnormal for March. The snow was falling at much lower altitudes than normal and the clouds were just too thick and dark to dissipate as they usually do before reaching San Felipe. But I hoped that the official weather forecast was correct anyway.

We arrived in San Felipe at 2:00 p.m.; just enough time to go through registration and tech inspection before it all closed. Race vehicles and chase vehicles lined the streets of San Felipe and people were walking everywhwere. I noticed that everyone was having such a good time, and the beer they were drinking looked so good in the nice warm sun...but I resisted the temptation because I never drink before a race. I was trying very hard to not wear myself out on contingency day, as it is always so easy to do. However, I still ended up walking from where we parked our car, all the way to the hotel where registration was and then in another direction all the way through contingency and into tech inspection, then back down contingency several times (to look for the many people I wanted to meet after receiving their encouraging email responses from my Baja 1000 story), and then finally back to the truck. My feet were sore from walking around so much and I needed to rest up. But there was still so much to do to prep for the race.

We decided it was time to look for a place to camp and work on the race bike. We found a sandy lot nearby the start line, pulled our truck in and set-up our own little garage. We were across the street from where the Desert Assasins were staying and while we didn't have the same amenities, we had the same race strategy; the location of our camp made it so that we didn't have to travel far to the start line and fight too much traffic to get out of San Felipe on race morning. As the sun set, the guys set about changing the oil, doing the alignment, and rebuilding the steering dampener. The race prep was done in true Baja style; the work station for the steering dampener job was the back seat of the Suburban,

the highly technical alignment job was done with an electrical chord and measuring tape,


and I am not willing to admit how the oil change was done.


Roli managed the projects with his cup of red wine...


and I tried to relax and think about race strategy and made myself available for test rides to get things dialed in as each job was done.

When we finally finished all our projects, we realized our stomachs were growling and we were getting dizzy every time we bent over. It was time for dinner. We worried about leaving the area because another team mate, Chris was supposed to drive down and meet us, but we figured if he rolled in while we were gone, he would catch us on the race radio. So we headed to our favorite taco shop, El General. Even though it was after 10:00 p.m., the place was standing room only and full of other racing teams trying to get their last meal in before the race. We filled up on a variety of tacos and had a great meal. After we ate, I went to pay for the bill. When the waitress saw me standing at the cashier, she pulled me aside to talk to me. Instantly my mind started wondering what did we do wrong? But she told me that a guy sitting with his team on the other side had already paid our bill and I owed nothing for our meal. Stunned, I looked over to see who it was and saw it was Eddie Albanez, sitting with his class 11 team. I knew that it was going to be his first race inside the race vehicle as co-driver because his wife works with me and we swap stories about our racing progress. I walked over to thank him and he said to me "I just want to see you finish this one." It was such a morale booster and I felt guilty I had not thought of doing the same for him for his first race. I promised him that this time I will cross the finish line.

We headed back to camp to get some sleep. There was still no sign of Chris and we worried that something happenned in the awful snowy mountain pass on his way down. But we thought maybe he would show up in the morning.

I woke up race day at 4:30 a.m. I slept well and felt ready to go. We looked around and still could not find Chris...we definately had to count him out for the chase plan now (after we got back to San Diego, we found out that Chris did have problems with highway 8 being shut down in the mountains and he almost crashed a few times from getting sleepy while driving in the snow). I forced my breakfast down; plain, pre-cooked, unflavored oatmeal in a ziplock bag and two boiled egg whites. It's not the tastiest meal, but it's the perfect combination of carbohydrates and protein needed for physical endurance.

The guys packed up the Burban while I geared up and then we parted. They needed to find a safe place to leave the trailer while I went to staging. Against my husband's wishes, and at the cost of an argument the night before, I insisted that they next go to race mile 30 or so to wait for me and NOT see me off at the start line. I had decided that I did not want to do the first section of whoops with a full camelback as it always tires my lower back too quickly. Their job was to be ready to quickly give me my camelback and be parked next to a secluded bush where I could have my first pee. I was afraid that if they saw me off at the start line, they would get caught in the traffic jam and not be at the first pit stop before I got there.

