Slow Baja - Idiot Racing Take On The SCORE Baja 500 In A Home Built Class 11 VW Beetle And Live To Tell The (Amazing) Tale

Episode Date: June 20, 2021

"Some of the world's greatest feats were accomplished by people not smart enough to know they were impossible." — Doug Larson In today's podcast, we meet Mike Steel from Idiot Racing. His dream was to race the Baja 1000 in a Class 11 VW Bug built with his own hands. He documented the build on his Instagram page and won many fans and followers.  His first race was the SCORE Baja 500 on June 13, 2021. The team of rookies took the green flag and made it to the first dirt section. Then, at mile 35, the trouble began. They snapped a balljoint and were stuck on a steep hillside. A group of locals formed an ad-hoc pit crew. They held the car on the hill, fixed the balljoint, and towed them to the top. At race mile 50, trouble returned. They did a  field rebuild of the carburetor and jury-rigged the failing alternator. A few miles later, down on power, another hill climb finally ended their race. The chase team arrived and, given the location, decided to drive back to Ensenada and grab the trailer rather than tow the broken car with only a strap. They removed all the valuables from the VW and went to get the trailer. When they returned, it was gone. Was it stolen or towed by some good samaritans? They searched for the car vainly. Mike's wife Cynthia made an Instagram post alerting the world to their situation. The offroad racing community sprung into action. By the middle of the following day, a local Baja citizen had located the vehicle -stripped and abandoned but reportedly in pretty good shape.  Since recovering the car, Steel has been fixing the damage and making the rounds to the So Cal VW community. He's stocking up on parts and plans to be back for the SCORE Baja 1000 in November 2021  Follow his progress at Idiotracing.com and Idiot.racing on Instagram.

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'm just delighted. It's a slow Baja on a travel talk Zoom call with Mike Steele.

And I think a lot of my listeners and friends on Facebook have been following your adventure, Mike. And I can't believe that we're here talking about it via Zoom only a day or two after this whole roller coaster ride that you've been on. So introduce yourself and let's just jump into it. Tell me what the heck are you doing in Baja, man. Well, I am Mike Steele, Chief Idiot at Idiot Racing. And we are in Baja, I guess you could say just to have a good time. Just being idiots. Yeah, and basically, I mean, I've had a lifelong dream of racing in Baja.

I patiently waited for 20 years for some random person to stop me on the street and ask me if I want to drive a trophy truck. It never came about. So I decided to get into it myself. I got to attribute some of that to the COVID crazies, but hey, it all worked out. So spent about 10 months building a Class 11 race car in my garage in Florida, took it out to Baja and had a grander time than I had ever imagined. It could be. Well, let's start with that. You live in Florida.

Now, we've had a few messages back and forth, and I know that you used to. live in Oregon. And so you have some familiarity with Baja, but Florida is very much unlike Baja. Yes, I would call it the geographical antithesis of Baja. I've been in Tampa for three years. Prior to that, I was in Portland, Oregon. I've bounced around the country a good bit in between time, but I also used to live here in Southern California, three miles that way for about 10 years of my life. Went to high school there, went to college that way, and then skipped out. So, I mean, I'm familiar with, like, the world that the Baja racing and the desert racing comes from. It's just when I was out here, I was incapable of really jumping into it, you know, works and

schools and lives and money and all that good stuff. Well, I can't tell you how many Slow Baja community members said when the call went out for your, I'm not sure we're going to jump into that yet, but said that they've been following the build of your car. So people got invested in you building this Class 11 VW. Tell me about that. More than I ever anticipated. So I started out, you know, kind of documented everything I do on Instagram more for a selfish reason, right? called myself idiot racing because I genuinely have no idea what I'm doing. I'm not a mechanic. I'm not a fabricator. I had no idea how to weld. I knew nothing about Volkswagen's. I knew nothing about nothing. And I yet still had this crazy goal. So calling myself idiot racing was just away from me to introduce

myself to anyone who could help and have them immediately understand where it was going. Like I came up with this name when I had to jump on a forum and I had to ask some really stupid question. The kind of question that only an idiot would have to ask. So to keep anyone from being snarky, I called myself idiot racing. Now, like the first response I got on here was something snarky like everyone should know that. And then the second response, they got it. They're like, did you see the name? Okay, here's what it is.

