Slow Baja - Andrew Norton Baja Broncos Bill Stroppe And Big Oly

Episode Date: September 26, 2022

Andrew Norton is a nerd. He freely admits that he's been nerding out on cars since he was a kid in Iowa. His first love was the bold and beautiful Mustangs and Cobras built by Caroll Shelby in the 1960s. Peter Brock was a childhood hero, and Norton often dreamed of the day he would find a dusty Daytona Coupe hiding in a neighbor's barn. By 16 years old, Norton, now living in California, would spend afternoons driving his 1965 Mustang "looking for cool Fords." When he spied an orange and white Bronco, his passion for Shelby's told him he was looking at something special. Fascinated by the bold paint and the "Baja by Stroppe" sticker on its fender, Norton went directly to his local library to research what he had just found. A full-fledged obsession followed, and soon Norton was flying to Texas to buy his first (worn-out) Stroppe Bronco. A web page dedicated to Baja Broncos (early days of the internet) followed to share information with the community. Norton launched Baja Broncos Unlimited and has become a leading source on Stroppe Broncos. He and Todd Zuercher raced a Stroppe Bronco in the NORRA Mexican 1000 for over a decade. They joined Big Oly in the Slow Baja Safari Class this year. Follow Andrew Norton and Baja Broncos on IG here Visit Baja Broncos Unlimited here Learn about the Slow Baja Safari Class here Check out Dusty Times issue 03 here

Hello, hello, oh la, Como Estas, slow Baja amigos. My heaping dose of gratitude today goes out to Guillermo Salsa and his son, Billy. They run tequila Fortaleza. As you well know, it is my favorite tequila, handmade and small batches. Tequila Fortaleza, I've been doing fun stuff with them since 2008, introducing Mexico-loving racers to the finest tequila in the land. and that brand has grown and grown and grown, and there's a worldwide demand that they cannot meet.

Their 100-plus-year-old distillery is crank-crank-crank-crank, and I'm just delighted that they found a couple cases to send down to Baja for me to share with the folks of the Nora 500. When the checkered flag drops and everybody's in safely for the evening, I will be making my rounds sharing the finest tequila, a little sip. and there in my commemorative slow Baja shot glasses, and I cannot wait. So thanks, Big G. Thanks, Billy.

Can't wait to share Fortaleza with all my friends in my Nora family. After the racing day is done, we're going to have a good time. And that's why the Nora is called the happiest race on Earth. Might be a party at night. All right. Well, today's show is with one of my Nora friends, Andrew Norton. He is the leading restorer of the Bill Strop, Baja, Baja, Broncos. And we're going to talk about Baja and Broncos and the great history of that vehicle.

The Banquet Broncos, the fun, 1967 team that wore tuxitos, Big Holy and Parnelli Jones, Andrew's partner, Todd Zirker, who's a Bronco expert in his own right. We're going to talk about the Nora experience that they had. riding with me in the Slow Baja Safari class last April in the Mexican Norah Mexican 1000. And without further ado, Andrew Norton talking about Broncos and Baja. Hey, this is Michael Emery. Thanks for tuning into the Slow Baja. This podcast is powered by Tequila Fortaleza, handmade in small batches and hands down my favorite tequila. Hey, I want to tell you about your new must-have accessory for your next Baja trip.

Benchmark Maps has released a beautiful, beautiful Baja California Road and Recreation Atlas. It's a 72-page large format book of detailed maps and recreation guides that makes the perfect planning tool for exploring Baja. Pick yours up at Benchmarkmaps.com. I'll try to keep my volume pretty consistent. Try not to get excited about anything. Oh, I love it. I love excitement. Don't sell yourself short. There I am. I enjoyed listening to the Pete Brock thing this morning. I hadn't seen that you had released that, and I wanted to hear about that because I actually, when you asked me how I got into the Stratt Bronco stuff, it's a little, I started out with Shelby stuff, so I knew those guys and I knew who they were.

And as a pre-teen and a teen, I was learning everything I could about Shelby stuff. And Pete Brock was my hero, Pete Brock and Carol Shelby were like my heroes. And the whole special Ford thing is what got me when I saw the Baja Bronco. I was like, hey, that's something I can maybe afford. And nobody seems to know anything about it. I can't read up on the R models. I can't read up on the coops they made to race because nobody can tell me about. Nobody knows about this.

Nobody's published it. There's no books on this. So that's when I started doing all the research and going to the library and getting old magazines at Swat Meads. Well, you mentioning Carol Shelby was a childhood hero of mine. And I think the way the world worked in our era, oh, I'm back in our old era. You know, my parents, my dad had road and track, subscribed to Road and Track. So he had a cabinet next to the TV that was full of Road and Tracks was on one side, and the other side of the TV was National Geographic.

And in reflection now, you know, 40-something years later, I think that's the entire that's how my being was formed. I loved looking at 15, 20-year-old car magazines when I was 10. And reading about Shelby and seeing these ads and learning all this arcane history that when kids in third grade or fourth grade were talking about baseball statistics or something, and I was a baseball lover, you know, I knew the zero to 100 to zero time of a 427 cobra. Right. You know, and that's where I was like, you know, totally dialed.

And, of course, my first car, I wanted a 427 Cobra or a 300 S.L. Gold Wing or these things. And then you get real and you're making two something an hour. Right. And so it came down to the, now getting to 1981. This isn't about me, by the way, Andrew. I like this. No, this is fun.

Let me tell you about me, Andrew. I'm going to come over. I mean, it came down to, since we were talking about Pete Brock here as we started rolling, This is where this is all ties together, folks. As it became serious as I was buying my first car, and I'm looking at 10-year-old Road and Tracks, I'm reading about the Trans Am Challenge, and I'm seeing the Loli-Dotson 5-10 beating the BMW 2002

and the evil Alpha Romeo GTV. And, of course, the Alpha was the first one I wanted, which was $4,500 in 1981, and then 2002 was $3,3,500 in 19, 181, a 10-year-old version. Right. And the 5-10 was $1,500 all day long, and there was a lot of them for $6 or $700. And so I bought a really nice 5-10, and the rest is history.

I became a huge Pete Brock fan and a John Martin fan and grew up near Sears Point, checking out, you know, the beginnings of vintage racing or the 80s version of vintage racing. And anyway, so that got me to call him about Mary McGee. I love that. So there you go. All the way, full circle. So, hey, I'm in Baja Broncos. Is this Baja Broncos?

The name of the business is Baja Broncos Unlimited, but I just call it Baja Broncos because I even shortened the name on the sign there. Well, Andrew Norton, hello, man. Hello. It's a delight to be in your garage in Santa Rosa, California at Baja Broncos talking about the history of the Bronco in Baja, the people who are. who made that history and your history. So that's what I want to know all about. Cool. It's great to have you here.