Waiting for my start felt like it took forever. You could really see how motorcycles and ATVs make up about half of the race entries in total. I was in the last group to depart, the sportsmen atvs, and there was a very large group of us. One by one we were green flagged off of the start line by George, the SCORE flagsman. When it was finally my turn I just prayed that I didn't stall the bike like I saw so many before me do. I started my timer on my wrist watch as George counted off the last 5 seconds for me because I wanted to keep track of my time throughout the race to try to make it in just before the time limit. I knew it was going to be a hard race with all the rocks and whoops I was going to have to clear on this course, and those looming dark clouds coming in from the mountains threatened to become yet another obstacle.

Thank god, I did not stall the bike. I immediately called in my start to my chase team but they did not answer. I remembered Sal's warning when he was greeting all the racers before the start about a downed bike just around the bend and took it easy until I had passed the ambulance. For about 5 seconds my focus on the race was distracted as I felt incredibly sorry for the guy who had not even made it past the second mile marker before he crashed out of the race. I wondered if he survived it and told myself the same would not happen to me. After the race I found out the victim was 401x motorcycle team member, Darin Hayes, and he was paralized from the waste down from that crash. Winding through the trash dump and around some local trucks on the course, I made it to the infamous San Felipe whoop section. I took one deep breath and tried to concentrate on getting into a groove with the whoops. These whoops were all sorts of shapes and sizes and they really can kick your butt if you fight them and work too hard at them. I knew I had 210 miles to ride after this 30 mile whoop section and so I did NOT want to get tired so early in the race. Using a heart rate monitor in training sessions I was able to determine what gear, speed, and position on the bike were the smartest for conserving energy in this section and that's what I tried to focus on. But it was hard ignoring all the faster guys on teams skip by me knowing that they get to change drivers after the whoops.

Through emails, several other guys who planned on spectating the race told me that they would make themselves available along the course just in case I would need something in between pits if they saw me go by. Nobody was able to tell me exactly where they would be because they planned on roaming the course with some friends throughout the race. Just as I reminded myself that I needed to keep an eye out for signs with my name on them, I saw one. I could tell by the description of what the sign was going to be, it was my e-pal, Doug. I was surprised to see him so soon, but knew it was because it was where he happenned to be with his friends at the time. Doug and I agreed that if I was doing well I would just put my thumbs up and keep going because he understood I had a time limit to worry about. Having never met the guy in real life, I felt bad for not having a reason to stop, but I felt encouraged that there were indeed people to help me along the way and all because they took the time to read my Baja 1000 race story and wanted to support my continuing racing endeavors.

My team finally started to hear me call in my mile markers and they told me they were at race mile 23. This was good because I already had to pee and I was not going to start peeing in my pants so early in the race. It was just starting to rain and so when I arrived at my first pit I was starting to slip off the foot pedals and handlebars. I tried to slide in all cool and graceful at the pit stop to impress our new tag-alongs, Richie and Alan, but instead I had difficulty getting over the berm of the course and stalled it several meters away. I jumped off the bike without unplugging myself from the race radio and started running for the bushes. I looked at my team and laughed and then disconnected to go pee in the bushes while they sorted out things. When I got back I decided I was not going to put on the camelback because the whoops hadn't really gone away yet and I was worried about my GPS in my camelback getting wet. My next pit stop was only another 23 miles anyway.

As I started back on the course, the sprinkles turned into major rain, the kind you rarely ever see in San Felipe. I started to realize that I was not properly geared for hard rain. Even though I had scotch guarded my riding jacket, it didn't keep the cold water off of my skin and I was beginning to have trouble with my gross motor skills. But it was still early in the race and I had a good attitude and I thought that getting dirty in the rain and mud would just make me look cooler at the finish line.

At race mile 46 I saw my chase team again. They had cut across the desert, avoiding the military checkpoint, to meet up with me just off of highway 3. I complained about some thumping I was feeling under my right foot every time I came down off of a whoop. While my team tried to figure out what I was talking about, I refueled with a banana, and a protein shake. I put on my camelback, but had to leave behind my GPS because of the rain. This meant I was going to have to use some precious brain power to compute my average speed throughout the race based on the timer of my wrist watch. Even though I am good at math, I hate doing math while I am racing; it always makes me lose focus. The "thumping" was interpreted as being a loose chain, and in the rain the chain did not want to be tightened. They fought with it for about 20 minutes and adjusted what they could, and I resorted to my "keep on keepin' on" motto.