Here's what you're doing. Here's where we're going, right? So I started the whole Instagram thing to get some help for myself. As I am doing all of this, as I'm researching all of this, as I'm taking all of this on, it gave a platform for everyone who knew what they were doing to kind of see where I'm going with it and to see what I'm doing and let me know when I'm doing something wrong or possibly even right. Those were the good days. But as it kind of got involved, I realized it wasn't like just the experts who were following along with this.

but it was everyone who owned a Volkswagen or wanted to do a Baja bug or like the racing or something like that. So I started to switch the way that I do things. Instead of everything focused on trying to find help for myself, I sort of started paying attention to everything that I had a hard time finding. The answers and the information and the photos and the things that became difficult for me to address, I started giving those extra attention so that anyone who comes after me can have an appropriate avenue to quickly get the information that they want or the information that they need. So it turned in from a selfish aspect of me looking for help to me trying my best at least to

help others. And along the way of everyone watching me stumble through this, an amazing amount of people became like emotionally invested in this journey, which it only kind of started to, make sense to me towards the tail end, just how outrageous this thing actually was that a guy like myself would ever even try something like this, let alone even get as far as I did. It, you know, it became like a group effort, a group think tank for us all to just go off and do something crazy. And I got to say, I'm absolutely loving it. I'm loving all like the positive messages that I'm getting or everyone saying like, hey, I just picked up this bug or how do I

do this thing where I had a guy earlier saying like, hey, this part or piece that you have on there, can you just send me some photos of that? And I'm happy to. Like, this is the reciprocal nature of everything that's going on. Hey, so did you said you've never raised. You're not a fabricator. You're not. And I relate to all that because I've now raised some things, but I'm not a builder mechanic. I don't have any fixing skills. That's just not part of my world. It's kind of a lot to take on the Baja 500 or the Baja 1,000. I've dreamed about it. I haven't done it. I've dreamed about it. And I've dreamed about it in a class 11. So take me through. Where do you go? Is there some blueprint that says this is what everybody else has done in this class and so that you don't

reinvent the wheel. That's where you start. Or is it just find the beetle that's not too rusted because you're there in Florida. So you might find some rusty ones. Yeah, mine was. Yeah. And so I get that. And so you just start there and say, well, I'm going to muddle on through this. This is what's in my yard right now or in my garage. I'm going to figure it out. That's basically the process that I took. Again, with not knowing any of this, like sort of like the first bit of information that I will happily give anyone is when you are buying the base beetle, come out to California.

Things are cheap out here. I get a paying about $2,000 for 1.5 Volkswagen Beatles that were rushing. buckets. I actually spent two months just doing rust repair. You can get the exact same for like 500 bucks out here and not do any of that work. Right. So that's the biggest thing I can tell anyone. Come to California. Now after that, class 11 is for the most part a spec series with bits of personal interpretation. Just the way that some rules are written sort of dictates you move in certain directions, like with the rear shocks. We have a very peculiar way of dressing rear shocks. So you need those, but the mounting options are incredibly varied. So when it came to actually

building everything, how I like to say is I approached every little aspect independently, every little thing about the car. Like, what do I do about the front beam? Well, there's actually five different things that need to be done here. Okay, how do I do one, two, three, four, five, figure it out, address and change as necessary, and kind of then jump onto the next one. And also, again, that's what I've tried to kind of help other people out with. As I did everything sort of in a line process, I didn't bounce around. I didn't start with a half-built bug. You can kind of find, like, here is the front beam section.

We need to do this, this, this, and this. and you can kind of start at least getting a better idea of where to go. Now, after that, my process of doing this was to see what everyone else has done. There are 100 or so class 11s in the United States, even more in Mexico. Many of these are fairly well documented in video, in Instagrams, in photos, or otherwise. And I would kind of scour the internet to find bits, parts, pieces, solutions. ideas and otherwise. And then you get to the hard part, which is I can see what five different people have done. They all vary by a little bit here or there or otherwise. But then at the end of the

day, I have to do it. And I have to find a way that fits within my skill set, which is very, very short. So after finding the solutions and then interpreting it to my area of abilities, then we get the solution that I inevitably came to, and then I get the internet to tell me whether I'm right or wrong, and then get to redo it sometimes. So we're going to fast forward here to you built a thing. I did eventually. You built it.

And then how pressed for time were you to get it to Baja for the start of the 500? The way I had been looking at this from the beginning is if I am not hustling at the end, then I've screwed something up. So, like, I really truly expected it to go that way. A couple of months, two months, I think, prior to Baja, I did a local rally race called Rally X, sorry, called Hoop DX down in Florida. And that was just my shakedown. It gave me a timeline that vehicle must be. the running, driving, and capable at that time. And I achieved it, although barely, the alternator

wasn't working. There was a lot of things that hadn't been done. I hadn't been hooked. Right. So like, but at that point, I set the timeline to give myself a core automobile that could power itself, which I achieved that a day and a half before at the Hoop DX. But then coming to Baja, it really did get down to a crunch. The last month before I left was quite chaotic and frantic of eventually, you know, that aspect of budgeting just sort of went out the window. And I just started buying anything that I could or had to. Now, it also leads me to the problems of doing this in Florida, which here in Southern, sunny, Southern California, there are about a dozen shops that I could go to get to in about 15 minutes. that have all the parts, pieces and bits and bobs that I need to build a class

old and race car. In Florida, I have to order that stuff online. I have to wait for them to ship it. I have to get that to my house. And then I can start installing. So, like, the biggest crunch for me was I have become very apprised with these shipping practices of many of these parts suppliers. I know this company takes three weeks to get something to me.