Well, all right. It's a beautiful day. It's 70-something degrees. We're talking about mid-morning here. There's birds of chirping. People are working in the yard next door. So I just, you know, I really got, what do I want to say here? I started thinking about getting you on the podcast.

when I read your piece on the banquet bronco in Dusty Times. And that's when I realized what a nerd, in the most positive, thoughtful expression of that word is what a nerd you were about the history of Broncos and the early days of Baja Racing. Yeah, I'm definitely a nerd. I call myself a nerd. I'm a Bronco nerd.

And the banquet Bronco is probably one. one of the coolest Broncos you could nerd out on even because of its history, both how it was built and who owned it. So I really enjoyed writing that article for Dusty Times. I had a good time. Yeah, folks, if you like stuff, Baja, off-road racing, the new reincarnation of Dusty Times is truly extraordinary. Boy, James, who's been on the show on Slow Baja, is really doing an amazing job.

And I was just really, honestly, sincerely, don't want to be too. too flattering here too early in the show, but I was really touched about that. So I would love if you would read the opening quote. I've got the times in front of me. I can definitely do that. It's right here, Amigo. And then if you would just read that and then take it from there. Sure enough, yeah. Since having a Bronco was a solid help guaranteeing arrival in La Paz intact, the team focused on their own readiness. and Hank's plan to drive the course in tuxedos so they could go to the go at their pace and still appear in appropriate attire for the party Yeah brilliant thinking there so let's just start with that like you know I said to Mary did you did you marry

Did you think of the first Baja race as a happening or a race and she said it was a race But in retrospect it was definitely a happening like these guys took it on as a cultural cultural happening. Absolutely, yeah. And it's funny because they would, or Abrezay, it was his truck, Banquet Bronco belonged to him. He went out and bought a fully loaded Bronco about a month before the race and outfitted it. So on one hand, it appears he's super serious about it. But on the other hand, he's like, this is kind of going to be a party that I can't miss down in La Paz. And that's exactly what I'm going to prepare for. So I just think that's probably the, I mean, that's kind of why I even started to get into Nora as well, is because it looked like a lot of fun. I mean, when I got into it,

I started to want to compete the modern Nora, is what I'm talking about. But I just love that these guys just saw the fun in it immediately. Yeah, so Vic and his co-driver, Irv Hanks, and I've, I've connected with his Irv's daughter now who just got to make her first Baja trip this last year. We were trying to get together for the 1000, but she was in Baja the week before. Again, comic relief, I think, is your term, their term. Yeah. In tuxedos, in this, you know, crazy brand new Bronco with all the signage and everything. And you tell a story, you penned a story that's just.

just amazing. They stopped there with their lights and a, was it a Manx driver pulled up and? Yeah, a Manx driver pulled up and they were, they had hopped out of the car to do a driver switch or check something on the vehicle. And this Manx came barreling up in the dust and the co-driver threw out 35 cents or whatever and sped off and Abruzay kind of, they're all tired. It's coming close to the pause. They're down to the last, well, for them the last 10 hours of the race. But these guys took off and they didn't figure it out until they got down to the banquet that that was not a toll booth guy. That was Hanks and Abrazee doing a driver switch. But it looks so official, you know, hey, I got to pay these guys in this official looking forward Bronco that looked kind of like maybe a Border Patrol or not a border patrol but a police truck at the time.

Louis officia. Yeah. I love it. I love it. Well, how did you track down these stories? their story. Yeah, their story. I knew what the banquet bronco was

early on in my Bronco research, but I want to say it was sometime in maybe 2010 or so, the banquet Bronco showed up on race desert for sale. And I just couldn't believe that it was still out there, and there was two or three pictures of it, but it was in one piece,

and I was like, that's kind of amazing. Because finding any old race car, or any, and especially any desert race car after all this time that, you know, was in the first Baja 1000 and raced for 10 years. Usually they're pretty toast by then. So I called up the seller and it's Abraise's nephew selling the truck. And I said, well, I want it all. And he's like, well, there's two guys ahead of you.

And I told him who I was. And I've got a couple Strop Broncos and I'm deep into this. And I know, and we started talking. I think we spent like an hour and a half to two hours on the phone on that first conversation. and in the end he's like, hey, I'd really like this to go to you, but you need to beat these other offers. And I said, I'll do it. I'll send the check tomorrow. And so that started our relationship, and I've been back and forth on the phone with him quite a bit. And that's where I got some of those stories.

I also got some of the stories. I actually got them all from Al, but they're all corroborated in all these old magazines and the same story. and a couple of them, he even confirmed happened twice, like it happened more than once, like the one where they freak out because it's Dia de los Mertos, and they're like, yes, they look right into this. But they hopped out of a grave. Jump into that story. That is just truly, I mean, you can't make this stuff up.

Oh, yeah, I know. Well, yeah, I think the story that I think it happened, the very first race, too. That first race for them, I think just was, that's probably what got them hooked, but because, you know, those two things happened, the toll booth. And then also they blew out the front two tires in a gully. And it was kind of a hard impact. And he had four point harnesses on stock Bronco seats. And it squeezed him pretty good.

And it squished his green felt autograph pen in his pocket. He didn't realize that. But after they kind of, the dust settled and they unbuckled, he wiped his hands off because they were dirty onto his, onto his lapels and then and then onto his face. And he's still, I mean, he's in a tuxedo. He's in a tuxedo, but his pen there had gotten squished and broke open so it's green ink everywhere and he just rubbed green ink all over his face.

He didn't know this because there's no, you know, it's nighttime. So he walks into this canteen and asks for help and he's got a green face and a tuxedo covered with dust and he's all haggard looking. And of course it's November and they think... And it's Mexico. Yep. he's a spirit. He's coming back. He wants his favorite drink. And you can't make this up? No, you can't. That's, that is, I mean, quintessential, crazy. This is what racing in Mexico is all

about, that things like this happen. Yeah. Amazing. So they, they managed to get down to La Paz and get some tires, as I recall from this crew. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. You were just telling me about that. Strop had been leading the race and sanded his motor out somewhere short of the finn... Actually, I think by that time they'd towed to the finish line, but Aberdezay got a taxi ride, I believe, or something rode down to... Hitched a ride down to La Paz. Found Strop because he knew that Strop would have wheels and tires and borrowed two wheels off of that Bronco that you're sitting in front of. And got them back up, put the banquet Bronco back together with these two borrowed wheels. and made the finish line within the time limit.

Which is 60 hours. I thought it was 60 hours. I did research that because I just knew it was before the time limit, but I think I read that it was 60 hours in one of those old magazines. Amazing. And they made the banquet. And they made the banquet.

All dusty and green-faced. So let's back up now and say, where did your fascination for Broncos and Baja come in? You were telling me about Brock and Shelby and some of our shared. childhood fascination and adoration of these racing heroes and an era that was directly preceded our childhoods? Yes.