Before I left, we agreed the next pit stop would be the back side of Zoo road (Morelia Junction). This is where Chris' assigned pit stop was to be but since we hadn't seen any sign of him, we knew that Tim and the gang would have to add it to their plan. We knew it would be a difficult run for my one chase team to make it to race mile 93 from race mile 46 when they had to go in the opposite direction all the way around the north part of the race course to get there. But I hoped for the best and continued on in the rain. It wasn't that I would need fuel for the bike, because Baja Pits would take care of me for that, but it was that I needed the body fuel, which I had now learned was just as important in a solo race.

Onward I went, and the storm got worse. And the whoops never seemed to go away. I saw all the spectators of the race huddled under cannopies and inside their vehicles. The worse the rain got, the harder it was to keep the mud that was being kicked up from my front tires off of my face. I finally had to pull up to one vehicle and beg for paper towels to wipe the mud off of my goggles because I couldn't see any more. This very quickly became a regular routine and about every 20 minutes I had to beg for more. Finally the storm got so bad, the winds started to blow my bike off the course. I saw mini tornadoes that thrashed around me as I attempted to keep my speeds up and the wind and rain grew colder. I started to freeze. I didn't know until after the race that it actually was snowing at that point on highway 3.

I was at first relieved to hit the dry lake bed after I had turned south, because that was something I could recognize in the hard rain and I knew the whoops should finally be going away. But then the dry lake bed turned into a lake and I was not happy about that. I wasn't sure if I was going to have to go through it at some point. Luckily, I only had to go through some thick mud before I eventually found the Locos Mocos pit in the lake bed. Just after they cleaned my goggles and fueled me, I asked them how far back were the trophy trucks because I knew they should be getting close by now. They said I had about another 20 minutes.

Oh boy the race was now on! I was definately going slow if the trophy trucks were that close to me so early in the race. But then the rain stopped for a while and I decided that I was going to go as fast as I could to get as far as I could before the first trophy truck was to pass me. Turning onto a flat graided road, I knew I could really go all out. I kicked it up to fifth gear, tucked behind the fuel tank, and hauled a** for as long as I could. Just as I was beginning to feel one with the bike, I suddenly felt my heart skip a few extra beats. A rumbling noise took me by surprise and shook through my ears and rattled my head in my helmet. A thundering vibration traveled through my bike and my entire body. I started to turn my head to see what it was, and I could only see sand and rocks being kicked up into my face. When I came to my senses, all I could think was "Damn, I'm caught." While I was going at least 75 mph, the first trophy truck blew by me at twice my speed. I was very lucky I didn't swerve in the wrong direction. I called into my chase team the first pass because from that point forward I was now racing with the big boys. After the race, Tim told me that he could hear the adrenaline in my voice as I announced that first pass.

Now I had to concentrate on riding on the far right side of the course and frequently looking over my shoulder. Just as I started to recover from the first Trophy Truck pass, another one shook me from the ground up. I decided that I was going to start counting them to keep me focused and to keep track of the spacing between them. I thought about pulling over to wait for a few more of the lead trucks to get out of the way, but I was not doing well on time and I really needed to keep going if I had any hopes of making this solo ride official. I tried my best to see the trucks before they came upon me so that I could pull over and let them go by without any possible interaction with them, but they were usually so much faster than I was that I would notice them when it was too late. My quad kicked up enough dirt to make me look like another regular size vehicle to them and so I am sure they didn't know I was just an atv until it was too late for them too.

The rain stopped momentarily, and I started to dry off. I started on the second major whoop section of the race course (even though it seemed like I had never really gotten rid of them from the first set). I noticed these whoops were deeper from when I saw them last and that the trucks before me had really ripped up the course. In addition to that, the dirt and sand was so thick and wet that I found myself entertained by the fact that a couple of other trucks weren't able to go much faster than me at all. It took a long while before they were able to get on top of the whoops enough to pass me. I was still warming up with the break in the rain and I was not able to move my body enough to do anything else other than go all the way in and out of every single whoop and it was starting to get painful.