Okay, they're off the table. This company takes one week, they're off the table. Eventually, if it's not on Amazon, next day delivery, it's not happening. Right. So it became incredibly time crunch to get it there. And by time I actually got out here to Florida, or sorry, out here to California, the car was not completely ready. There were some things that I know I needed help with.

But I also knew that because of all the Class 11 guys, because of all the Volkswagen guys, because of the community in Southern California. I could accomplish more here in 10 days than I could in two months by myself in Florida. So I did come here with an incomplete project, completely understanding that the powers of the Southern California would essentially save me. And they did, right? MPie opened up their shop to me. I walked in there with a couple of simple requests.

I needed help with my carburetor. I needed to throw on some fenders. And I ended up spending two days there as these guys were nitpicking my car and saying, you need to do this, this, that, and the other thing. And we did. And then eventually I got it out to the desert. The rest of my team showed up. And we just started perfecting it, fine-tuning, this thing, that thing, fixing a few problems.

And come time for Baja, we were, for the most part, ready. For the most part, ready. I mean, it was a scramble. It was an absolute scramble. And I can't say anything other than that. And now that we're on the backside of it, I'm just happy that I now have four months to essentially perfect this scrambled project that I have put together. So let's talk about the people side of your team. Yes.

Who's your adventure buddy on this? My wife. India behind me. That's why there wasn't somebody with the car when it broke down. Yeah. Sorry for my ignorance when I didn't know the complete details. And please, can you introduce yourself, please, and just tell me a little bit about how you got involved with this. Sure. My name is Cynthia Steele, and I've been married to Mike for three years, and that's how I got involved in this.

I am not a racer. I am not an adrenaline junkie. This is not my world at all. And I'm assuming your job was to navigate. No. No, my job was to be the main chase truck driver. Okay. So what happens in the car? Explain class. 11 to me. Do you have a driver and a navigator? Yes. And for these long races, we have two teams of driver plus navigator. It is a two-man job. I was talking to a man, Hector, of ORS race prep. And he made one fun comment, which is like, you know, no one gets out of the car these days in the middle of a race, except class 11. There's always something that needs to be pushed. We need to be dug out. We need to

fix things. We need to whatever. So it's a two-man job. Absolutely. We have a driver whose core job is to pilot the automobile, keep everyone alive. And the navigator, whose alternative title is chief shovel operator. Right. And do you have to wear a Hans device in a glass 11? Yeah, you have to have full set. Now, I'm not sure about every other racing organization out there, but for score, for more, for snore, all the major ones. Yes, a Hans device is necessary, as is a fire suit, fire boots, gloves, helmets, and all the good stuff. You have to have a full set of a specific specification. Yeah, so that Hans just makes it an extra level of stuff getting in and out of the car and dealing with stuff and getting your helmet off to deal with stuff that's outside the car like

lifting, digging, all that kind of stuff. It makes things a little bit difficult, but I would say the hardest part of it is when it comes to hill climbs, class 11 cars are not exactly capable, which means there are a number of circumstances where you get halfway up the hill. and then have to roll down backwards. And because of the Hans, you can't turn your head to see anything. That would be my biggest argument against the Hans. But at the same time, I also really wanted to come home alive. So I was happy to wear it.

Yeah. Can we get Cynthia back on for a second? Sure. Sure. What did you think of this whole thing? Oh, he's insane. True. Absolutely true.

No, don't hold back. Don't hold back. Tell me exactly. Like, tell me about the level of obsession of dealing with this for months and months and months and then getting out to. Scooch over. Scooch over. Okay. So what I will say about Mike is that he sees an opportunity in everything.

And he's one of the few people who will look at an obstacle and see the opportunity rather than the hurdle. You know, when he sees something difficult, he says, well, why can't I do that? You know, so as you say, first time racer, first time car builder. What is he doing taking on the Baja 500? Well, it's because the 1,000 didn't come soon enough. You know, he is, he's that guy who says, why can't I do it? So I find those traits to be incredibly admirable. That being said, for the last six weeks, I was the second wheel, the third wheel, I should say, in our home.

I would be having full conversations with him. And you could just see that glazed over expression in his eyes. He's not listening. He's not there. His brain is still in the garage. You know, we would be, we could be talking about one thing. And then all of a sudden, he kind of, his eyes kind of turn off to the side. And he says, you know, I could do it that way.