Well, I didn't grow up racing in Baja or off-roading or exploring or boondocking or any of that stuff. My family drove Volkswagen. And for some reason, I came out just in love with all things with wheels, and especially cars and trucks. how I got to the Bronco, I mean, I think originally I was into sports cars and Mustangs, especially because my Aunt Dee had a Mustang. And so I got into Mustangs and I learned about Shelby's at about age seven or eight. And again, not from my folks, just from buying Hot Wheels,

buying car magazines, my next door neighbor in Iowa. I lived in Iowa as a kid for a while and he used to give me car magazines. And I think that's where I got Baja, the Baja part came from, was that Hot Rod used to cover those races. And whenever this guy was done with us, this is probably 79 or 80, he'd give these magazines to the kid next door, who's five, six-year-old me. And I'd flip through there,

and I'd see the 55 Chevy, one of my favorite cars, driving in the Baja races. And I'm like, how is that even possible? Every 55 Chevy I see is lowered or restored. Anyway, it got me intrigued that there was this place called Baja that people race cars.

But as a preteen and a teen, I was heavily into Shelby's. I just wanted one so bad and I read everything I could and there were all these neat books coming out about the why Shelby's existed, you know, because of the racing. And that relationship of racing and then selling a car that's a replica of what you race at the dealership that any ordinary Joe with some extra money could go by, I really appealed to me and just a special car. I liked special cars.

And not being able to afford a Shelby, I would look for other fords that I could buy. I had already gotten a Mustang when I was 14. And so by the time I was 16 and driving it around with Shelby's suspension and Shelby's autograph on the glove box and dreaming about finding a lost Daytona Coupe, I would drive around looking for other forts. And I saw a Bronco, I knew what Broncos were. I liked them, but I saw a Bronco one day that was orange, white, and blue. and I stopped and looked at it and saw the decal on the fender that said Baja by Strop. And then I remembered I'd heard of this thing called a Baja Bronco. Never seen one, never seen a picture, never read a magazine article, never read about one in a book.

But here's one right in front of me, and I can kind of tell with my Ford knowledge that this isn't something somebody made up. This is something that actually existed and was, you could buy it new at the dealer. And so I said, I'm going to go research that. And so at 16, I went straight to the library after seeing that. car and I just type that's the way we used to do it kids yeah yeah I didn't pick up my phone I literally I was between I was on the other side of the library from my house and I'm like I'm going straight to the Cupertino library I'm going to get out the microfish or microfilm or whatever you call it and I'm going to type in the word strap and oh I had to look it up in the card catalog first or not

the card catalog but the big old book anyway and then look for the issue and then find the film with the issue and god it sound old and it was the Dewey Decimer system back to in the day. I remember I found a couple articles early on and I was just like, okay, yeah, this is a Baja Bronco, and they were made in 71 at least. And I put, I just put that

photocopy in a folder and I just, anytime I... You had a dime for the photocopier in the library and that smell of those fresh library copies. It's not as good as the purple stuff that your third grade teacher put on. Exactly, the mic the mic, whatever that was.

Mimeograph. Yeah, yeah. Right, sorry, man. Yeah. So you're at the library and you're learning about Straup and you're living in the Bay area now. You're in South Bay. Yep. Cooperino. Yep. And that one Baja Bronco was parked on East Estates drive in Cupertino. And I used to drive by it all the time. And I don't know why I didn't knock on the door. I guess I was just, it was nice. And I was just afraid the guy was going to be a jerk. But about some kid crawling under his truck, you know. But I took pictures of it and logged it. and talked a friend into buying another Bronco that we, another Baja Bronco that we found up in Reno in about 95. And since then, I just, I ended up buying mine in January of 96. And I just, from then on, I just, there's still not many articles or anything written about Straat Broncos. So everything I learned would be from buying one, taking notes on it, learning about it,

and then selling it to somebody else and finding when I found the next. I would never let go of one. until I got another one in. So I always pretty much perpetually had two, and sometimes three to four throughout my 20s and early 30s, and still, obviously. So I gave Willie a call, Willie Strapp a call on the drive up today to connect with him

and hear a little bit about his family, his dad, his life, Baja, the Broncos, the whole thing. I didn't ask him if there was a central archive for his father. Did he keep meticulous notes? I mean, no. So he built 100 something of maybe 100-ish of these things a year for five years? Yeah, the production Baja's, there's roughly 500, if you include the individual ordered ones. Yeah.

And they said they had records for a while, and I believe that's true because at one point in my research, I contacted them, and I was sent an invoice. This woman said, here's an example, invoice of one of the trucks. and it was a Ford invoice, not like something, not like a window sticker, but it had the information of a window sticker. So they had information for a while, but I think they probably pitched it. It's keeping stuff, you know. People are different about that. Some people like to have stuff laying around, other people don't. Well, this is what I'm getting to.

So you're a guy who has seen enough of these that you have your own memory image bank of what, they have look like, should look like, this one is different than the one I saw before, all that. But there's not a central database where, you know, these things get corroborated. So how does one, I mean, there must be a few knockoffs by now, but so how does one go about authenticating Straup Baja Broncos? Ask you, ask Willie. Hire me to come look at it, yeah. Okay. Like if there's nothing on it, a lot of the cars that are out there, let's see, I've owned,

I've owned close to 60 of the 163 that are on my registry at BajaBronco.com. And then there's about 10 that aren't on the registry because owners don't want them on there, and I respect that. That's fine. But I have the information on those trucks. So, yeah, I mean, the ones out there, I've probably put my hands on close to, I would say close to two-thirds of them, you know, and I've owned 60 of those. So it's just, I think the best way is if you've got something that you're questioning or that you want, you know, hey, is this restored one?

How much of it's original is to have me go look at it. Well, tell me about Bill Strop. Bill Strop. I mean, in my mind, Bill Strop begins in 1950 in the Law Carrera. Pan Americana and Mexico because of my own fascination with that event. But, you know, I assume he was born long before that, served in World War II. Correct. And did something before going to Mexico and having his life changed dramatically by convincing Ford and Lincoln to start racing cars there.

But tell me about Bill Strop. He was similarly intrigued with automobiles as I was. And I think he worked as a kid helping a local guy with a junkyard and basically built his own car at like the age of eight or nine. And always into automotive stuff and met Claysmith of Claysmith Cam fame. Grew up with him in school and in college. And those two hot rodders were like best friends. And in the SoCal Hot Rod scene, we're building the best engines. And they were the guys for actually for boat races.

They did a lot of boat races. I think that's where they got recognized by Ford. And Ford Motor Company invited them to Michigan. And basically, that's where the relationship began, as they showed the engineers at Ford, how to make the six-cylinder engine actually perform and not burn up. It had to do with oil passages and such like that. I think they cross-drilled to cramined.

or something like that and fix this engine that Ford's like, are we going to dump this thing or are we going to keep going with it? And at that point, they were like, Clay, Bill, you guys are our go-to guys. Hot rudder showing the way. Yeah, yeah. And from then on, Mercury and Lincoln had them do preps on all their cars for the endurance runs and the reliability challenges. And then, of course, that led up into the racing in Mexico.