I started to wonder when my next pit stop would be. Even though I was calling in every single mile marker I saw, I was not hearing much of a response back from my chase team. I only heard them briefly when I called in the first trophy truck passes. I had to think for a moment to realize that I had already passed Zoo road and I never saw my team. There was no other way for them to reach me until around race mile 196. Later, Tim told me that they were driving down Zoo road when they heard I had already passed Morelia Junction. My stomach was growling bad now and I had a headache. I had a little bit of dry emergency food in my camelback, but by now, even my fine motor skills were not functioning 100%. I would not be able to get to that food without pulling over for an extensive amount of time to overcome the slow movement of my frozen fingers. My only hope was that I would run into one of my extended team members looking for me as they spectated on the race course and beg them for some quick and ready food.

I lost count of how many trophy trucks had passed me because each one took major effort to avoid. Being on edge with the trucks, I started to get a little paranoid. I remember going through some pits and seeing a quad come out of them. For some reason, I didn't see any race numbers and I thought it was some punk messing around with me from the pits. I wanted to yell at him for riding on the race course and I tried to lose this quad, but it kept following me. He blocked my vision sometimes as I looked over my shoulders for the trucks and I was starting to get annoyed. Then he started to get closer and I realized he was another racer. I laughed to myself and started to feel a little better knowing I was in good company.

We raced along together for a while, trying to stay out of harm's way. I took a lot of smaller side trails parallel to the course to try to avoid some of the truck passes. I looked over my shoulder at one point and didn't see anything. I was still trying to stay on the far right of the race course, but the berms were very high and and the path was narrow. Suddenly, without me hearing anything, a buggy came from behind me and swerved around me. The Buggy driver slowed down, flipped us off, and sped off. I looked at the other quad racer who had stopped to look back at me. He pinched his fingers together while he shook his head to show how the buggy had just barely missed me. I pulled up to him to ask what happenned. We both heard a truck horn and realized we were trying to talk in the middle of the race course. We pulled off the course and I asked him if I had done anything to that buggy. I was shaking with anger and didn't understand the rudeness of that buggy driver. He said he didn't see what either one of us could have done to avoid that encounter. He then told me he was just trying to make it to race mile 130 and had accidentally passed his driver change pit. He asked where I was getting off at and I said "I'm trying to do the whole race myself." I found out after the race that this guy was Greg who came all the way out from Texas to race with his buddies on a team for his first time. Greg pulled off his goggles and dropped his mouth and looked at me. As angry as I still was at that moment I wanted to laugh at his reaction. He said something about being so tired from not getting enough sleep and not wanting to solo this whole race and his radio chord was broken. I didn't hear every word, but I understood it to be mid race venting and oh I wanted to complain too. But then I remembered that time was not on my side and I needed to press on.

A third quad joined us and we rode together for a little while longer. The trucks and buggies seemed to be passing us with more frequency now and I was glad I was in the company of fellow atv racers. Greg passed me and attempted to pull ahead just when a buggy was approaching us but then all of a sudden found himself on his side with his quad tipped over. I didn't see the fall, but knew that Greg's path definately intersected with that of the buggy. I pulled up to him as he stood there looking around trying to figure out what happenned. I attempted to help him up as quickly as possible as there was already another approaching truck. I felt like an idiot trying to wave the truck around us, but it was all I could do because we definately couldn't run fast enough. Thankfully, the truck swerved around us through some bushes and the third quad guy, John, came over and the three of us pushed the bike back over. I found out later that John came down from Canada to do this race and was also soloing the race. I remember thinking how funny it was that we were all so tired that it took three of us to push the bike back over; I had done this by myself before with a 500 pound Bombardier. The mother, or the principal in me, suddenly kicked in and I told Greg and John we better stick together for a while because I was worried about us getting hurt with the crazy truck and buggy passes we were dealing with.

We rode together into the long row of pits at race mile 130. I knew that Greg was getting off there and I saw John pull into a Mag 7 pit. Desperate for some food and knowing I had no pit there, I pulled into the Mag 7 pit as well and asked a guy to get a gel pack out of my camelback for me. I gulped that down, took a swig out of my camelback and sped off. I figured both guys were getting off there and I was on my own again so I had to get going.

