It all started with comment at my son's football practice. "Hey Bill you should go with me to pit in the Baja 1000". The details were to follow within the next few days. This was a perfect opportunity to have a father & sons weekend and be involved with race cars. So the details were vague, we were going to San Felipe, Mexico to meet up with Val's friend Steve Mackie. Something about a trailer, no tools, who knew. I know I didn't. Anyway, we leave Vegas at 6:30am on Wednesday head down through Needles Ca than through Arizona. The BIG dips in the road were remincint of a roller coaster flying down the highway at 80mph. Now my boy is starting to get sick. We stop in some junction in the middle of nowhere to take a puke break. The boy wont puke & is on he verge of tears I'm telling him that in some country's puking on a road trip is a right of passage in to manhood. He's not buying it. Darren is talking to a guy who has 2 teeth and crawled out from under a rock. There were some fine port-a- johns that Ben & Jon (Darrins boys) were ding-dong ditching. The poor people who were only looking relieve some road trip induced intestinal fury had to listen to giggles & knocking. We pack everybody up in the car still no puke. A few hours later we meet up with Val and his son, His friend's Mike, Paul, Sean & his boys. Were in Calixico Ca getting some lunch at Carl's Jr apparently the hot make out spot for the locals. Now were fueling up washing the windshield & heading for the border. Cross over in to Mexico through Mexicali. I notice that this place is run down and has too many people with nothing to do except graffiti& destroy abandon structures. We stop at a light only to have some guy with a modified coke bottle with a salt shaker action douse the windshield with some sort of window frof & try to squeegee it with an hairbrush / squeegee tool. No mater how much Darren's giving the international sign of NO, No thank you , not my windshield, Please stop nothing can stop this guy who's on a mission to dirty the windshield. No tip for him & were down the road. The city slowly turns to farm land than to desolate desert & dry lake beds. About 2 hours later we pull in to San Felipe drive through the city I see some funky Ford & Chevy car/truck contraption a few vws & some dirt bikes. Here are some pics of what happened so far.

     

     

So now were in San Felipe. Looking to meet up with Steve. Now the phones don't work we are ill communicato supposed to meet Steve at 3:00pm at 2 concrete arches when you first pull into town. Its 2:50pm we are hanging out in front of "The Happy Jackass" Val decides we should drive around & find Steve. We take off through town drive around for about 40 minutes and NO Steve. We end up back at THJ the kids get out and partake in the Mexican pastime breaking bottles in the desert. Hang out for another hour then Val leads us on a blind hunt for the Micron semi trailer. Some how with no directions Val drives us right to the Micron Trailer WOW. We set up camp pitched tents and waited some more for Steve. The "pit crew in the Micron trailer has NO TOOLS so this should be interesting. At about 8:30 that night we decide to call Val's voice mail from Darren's cell, listening to about 5 messages we find out Steve's been trying to get a hold of the "pit crew" from Micron. Someone in their camp didn't think they should turn on the satellite phone. We still cant get a hold of Steve so we call it a night a little Mexican fireworks some diner and lights out. Sure hope Steve is on his way with tools. I don't know how much help we can be with some factory spare tire tool kits. 4:00 am everyones asleep and natures calling & this lighthouse is flashing on my tent making me think someone's outside the tent that coupled with the gentle breeze is giving me the feeling I am about to be attacked. Get out of my tent nobody there SHOCKER 4:15am try to go back to sleep. 5:20am wake up again this is awesome I think I'm sleeping on a broken bottle or something oh well try to get back to sleep. 6:15am no sleeping in the rest of the camp is sawing logs I'm now sitting in a folding cold canvas chair waiting. I observe some new vehicle & tents in the camp site. Steve showed up that night with a trailer full of tools & pitting supplies. there go the plans of hanging out at the beach today. No I'm actually pretty excited to be pitting cars. Everyone wakes up & we start preparing the pit area here are more pics.

     

    

Now for the good stuff. The pit area is prepared spares are out the fuel barrels are unloaded & the micron pit crew is ready with snacks for the drivers. Wide open has a couple guys coming down to brief us on pitting the trophy truck that will be coming through our pit. I opt for the position of fuel guy. Nobody else wanted to do it, so what the heck. Its me and my new friend Paul are handling driver side fuel. Its pretty crazy the way they fuel these things. They pressurize a 55 gallon fuel barrel with compressed nitrogen the fuel hose is about 3/12 to 4" in diameter with a quick connect fitting. Apparently it will dump all 55 gallons in about 30 seconds. I am still a little nervous thinking somehow Ill end up dousing myself with fuel and being consumed by a ball of flames. Here goes nothing the first car comes in No problem I have no clue what I was so nervous about. The truck was in & out of our pit in about 50 seconds. Here are pics of the motorcycles, quads & trophy trucks that came by our pit.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

In total we pitted 20 WOB cars & 1 Trophy truck here is a video of the trophy truck pit stop. Here are pics of some of the cars we pitted. The video was captured from top of the semi trailer its not too great but what can you do?

Click her to see the trophy truck video

     

 

     

So all and all I had a great time. I would do it again in a minute. Maybe next time Ill bring a sleeping pad. Thanks to everyone who mad it a great experience.