The La Carrera was crazy, crazy endeavor. And my take on it is Straup not only prepared the cars, but prepared the teams, prepared the approach, prepared the entire effort. Exactly. Every bit of it. And that's where he really came into, you know, he was famous for that. Being prepared, having a great pit strategy, he won an award in the Navy for his refueling system.

It's just thinking outside the box in terms of logistics of pits and all that is really, it was a huge forte for him. And I think that's why, you know, they were one of the first teams in Baja to have like a whole slew of cars come down there in two transporters and a couple of single and double transporters. They had like a bunch of cars running by the early 70s. I think they had, I forget what the number is, but it's something in the total. 27 cars in a race or something. Which is exactly sort of the approach that he took, you know, years earlier going 1950 was when it got started.

So that would be like 67. It was just trying to get through it. But by 54, they had an armada. Yeah. And he was down there, you know, pre running, obviously, and digging pits into the dirt. Exactly. I love that. And trailered all their food down.

And, you know, they could only drink, you know, stuff that came out of bottles and whatnot because of that just the, just the, just the, and everything. Yeah, just the demands of being in Mexico in those days. So an amazing approach. And the other thing about that kind of goes through with all of his cars that he's touched throughout

was that they were just really good-looking cars, like signage on them, wheels on them. People used to give him trouble, I think, about making stuff look too pretty. But the fact that he did both, had these great pit strategies, usually some very, very, very good drivers.

and the cars look beautiful. I know that's one thing that in an early interview that I read about Pete Brock, he said, he said, oh, and Strapp's cars, he said, my influence is, one of my big influences, a Strop as far as the way cars looked, because his race cars were always top-notch looking, just immaculate looking. And I think that's rare when you have both sides of it.

You know, you've got the performance and you've got the good looks and, yeah. Yeah, and, you know, Pete being Peter Brock now, being a guy who, you know, as a kid, 19 years old, got hired by GM does some sketches and it becomes a 63 Corvette. Right. You know, like 19-year-old kids aren't, you know, aren't even able to get a job, let alone get a job in the styling department at GM these days. And, you know, pen a lot of the Shelby livery's logos, what have you, a guy who knows what he's talking about. So it's very interesting that Strapp was an influence on him. Yeah.

Amazing how my worlds collide here in Sloba. Yeah, I know. Well, so Bill Strop gets to Baja for this amazing first event, and tell me how that goes. They prep two Broncos, and Strop and Ray Harvick were in one, and I'm blanking on who was in the second car. I want to say Dick Russell and I can't remember Cliff Bryant, maybe. Anyway, they had pretty well-prepped cars by, like, because Strappa had already taken the Bronco around for Ford to the short course rallies in Colorado and Pismo and Riverside.

So he already kind of had a few things worked out on the Bronco. And so they brought the two Broncos, one of six-cylinder and one of V8, I think, had already converted to V-8. And they did really well. Well, from what I understand, they were leading the race pretty soon on with Ray Harvick driving. And like a lot of people, they got lost kind of down past San Ignacio, I think. And they got to a section where they were supposed to go out to the beach and just looked like you're driving. And it's just that you couldn't get through.

And so they turned around. and Larry Minor and Rod Hall were there in a Jeep and they were stuck and they helped them get unstuck and when they took off, they took off the way that Straup and Harvick had already decided was the wrong way. Well, they disappeared into these bushes, like they just went into the bushes and vanished and Straup and Harvick are like, wait a sec, maybe that is the right way.

So they turned back around through this really sandy stuff and we're coming after Larry and Rod in the Jeep and the motor sanded out because they'd spent so much time getting stuck themselves, getting Rod and Larry unstuck, and then they just ended up completely sanded out. They did roll before that too, I think. And I think the air cleaner had come apart and sand got into the motor. But they didn't quite, they knew they were on to something, but they didn't win. The DNF'd.

Well, I think that that first race was full survival. I mean, it was just making it the course distance, and then speed got to be a part of it very, very quickly thereafter. I mean, I think 68 people were like, let's make this thing go faster and figure out how to make it more durable and what have you. And again, in my conversation with Malcolm Smith on the Unslow Baja, you know, he was using a library book to figure out the, you know, the Gullick and Good. I'm blank on the name, David Kear is going to be calling to correct me. Basically came out in the 40s and it had a full map of Baja, but it's an 8 by 10-inch book. And he's memorizing the thing and memorizing his points on the map by studying a book

and gave it to RN, his racing partner, to study. And of course, he didn't study it the way that Malcolm did. And to think about that in those days, you know, to think about the amount of information that we, we have today on our phones, on our dashboards, you know, GPS satellite pictures of everything and a great paper map, which is sitting here next to me, the Baja Almanac from Benchmark with, you know, you've got every dirt road. Right. I mean, they were just driving and dead reckoning, I think. Yeah, exactly. Remembering a library book. Let me remember that library book on my motorcycle

going this fast. Yeah. We're going to take a break right here, folks. Well, we have a visual of Malcolm Smith with a payday candy bar in his pocket and an orange or something, remembering that library book navigating down in Mexico to the first win in 1967. We'll be right back with Andrew Norton talking Broncos and Baja. Here at Slow Baja, we can't wait to drive our old land cruisers out of the border. When we go, we'll be going with Baja bound insurance. Their website's fast and easy to use. Check them out at Baja bound.com. That's Bajabound.com serving Mexico travelers since 1994. Hey, we're back. We're in Santa Rosa, California at Baja Broncos, and I am getting the history

of Broncos and Baja, and we're going to get on to Andrew's affliction with the Baja Peninsula himself. So let's jump into that. You're buying these Broncos up when you started in 1995. Is that when you, do I have that date right? 95. I think I got my first Bronco and yeah, I basically, it was December 95. I agreed to buy it. And then my friend and I flew out to Texas and drove this worn out Baja Bronco back to Santa Barbara where I was living at the time. And are you finding in 95? You're finding them in magazines at that point or where classified ads? Where are you finding these cars? Word of mouth. Yeah, auto trader magazine. And then this one was in Hemming's Motor News, three lines. And the guy knew what he was saying in the lines. It had a real Baja. A Bronco by Straup, and I was like, oh, well, if he knows that much, I got to talk to him. I called him and made an agreement to go buy it. I think that was one of the utter fascinations that I had as a youngster reading the classified section of Rodent Track and reading the classified from 20 years before when this thing

and that thing were the same price, and then this thing is worth 10 times what that thing is worth. Yep. Yep. I remember looking through those ads too and seeing cobras for I'd go to the swap meets and buy old rodent track or whatever and in when I was in junior high and I remember looking through there and like seeing ads for competition cobras and I was like man I have almost that much into my Mustang how is that possible yeah how was I born so late right that was what it was so you you check out that first one you're buying them and then 1995 forward when when do you start?

heading down to Baja or had you been to Baja already by this point? I had not. I was still, I still thought Baja was the coolest thing. Obviously, when you devote a lot of your spare time to a truck that's named after Baja, obviously you dream in about it. But I got involved with some of the Bronco Internet mailing list because the Internet was now popping. And I met Todd Zerker at that point. And he had realized that I was heavy into the production Baja.