I ventured towards the famous Matomi wash as I told myself I was more than half way now. The rain kept coming and going, just enough to keep me feeling cold and wet most of the time. I came around a bend and suddenly I saw another truck on my butt. I looked ahead and saw I had no where to go in time to avoid the oncoming truck. All I could do was drive directly into a tree on my right side and then the bike stalled. As my quad tangled up into the thick branches of the tree the truck wizzed by, just missing me. I picked little branches out of my goggles and helmet and got off the quad to move it out of the tree. It wouldn't budge. I realized that if I was going to have to push and tug this bike around to get it out, I had better empty my bladder first. As I walked off to find a nearby bush, I heard a quad come by. It was John, and he stopped right by my quad. I could tell by the way he was looking at my bike and then looking around on the ground that he thought I had crashed bad and expected to find me lying on the ground injured somewhere. I had to go pee really bad but I felt so sorry for him that I came out from behind the bush to wave to him and show him I was O.K. As soon as he realized what I was doing he sped off. But then I regretted it because I knew I could use some help getting the bike out of the tree.

Somehow I found the energy in me to get the bike out and I was able to continue on. That little gel pack I had was quickly wearing off and my stomach was growling so bad it hurt. I was so hungry it was starting to get difficult to stay focused on the course and I was starting to feel grouchy. At one point I was in a wide part of a river bed and I was following my own lines down. A buggy came by, and of all the lines it could have taken at that point, it took MINE and made ME get out of the way. As he went by, I waved my arms around at the width of the river bed and yelled out how rude it was that he was hogging the space. I rode further down this river bed and looked over my shoulder to my left and saw a trophy truck approaching me. It surprised me and so I immediately started to swerve to my right to get out of the way and as I did so, I realized I was moving right into another trophy truck which was trying to pass the one on my left. In my own little quad world, I felt like I was being used as live bait for these two trucks competing against each other to reach the narrowing river bed up ahead first. I realize now that I was simply caught in an unlucky situation, but my body was so beat up and overworked from the rocky and whoopy terrain that the challenge of completing this race solo was looking more and more unlikely. At this point I was so frustrated I steered to the farthest path off the course I could find. I rode along the base of a mountain at the edge of the river bed for a while, trying to hold back tears. I looked at Bigfoot taped to my handlebars as I asked myself if I really wanted to continue (for those who haven't read my Baja 1000 story...Bigfoot is a little Homie figurine I found while training for the Baja 1000 that somehow helps to motivate me).

I was angry at myself for feeling this way because I was being such a "whus," as my teenage son would say, and I realized that the only way I would forgive myself is if I continued on. So I did. It started to rain again and I was slipping off the foot pegs and handlebars again. I came into the narrowing part of the river bed and worried about whether I would be caught by trucks here, where there was no place to go. I tried to stay to the right of the course on the high berm, just in case, and then slipped off the gears and stalled the bike right on the high berm of some very thick gravel and sand. I tried to get the bike going again but I was wet and cold and moving slow again, and then I heard the roaring of an approaching trophy truck echoing off the canyon walls. I knew there was no time to do anything other than jump off the bike and run away. All I could think was "move your legs Jess, just move your legs, you can do that much." I didn't even have time to disconnect the radio chord and the pig tail chord was stretched taut from the bike to where I was. The truck came around, saw my bike at the last minute, went into a skidding turn and rammed my bike with its rear tires. The whole bike was pushed over to the other side of the berm. I politely waved and said aloud "thank you, good luck on your race" as it continued to roar off and I began to pee my pants.

I knew when I saw the deep canyon walls, that I love so much about Matomi Wash, that I was only about 20 or so miles away from race mile 196 where my team would have to be at this point. While I worried about whether they would be there or not, I focused very intensley on the increasing numbers of the race mile markers and started talking to myself the way I was taught to do in long distant running; "Good job, Jess, you just did two more miles, you're almost there." Suddenly I heard a crackle on the radio that sounded like my team calling for me. I couldn't believe that I had finally made radio contact with them. I called in my race mile markers and heard them come and go on the radio. Each time I asked them where they were, but I couldn't hear their answers. I pushed on and hoped that I would see them eventually, finally I heard Tim say that they were only about 5 miles up the course. "O.K., I can go with that...just look for 5 more miles on the race mile markers, Jess, and you will be there in no time." I made it to 6 more miles and I did not see my team. I was holding back tears again when I heard Tim say they were about 4 more miles ahead of me. I pushed onward, hoping those 4 miles would go by faster than I thought they would but they didn't. I had to talk to myself hard just to keep going. Four miles ahead, still no race team. When I called in a third time and asked them "where the hell are you guys?" they knew I was not doing well, and told me to keep going and I would see them within the next three miles. Then I started crying. Three miles were too many when I just gave it my all to keep going for the last four! But somehow I kept pushing and FINALLY I arrived.

Tim helped me off the bike and handed me a banana and a shake. I gobbled all that down and then I was handed some pills. I thought they were advil or something but later I found out they were some kind of electrolyte tablets to help with my dehydration. Tim told me to take my helmet off so he could look at me and I fought it because I didn't want him to see that I had been crying. He kept asking me if I wanted him to take over to give myself a break and I said "NO."Just seeing people I knew, and having some food down my belly made me feel alot better already. And I thought it would be just awful to give up now with only about 44 miles to go. Then Tim introduced me to Ernesto, who was another e-pal of mine that found Tim at that pit stop. After the race, Ernesto wrote me to ask if I remembered meeting him because I seemed so out of it in that pit stop, but I did. The bike was gassed up, and looked over and ready to go. I was about to get on when suddenly I had this urge to throw up. I struggled to lift my helmet up so I wouldn't hurl in my helmet. I concentrated very hard on not throwing up because I didn't want to have to waste more time eating again before I could go on. I worried about my race time, I worried about the sun setting, I worried about seeing that finish line. I opened my eyes and faught the nautious feeling as I mounted the bike. Tim's last words were something about needing to push hard to make up for time.

Those words stuck in my head and I sped out of there like a bat out of hell. I turned onto the old Puertecitos highway and tucked down and went as fast as I could. Tim later told me that they tried to follow me in the chase truck, but they couldn't keep up. I turned off of the Old Puertecitos road back onto a hard pack dirt trail and headed north. With each bump and whoop, I continued to fight the queasy feeling, but it was getting better by the minute. I tredged onward and started counting down the miles to the finish line. I tried to speed up and go faster, I was just too tired to stand on the bike anymore to pick up some speed. When the trail went up a hill, I was able to look ahead and it looked like it went on forever. Just when the nautious feeling was starting to go away I saw the wierdest image on the side of the course. A tall, fuzzy white image, dancing around and waving its arms. As I got closer I saw it was a human size bunny rabbit with big ears. "Oh crap," I thought, "now I'm hallucinating." But when I passed it and saw that it didn't follow me, I realized that it was a person in a bunny costume cheering on the racers on the sideline. I laughed and I think I even managed to wave back at it.

With my spirits back up, I radioed in and told Tim to go straight to the finish line instead of following along the course as planned, because I now decided I wasn't going to need them anymore. They double checked with me on this decision and then made their way straight to the arches. I glanced at my watch a few times and saw that I was NOT going to make it within the 10 hour time limit. But I still hoped I had calculated wrong and that there was still a chance. I pushed as hard as I could.

As I watched the sun set, I told myself that if I went faster I could keep the sun from setting. But eventually I couldn't keep the sun up anymore and I had to turn on my Nite Rider lights. In the last 20 or so miles, I could not see anymore race mile markers and I had nothing to call in. I kept looking for those famous San Felipe arches but the course seemed like it was turning away from them and into the mountains. Eventually the course turned back and I could see I was finally heading straight for the arches. I forgot to radio in when I saw the guy with the red flag indicating to me to slow down because the finish line was now in sight. Was this heaven?...The checkered flag...there it was. George, who was now in his finish line checkered vest, waved the checkered flag proudly in front of me. He smiled big as I rolled in and stopped me to talk to him. He asked me about whether I was still wanting to do the other races now that I had completed this one. Without even thinking about it I said "yes," and with a belly laugh he said "god, I love you!" I asked if I had made it within the time limit, already knowing that I hadn't. Understanding that I would be disappointed, he cautiously said "no" but told me I did a great job anyway. I looked at my watch and saw that I had just missed the time limit by about 50 minutes.