Bronco. And he grew up reading magazines and knowing all about the races. And he was kind of into the competition ones. And so we compared notes and shared notes on that stuff in the late 90s. And also about that time, I think I started BajaBronco.com, the registry and just an information page for people to come and like, hey, I've got this orange, white and blue Bronco. I don't know anything about it. Let me type it into the internet. Oh, here's BajaBronco.com. So the internet in those days, kids, was 24-hour yellow pages. You know, it was just information. This is, this is, this is where you would go.

It was like an encyclopedia on a computer. So you were creating, or a Wikipedia that maybe would be the appropriate, because not everything was fact-checked or correct. But you were creating a repository of information. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

That's what it was. And that's not a lot of the early Bronco sites at the time, even if they weren't related to Baja Broncos, they were putting out how to put disc brakes on your Broncos. And it was all information instead of like, look at what I've got and look at what I can do. It was, hey, let's share information. But anyway, Todd and I started sharing information about the race Broncos. And also at the same time, Todd Clement of wide open Baja called me because he, he's, you know, had purchased a Baja Bronco, a production Baja Bronco, and he grew up driving a racing Bronco, and he's like, who's this guy with this website? So he called me up one time and said,

I've got one of these Baja Broncos. What do you know about it? And I started, we just started comparing notes. And I had already done all this research on where the steering wheels were made and all the pieces were made. And he said, God, you're like an encyclopedia for Baja Broncos. And you're really into the details. I like details. I need somebody. who's really detailed to come help me with this Baja effort. We're doing the Baja 2000. Do you know what that is? And I said, no. And he's like, the Baja 1,000, except because of the year 2000, it's going to be twice as long. And I said, that's fantastic. He's like, why don't you come down and help me? I said, perfect. I'll be there in November. And he's like, no, why don't you come down early? I want you to be in charge with the logistics of fuel for the whole chase team and all this stuff.

And I'm like, I didn't know. I'd never been to Baja yet. I mean, I knew Bill's drop. Yeah, yeah. So I went down and worked for wide open Baja for the Baja 2000, and that was Todd Clement introduced me to Baja and taught me how to drive down there and what to do here, there and the other, and just interracing and logistics and where's the fuel going to be?

How is this all going to work? And that's how I think I worked for him for the 2000, and then I think the 2001 and maybe a little bit for 2002. I went down there. But yeah, I was hooked at that point, and I really wanted a strapped racing bronco, and I knew where two of them were. And so I made that.

My mission was to find an original Straub Racing Bronco that we could race. And it took a few years to get those, to get that one, it was actually one that Todd Zerker had found in Arizona, this guy was using it as a sand toy. It had paddles on it. It was bright red with,

with the gold roll bar, two gold. And Todd and I bought it together, I think, in 06. And it turned out through a bunch of research that is actually the truck that Rod Hall drove the most. And it's the one that he and Larry Miner won the 69 Mexican 1000 overall with. Well, 2006, these things are starting to become worse some money. Oh, yeah. Yep. Yeah, you're not finding these things for $500 or $5,000.

No. I think I paid $6,500 for my first Baja Bronco, and then we paid considerably more for the race truck because the guy knew what it was. He's like, yeah, it's drop racing Bronco because he had pictures of it before he even painted it red and turned it into his toy and still had the orange white and blue paint all over it. Before he ruined it. Yeah, well, he didn't. That's a nice thing about it is he really just painted a different color and put a different motor in it and paddle tires. So that's minimal damage. I mean, all reversible. Yep, and a lot of it got reversed in 2010. We loaned it to Chris Wilson and Glenn Stradiff to race in the resurgence of Nora. So that's the leap that I was going to make. So you're buying these things before there was any place for you to actually use them.

Yeah, I mean, you weren't going to go use them and score or you were going to do it in a very different way. Yeah, it definitely wasn't. We were going to maybe go play with it. And we also, back to how you introduced me. I'm a Bronco nerd. And also back to the... In the kindest sense of the word. Yeah, I know.

Well, I'm using it for myself. So I'd seen what people have done with our model Shelby's. And you can restore a race card or race trim and not race it or take it to one of these events and just, you know, go at 80% or 60% if you want to. And that was what I wanted to do. I knew it wasn't going to be at score because I'd already been to that race. But I thought maybe something would happen. And sure enough, it all happened quickly after we bought that thing.

We bought it and did a little work to it. And then soon was when Chris came knocking at our door and said, hey, do you know one with a historic race Bronco? And we were like, yeah, us. So coming full circle here, I'm working on this move, this big move from San Francisco to Chicago. and I've been just buried in my garage going through this stuff that's been packed away. I've lived in this house for 25 years. So it's just stuff that's packed away and whatnot and raised three kids who have flown the coop,

gone to school and moved away. And their important stuff is still in bins all over the garage. The Land Cruiser is in one part. It's kind of a two and a half car garage in a Z shape, kind of a long, skinny San Francisco garage. And I was going through a box of papers. And I found my original press release. press release for the 2010 Nora that I was going to race in my 1967 Dotson Fair Lady Roadster that I had raised the La Carrera with.

And so I was reading it. I was avenging my last place finish in the La Carrera, Pan Americana, and tying it all the way up to the current show on Slobaha right now, folks. I called Peter Brock. I found him in Nevada, and I called him to say, is there any way that I can convert my my Dotson Roadster to off-road spec. And, you know, of course, he campaigned these cars new and won championships with him in SCCA.

And he said, absolutely not. There is no way that you can do that. And I'm very sorry that I listened to him, honestly, because I think had I just done something foolish, totally foolish, just put a little suspension lift on it and some off-road, you know, BF Goodrich tires, I would have been that guy, you know, who like got stuck 300 miles down and had to, you know, catch a bus home.

And it took me a week. And the car could have just been sitting in the back of Rancho Santa Yines. Right. For the next 20-something years until Limonshire, you know, finds it and, you know, and rescues it. Exactly. But it could have been, it could have had an amazing adventure had I not been so cautious and so broke also because I was trying to raise money to do this. Right. Yeah.

Yeah, that was a good event and it was fun to be there because we went as crew for Chris and Glenn and It was just great to be walking around the parking lot and talking to these people other other desert racing Officianados and vintage desert racing aficionados that I had you know heard of and hadn't met yet and it's just standing around with with Parnelli Jones and Rod Hall in a motel parking lot looking at these old cars that they drove. And Parnelli was there with his blazer, his street, his pre-run blazer, his yellow blazer. And Rory Ward was there. And we were all just standing around talking about the stuff that we've been geeking out on the internet for years on. It was just really, really fun.

And I think that just pushed us to, I think somebody said, well, I don't next year, why don't you guys just use the Bronco? I don't use the Bronco. I think it was Rory. He said, why don't you guys just race that thing? And we were like, okay. And so I think we took a year off in between because we had just had my daughter. And so I took a break there. And yeah, the next year we got the Bronco ready to, it was pretty much ready already. And Todd and I drove it with a bunch of our friends and finished. It was fun. And have you been chasing that? Is this like a drug habit? You've been chasing that high ever since? Absolutely. Yeah. I still think about that first event that I did with my buddy Ted in Baja in my land cruiser, 3,000 miles in 10 days. And I'm really still just chasing that.

Yeah. Yeah. It's so much, it's so much fun when you get down there. I mean, just like you said, anything can happen down there. And having the adventure is part of it. But I just really love to personally prep or restore something and then know. that I'm probably going to have to fix a couple things on the way down there. But also, I just know that I'm going to finish. I just know I'm going to finish. I flat tow my race truck down there. And people look at us and kind of shake their heads because they're like, man, you can really break down here. Don't you know that? And I'm like, yeah, but how am I going to know if my bearings are set up right? If I don't flat tow it the 500 miles first and go feel the hubs every, you know, how am I going to know everything's right? Anyway. That is part of my shakedown. Yeah. I drive my land cruiser from San Francisco to San Diego

going one long 12 to 14 hour day down Highway 101, pick up my buddy, and we cross the border the next day. And it's like, you know, I probably have done some shakedown stuff up here. And, you know, so I have a good feeling that if I go slow and don't smash it into something, I'm definitely going to finish. Right. Right. I try and go between slow and fast somewhere. Well, you're racing and I'm doing something else totally different. Yeah. Well, let's get into that. How, what is it like? How do you describe what you do and what it's like to be in a vintage racing bronco in Nora driving on the same same dirt just different

era what does that like um it's awesome I like it because it's like all these old pictures that I looked at in magazines are coming to life and I'm in the picture and I'm having a blast and I love the idea that like especially um I don't know it was really cool to be out there with big Oli last year but then even in previous years too, just creating this, I don't know, it's like going back in time for people to see us in an old orange, white, blue bronco and a golden white bronco zip by. You know, it's just like, it could be 1972. Absolutely. I mean, I say it.

It's my land cruiser's a portal to another era. And it's just, you know, it's flipping a filter. Yeah. And I've got one of those GFU masters that I'm looking through instead of the windshield, you know, and I'm just clicking to another scene from, you know, another. other era. Yeah. And it's a different, everything's in a different color.

And I'm like the pictures in the dusty times that, uh, for illustrating your story, that beautiful coat of color. Yeah. Um, codomatic, uh, instomatic film from, I mean, my childhood, I'm a little bit older than you are. That is my childhood seeing those pictures, you know, early 70s. That, that's what those, that's what my life looked like. Had a little border on the pictures with the date stamp and all that.

And that's that to me, when I'm looking out of the. windshield of my old truck. I'm in that. And what was so exciting this year with the slow Baja safari is having a manx in front of me or having one of your Broncos, you know, right there and hearing that V8 rumble. I mean, that really not, I'm not saying anything about the raptors and the jeeps and the G-wagons and all that, which was phenomenal. The people who brought them were wonderful folks, but visually, being a visually oriented person, seeing your truck and seeing Big Oly and like saying, like, is this really happening? Is this really happening? Did this Did Big Oly just take the green flag right there?

Did that just happen? Yeah, I think I made the remark to my wife. This is the first year that she's ridden in the car with me, but she's been super supportive of this whole fascination. Like, you know, when she met me, I didn't have a race truck. So, you know, things changed there, but she's been super supportive. And I'm so glad to have had her in the car because I just felt like she's, a great co-driver, awesome, awesome navigator, and we're pulling out of Ensenada and in our

rear view mirror, I can't remember where Oli started, but it was a few cars behind us. It wasn't, we weren't close at the start line, but we pull up and I said to my wife, I said, oh my God, we could break down right now and I'd be, I'd be fine because big Oli's in my rear view. I feel like Parnelli's in my rear view and we're leaving Ensenada here, getting ready to go out to the dirt and we're cruising through Ensenada, the Colts drop Bronco, followed by Big Oli. And it was just, it was, it was surreal and awesome. And it's just like, at that point, everything else was just gravy. And it was awesome because, you know, we went the whole distance with the, you know, we made it.

So there was some gravy. There was a lot of gravy. Yeah, it was great. The end of that first stage, though, after we had had a good, we stopped a couple times, but the battery sparked out and almost set her on fire. as soon as we got onto the dirt because I started to go faster than I should have been going and the battery jumped out of the hold down, which was pretty weak. I should have changed that. And then we lost our power steering because I didn't tighten a clamp.

But yeah, we had enough adventure to make it to just give us a little bit of butterfly, but then the rest of it was fantastic and fun. Well, that leading up to the event, I was in the event, I was in the first of it. Baja for five days before my truck was in storage there from a trip that I had taken a couple months prior and the shop that it was in storage in was also doing some some prep work so we had the list and you know I thought I better get down there and babysit the last five days to make sure the list is actually getting done and one of the things was you know in my land cruiser since I've owned it it's just smelled like gas and they all smell like gas you know whatever they smell like gas

but last year I had a leak in the fuel tank and turned out it was just a just a hose line that had been looped through a primitive charcoal canister, which was in the seat upholstery, in the bench seat, in the back of the seat. That charcoal canister had been removed, so it's early smog. Got it. So the vapors are going into a charcoal canister, which is in the middle part of the bench seat in between the driver and the pastures. So when I bought the thing 10 years ago, I had that removed, and the line just got looped back into the tank but never got clamped. and freak accident in getting on to the 500 last year, Ted's, you know, we're putting stuff behind the seat.

Ted's folding the seat back, and the seat just stops. And he, instead of, you know, pulling the handle and adjusting it and pulling it forward and being very gentle with a 50-year-old vehicle, he just gives it a little heft and just snaps this pin off. And all of a sudden the back of his seat is not connected to the bottom of his seat. and we're literally on our way to Bahá to start the 500 last year. So he's basically putting more stuff behind a seat to have some sort of, you know,

have some sort of mass to hold the seat in place. And as it turned out, that action ripped this fuel line off of its mooring, which we didn't realize at the time. But when you filled the fuel tank completely, only completely, it would splash fuel under my seat. So we just were trying to figure out Where is this fuel coming from? What have you? Anyways, it was a

Cluster F, as they say. And so this year, I wanted to make sure that we had that all sorted. We had it fixed last year. Mag 7 did a great job. Tom Mangione fixed it last year on the side of the road. Fabulous repair. This year, I just wanted to make sure, because I was still smelling a little gas.

So I just wanted to make sure it's fixed. Night before the race, the mechanic is making a gasket for the top of my fuel tank for the where the fuel pump is. Yeah. Son of a gun, you know, like, okay, well, he thinks it's leaking there. First gasket doesn't work. So now he's got to go get some cork and make another gasket.