I looked for my team in the staging area behind the finish line as I no longer could hold the tears back. I saw the suburban parked on the side and rolled up to my team. No one saw me until I turned off the engine right behind the truck because they were waiting for me to announce my arrival on the radio. All I could do at this point was cry in my husband's arms. And I really don't know why. Maybe it was the disappointment of not finishing within the time limit. Maybe it was because I rode for 150 miles without consuming any fuel for my own body to keep up the strength for the endurance ride. Maybe it was because it rained so hard that a thick layer of mud always blocked my vision and my completely wet body froze into an ineffective racing position. Maybe it was because I had to race a bike with tweaked alignment, stock suspension, and banged up A-arms that made it so difficult to go over the miles and miles of whoops and rocks without the handlebars spinning out of my hands. Maybe it was because the trucks really gave me a run for my life and tempted me to quit. Or maybe it was because I had just become the first ironwoman on a quad of the SCORE 250 20 year history and I could now see why there wasn't any competition for this title.

A secret that I selfishly prefer not to share about SCORE racing has to do with Weatherman. I have great admiration for the guy who acts as our guardian angel through the races and monitors every single bit of communication that comes across the airways with incredible precision and fairness, even when it's 40 hours into the race. When I wasn't racing SCORE myself, Weatherman was my lifeline to the races and allowed me to get a general picture of what was taking place on the race course without actually being there. Once I started racing with SCORE, I had to give that up and connect to my team radio frequency to relay my own race information to my pit crews. It gets lonely out there on the race course, when you don't hear what everyone else is doing. I dutifully call in every race mile marker, as my husband makes me promise, even though I know that half the times my pit crew does not hear me. I hear nothing in return when I cannot transmit over a mountain or around a bend and this really exaggerates how alone I am while racing my quad through the difficult baja terrain, and sometimes in front of ferocious trucks with drivers who are annoyed that I am in their way.

Over the years, Weatherman's voice has become a calming voice for me; there is something about it that makes me feel at home. When I am in Baja, around the races, there isn't any other place in the world I'd rather be. As Weatherman responds to the hundreds of calls made to him throughout the race, you feel like there is always somebody watching over the racers. To make up for not having had my fix of the Weatherman throughout the day's race, I like to tune into "SCORE Ops" after I have completed the race. This is usually when the majority of the racers have finished and only a few desperate guys are left on the course at night trying to find a way out of their mechanical problems that are preventing them from finishing and/or locating their lost team mates. Weatherman knows that there isn't a whole lot more he can do to help anyone at this point, but he has a list of missing and/or unfinished racers and he monitors the radio until all are accounted for. I have discovered that during this time there is a lot of down time and he has to find ways to entertain himself to stay on the airways, which I picture being just as lonely sometimes as racing a quad through the desert. This is when he starts to tell jokes and stories. This is when you don't have to compete against hundreds of others trying to contact him at the same time and you can actually talk to him and get his undivided attention and feel extra special.

While we were looking for a place to camp that night after the race, we began to listen to Weatherman in our truck and I could feel the wrinkles on my brow relax as I listened to his jokes and stories. A buggy team radioed in and vented to Weatherman about their unfinished race. Before the guy signed off he stated that compared to Best in the Desert and other races he had done, this was "Mantown." After noticing a moment of silence, Tim got on the radio and asked Weatherman what he knew about 66A. Weatherman immediately went into professional mode and started searching his lists to see what he could say about 66A. Weatherman stated "according to my lists that driver did not finish." Tim said, "we know that 66A did finish but we were wondering if you had a time for the finish." Weatherman, with his soothing voice, said "I'm sure he did finish the race, but unfortunately we do not have a time for him because he must have arrived after the time limit." Tim looked at me with a sly smile and then said to weatherman "that 'he' is a 'she' and she did the whole race solo." Assuring me that I had indeed accomplished something, Weatherman said "wow, there's a lot of men who haven't been able to do that!" Tim then said "Yup, she conquered Mantown," and all 5 of us in the truck busted up laughing.

Email: timnjess@mccrearyracing.com

Email: timnjess@mccrearyracing.com