Now, again, if I were in California, I'd get to my Land Cruiser repair guy, and for five bucks, I'd get the proper gasket, whatever. So anyways, he's making this thing. And it does take a day-ish thing for him to make with all the distractions of running his shop and all the other business. Anyway, so it's like that night after the driver's meeting, I'm in the parking lot, and I just see, I've just filled up and I just see gas oozing over the top of my gas tank. So I'm talking to Kurt Leduc about it. He says, yeah, ivory soap, I hear if you just rub it with a bar of ivory soap or maybe chewing gum.

If you just pack that seal with some chewing gum, I'm like, I've got to pack a kind of pack of wrigglies in the car. So there I am chewing up a pack of spearmint and packing this gasket with freshly chewed gum. Which stopped it. But by the time we got to San Felipe at the end of the first day, the next day, the end of the next day, we filled up with gas. And all of a sudden there's gas. I'm dripping out from underneath the car. And it's not coming. My fix worked.

My chewing gum fix. Chewing gum folks. I don't know about other brands, but good old-fashioned, sugary wrigglies. Spearmint worked. So there was a gas leak. And so there we are at 6.30 on a Sunday night in San Felipe asking Cesar if he had a friend who knew a shop or something that could look after us and he sent us to a guy Chavo and Chavo's great, you know, and he jumped right on it, ripped the seats out, ripped the center console out,

got the fuel tank out and fixed it within two hours, you know, and then we were back in the event and to have that little bit of spice, that little bit of drama, right, it does like, you know, I just wanted the rest of the trip to go very smoothly, but it really does kind of like make you feel like you did something. Yeah. Yeah. I do have a footnote about the gum though. I had one, I will say it probably works well on gaskets and stuff like that for sending units, but we did try it on a holly blue electric fuel pump pre-regulator, and it just doesn't hold. It doesn't hold the high, you know, the, I don't know how many pounds of pressure those are supposed to put out. I think it's like 20 or 30 or something. Two more gum. It doesn't. Yeah, no. And we only

They had a limited amount of gum with us. So we had to go with fuel flowing everywhere. I wonder about bubble yum. Bubble yum. Or Big League. Big League chew. Big League chew, if you can still get it. Do you chew it first?

All right. Well, listen, we're going to get on to some serious wrapping it up here and lightning around stuff. But from your first trip when you went down with wide open to do the logistics in 2000, you've got 20-something years of Baja travel now under your belt. Why do you go? What do you love about Baja? Is it only for?

driving events or would you go there or have you gone there on vacations? I would go there as much as I can. I love it down there. I like the people down there. I like the food down there. And the first time, I actually, it's crazy. Usually I go down there with a race effort. But my wife and I went down in February and stayed at.

We stayed at one of the resorts, actually, because we always stay in small hotels and little places that we found from the racing. But we were down in Cabo, and we stayed at this. And we found ourselves just, we rented a car and just we didn't spend hardly any time at the resort. We just ended up exploring on our own and found a couple of nice hikes and found some great food places that we hadn't had time to explore during the race. So that's what I really like doing down there. It's just going down there to explore.

and the other time we went down there not for a race was with my daughter and my wife to pick up the Colt Bronco. And we did a quick little, you know, just more exploring San Felipe area. And yeah, I just, it's the people, the food, and just the feeling of being, everything being more relaxed there. For me, anyway, you know, it might be different for other people down there, but it's, for me, I like going there to kind of unwind and see new things. and yeah. And how do you describe most of the news regarding travel or the internet noise is about, you know, crime and trouble and problems and whatnot? And how do you how do you distill it down to say like immediately, I'm in full agreement

with you on all fronts? So like how do you distill this? How do you describe the people? Usually the people that tell me how dangerous it is down there haven't been there. And so I try to, I don't know, I guess I just respond to that and that, you know, I don't, I don't, I just don't, I haven't had any bad experiences down there. I know that people have, but yeah, I don't know what really to say to people who believe that it's as dangerous as they make it sound. Maybe it is, and I'm just lucky, but, like, I go there every year, and I have for the last 10 or 12 years every year. And before that, you know, there's only a, I go down there a lot, and I never feel that.

I never feel that way. But I also don't do silly things down there. I don't know, I don't put myself out there really late at night or anything either, too, you know, and I'm always hang out with my friends. So, I don't know. What sort of car prep and travel advice do you have on that front of the guy who builds vehicles to go bouncing through the desert in a race? What would you say to somebody who's just going to Baja, you know, and is worried about, what do I need to do?

How do I need to prepare my vehicle to survive in Baja, even if they're just driving on the pavement? Yeah, I would say make sure you have a good spare tire, make sure your tires are good. I like to go down there in vehicles that are not brand new and covered with computer stuff all over them, like computer controlled fuel injection, all that jazz. I have a 1999 F-250 Superduty, 73 diesel. It's pretty simple to work on if something happens, plus a lot of people down in Baja have those vehicles. and so if you need a part, you're probably going to find it. And also just know your vehicle, know how to work on it a little bit.

It's good. Bring fuses. Bring all the open your owner's manual. Look at what fuses your car takes. Go to the auto parts store before you leave and buy all those fuses. Have them in your glove box. Bring some tools with you. I know, that's what I do because I'm a mechanic.

But I think, I mean, the times I've broken down down there, either somebody has an idea or a friend or. or the people down there are always willing to help you figure out how to fix your car. Yeah, well, from Chavo fixing my fuel tank to a week later, having Luis, I was driving north after the event was over. And I just thought, you know, I'd been had a leak, ongoing leak, and I thought it was from rear main seal, but it turns out it was a transfer case. And so I'm checking my engine oil saying, well, it's fine, it's not leaking.

And anyways, so the transfer case started making some noise. and again, Sunday night, driving north, pulled into this guy, you know, and ended up in a tire shop. And the guy's like, hmm, I don't really, can't really help you. And there's a tire shop in every town. But he got a slow Baja shirt and out flips his phone and he calls his buddy Luis. And Luis comes over. And again, he's in his Sunday best. He's probably out to dinner with his wife.

And he knows what the problem is, but he doesn't want to tackle it because he's in his Sunday dress clothes. and he's got a shop down the street and I can take the truck over there on Monday. We're like, oh, we're trying to get up the road. And I size him up. I'm like, that guy's my size. And so from underneath my seat, I pulled out a freshly laundered,

still in plastic, a pair of coveralls in case I had to get under the truck, which I just had laundered in Ensonata before the race because there's a little musty smelling because it had been under the seat of my car for a year. So fresh in the plastic, I pull it out. It's got racing patches all over it, whatever. he jumps right into the thing, gets right under there.

He's like, yeah, there's the problem. Okay, meet me in my shop and jumps down into the pit. We get off to Auto Zone or whatever the local auto parts store, got all the fluids we needed. And he had it all refilled with fluid and had figured out where the leak had come from and tightened up the bolts where normal, I guess what had happened is I'd probably taken a pretty good knock with a rock and was just leaking out of the top of the transfer case there. And so anyways, a guy again, you know, Sunday night, eager to fix it.

He got to keep the coveralls. He was pretty stoked about that. Obviously, I paid him. And, you know, we were back on the road. So basically it's just like things around here, right? Like your mechanic gets on it right away and it's done fast and it's done well. Sunday night is 630. So yeah, just like up here.

Yeah. And, you know, the funny thing is just like up here, now I have a friend there that I can call for anything. He actually, you know, messaged me on WhatsApp the next day to see how I was doing. That's great. Yeah. Yeah, so that's been my experience down there with having an automotive issue that you can't fix yourself, is that you'll find somebody that can help you. Well, I can't fix anything. So, I'm at the mercy of the locals.

Well, at least you brought coveralls for them to wear. I mean, it's perfect. Exactly. Maybe I have to have three sets now. Big guy, small guy, medium guy. That's thinking ahead. That's a good prep item. Good tires and three sets of coveralls, three sizes.

Andrew, do you want people to use? use up your valuable time contacting you about things like Baja Broncos and whatnot. Where would people find you on social media and what have you? On social media, I pretty much do on the Instagram right now, and it's at Baja Broncos. Okay. And I also have my website, BajaBronco.com. If people really needed to talk to me right away, my phone number's up there, and they can give me a call.

I'd love to talk about Baja Broncos, old race cars, especially old Broncos. blazers and that sort of thing. Cool old stuff. Cool old stuff. And when do you think you're heading down again? I'm going to try and go to the thousand next year. Okay. I'd love to go to the 500, but I just think I've got a lot of, I have too much on my plate. Right now, I have two trucks in the body shop that need my attention, and then they need to be reassembled after my attention is applied to the people painting them. And before I let you go for the day here, um, first day school for your daughter, yeah? Correct. Yeah, we've got a time clock ticking here, folks. Got to get done before school's out. What advice would you have? Now, you took a historic

race truck in the Slow Baja Safari class, which I thought was super cool. What advice would you have if somebody's listening to this show thinking, I want to do the Slow Baja Safari. I don't know if I told you this while we were in Baja together, but you actually had a lot more knowledge. about the event and about what was happening than I had as the quasi, you know, name on the door guy, because I didn't have access to the racing schedules, which you had folks who were actually doing Ksinger, doing the racing, Judy Smith runs. That's her truck, right? No, not Judy Smith, sorry.

Susan Kaysinger. Susan Kaysinger, sorry. Judy Smith is the famed racer and journalist, Off-road Hall of Famer. um aunt sue aunt sue who was friends with my my friends uh Wilson and his wife from the Baja XL um so aunt Sue is Heather Wilson's wife heather's aunt Sue so I got some aunt Sue stories on my last Baja trip on the Baja XL so you you had some access to the actual racing schedule you you could ascertain because

of your experience with racing that event and now in the Slow Baja class what was likely to happen given when the racing class was departing after the class and you wisely pulled off and let a lot of stuff go by before you followed along where I unwisely thought I think I can beat these guys out of the stage yeah so what advice would you have if somebody's just sitting there they've got a jeep they've they've got something old they've got a you know maybe a historic vehicle what advice would you have about and I I'm meaning this quite honestly and sincerely about how to attack this new class, this new class, the new slow Baja safari class. I see it as a good way for people to see if they want to get into doing the Nora 1000 in Pioneer or whatever other class you might want to do.

I came the other way. I've done Pioneer. I've done Pioneers since 2012 and actually competing. and the slow baha is just a nice way. I think it's a good way to shake down a car. I definitely would change several things about the Colt Bronco if I were to race it in the Pioneer class. But you could treat it that way.

That's one piece of advice is like if you're thinking about doing Nora and Pioneer, I would do Slow Baja Safari in pretty much any vehicle, but ideally in the vehicle that you plan on taking because you're going to learn so much and you're not going to have, you know, a potential, it's going to help you not have a potential DNF the first time out because you had the wrong springs or you had the wrong setup on your bearings or what have you, wrong carburetor. Yeah, I think it's a really good tool for that. And also, if you have something, then you want to, I don't know, keep it safe.

Like we've taken on some damage in our other, in the casing or Bronco in the pioneer class. Not intentional, but accidents can happen when you do 10 races in a row. You can take some body damage. So if you have something that you want to protect a little bit, like Big Oly or the Colts drop Bronco, you can take it on the slow baja and have less of a chance of messing it up or wrecking it, I think. When I did that pre-drive in January trying to find. You know, a thousand miles that weren't even going to scratch Big Oly. And we literally, LSAO and I literally discussed hedge clippers, you know, pruning shears.

And could we prune this? Because there's so much water there in January. Could we prune these bushes back in mid-April to make sure that it wasn't going to get pinstriped? Well, anyway, especially plans of mice and men. Right. I remembered you told me that too because I went through that section that was going to get pruned. It was on the first day and we were driving through that wash. And I'm like, hey, they didn't prune this.

No, they didn't prune. And Flannery was like, what? I'm like, never mind. I mean, we talked about it. There's a lot of things that got talked about that didn't get done there. All right, well, hey, you've been super generous with your time. Baja broncos.com, Baja Broncos on Instagram. Andrew Norton, if you want to talk Broncos or Baja, he's a great guy.

And thanks for making some time. And that issue, Dusty Times, I think that's number three that has your story in. that's a terrific read so dusty times check them out you can find them online and buy that magazine and subscribe it's a beautiful annual it's almost a book it's it's stunning and really beautifully prepared with fabulous stories like yours thank you all right well thank you all right that's been pleasure see you soon have i told you about my friend true miller you've probably heard the podcast but let me tell you her vineyard adobe guadalupe winery is spas From the breakfast at her communal table,

bookended to an intimate dinner at night. Their house bred Azteca horses, Solomon, the horseman will get you on a ride that'll just change your life. The food, the setting, the pool, it's all spectacular. Adobe Guadalupe.com. For appearing on Slow Baja today, our guests will receive the beautiful benchmark map 72-page Baja Road and Recreation Atlas. Do not go to Baja without this, folks.

You never know when your GPS is going to be. crap out and you're going to want a great map in your lap. Trust me. Hey, I hope you enjoyed that conversation. It's cool that I got a chance to drive up to Andrew's spread and sit down in his garage and talk to him about the history of Broncos in Baja and he's just a wealth of information. If you like what I'm doing here, folks, please, please, please, we're 100 shows in. Drop a Taco in the tank. You can do that through clicking the link in Instagram or Facebook or checking out slowbaha.com and click the donate link. It's the only way that I can keep this thing going. The Slow Baja store is currently shut down because of my move, but it'll be open soon.

And I do have stacks of stickers with me. So if you do make a donation, the only way you can get that, ask your doctor if Baja is right for you. Bumper sticker is through meeting me somewhere on the trail in Baja or by dropping a taco in the tank. And again, can't say it sincerely enough. I do appreciate all donations small and large. So thanks for that, and I'll be back with something fun soon. Take care. And as our dear friend, Steve McQueen says,

Baja's life. Anything that happens before or after is just waiting.