You know, I bet if I cut here, I mean, he just wasn't there. He was not there at all. And between us, he forgot my birthday even because he was so. you know, hung up on everything that he was doing in the box. So focused. But again, here's someone who takes a bucket list and says, all right, I'm going to start crossing items off of that bucket list as opposed to most people who get a bucket list and say, well, if only, maybe one day I will do this.

No, he says, all right, how soon can I get this going? So I understand. Did he convey his goals to you straight up in the beginning? Is it, I'm just going to build it, do it, finish it? or was it, I'm going to build it, do it, and win this sucker? I'm going to build it and do it was as far as we got. I mean, towards the end, the goal was obviously to finish. But I mean, I will tell you, when we ran into them, when they broke down, was it a mile 34?

Yeah, about mile 34, 35. It took us a while to find them because, again, we're all idiots to this off-road racing thing. So it took us a while to even locate where they were. And when we got there, I was nervous to see him. Like, how's he going to be? What's his mental state going to be? Oh, he had a big grin on his face. He was having a ball. You know, I mean, it didn't face him at all. So mission was not really the goal, just the experience. A lot of people don't understand the responsibility and difficulty of your job of being the chase. So can you break that down a little bit of just how do you, how do you stay in touch? And when something like this happens where he breaks down, you're anticipating him. someplace else and you're going to give him fuel and then all of a sudden he's broken down so you're potentially are backtracking to wherever that is and how do you how do you stay in touch exactly and know exactly where he is well we have satellite phones okay to communicate so so I will say in the beginning when we still had internet connection uh like when we were in Ensenada for example

where we were still at the house we could see every 60 seconds the website would refresh and we could say, okay, they've made it six miles. They've made it 10 miles, you know, and that was great. But as soon as we get out of the city, that's gone. You know, there's, there's no more internet. So at that point, we just kind of had to hope that if they needed us, they would get in touch with us, using sat phones. And then when we got close enough, we could use the radios. All right. And Mike, what happened? You started, you got, you got to the start. you got your your Volkswagen through tech because there's a process so whatever you built somehow you bamboozled them and you got to be an official entrant in the Baja 500 which is no easy feat you've started your very first race and it's a big one oh yeah yeah it was you know tenuous even going through tech and go and getting the chassis inspection like I was I was legitimately worried that I was going to have you know a few days of work to just get that straight but something. how it happened. And so how do they, how do they sort the starting order?

Started by class. So the big trucks and then the big buggies go off first or actually the motorcycles and the four quads go off first and they have about a three hour leg from the trophy trucks. Then the trophy trucks and you know big buggies and slowly, slowly slowly. Fast to slow. Yeah, basically. Fast to slow. Everybody's running running you over from behind. Yeah, you're basically trying to limit on track passing to a minimum because that's a lot of these areas are very tight very narrow single tracks and if you know you have the buggies trying or if you have the big buggies trying to get around class 11s all the time it's just going to lead to problems so we class 11s are the

absolute lowest of the professional level of racers so we're the last to go and for us there were six six class 11 entrance um based upon free finishing in previous events. This year it was the San Felipe 250 determined if you finished or participated you get one of the top slots and then the rest are just a lottery. So I started third in class 11 I think with two guys ahead of me who completed the San Felipe 250. And just just take us through that that exhilarating experience of rolling up to the start line and starting off in your first car race, your first professional event. You know, it's a little bit fun because where they put the start line this year,

because of COVID and everything, it was on this back part of a highway that technically wasn't open yet. So to get there is a long slog. And more importantly, aspects of parking and stopping. It's also very difficult up there. So we made the executive decision to not take the trailer, the truck and trailer up to the start line. Instead, we left from our Airbnb in the Volkswagen Beetle drove it through the Ensenada, stopped for fuel along the way to get up to the racetrack. And that was one of those just like exhilarating fun experiences of driving our fun little race car through the streets of Ensenada, making our way to the start line. Like, it's, it's, It's a weird type of joy and excitement and nerves and everything, you know, to finally eventually

get into the, the pack, a staging pack of just sitting there with all the other class 11 guys. Some people are very stoned face. Some people having a good laugh, you know, some people just walking around, shaking everyone's hand, saying good luck. Like, it's an absolute surreal experience to see, you know, where everyone's head is at prior to this thing. And even especially where mine was at. I was nervous. I was worried. I was, you know, had some degree of optimism trying to maintain my quality attitude.

But at the same time, like, I'm about to participate in this race and this thing that I built in my garage. How did I do? And the start, I believe, was delayed by what was it, at least an hour? Yeah, kind of. We were required to stage up at 1045. But based upon delays and everything along the way, you start when they get to you. You're supposed to be on time and on order, and that never happened. So we didn't get going until like noon. So we were at the staging area for like an hour and a half as I'm just walking circles around trying to contain my nerves, as was everyone else at the time. Did anybody give you any good advice? Was there any sage counsel at this stage in the game like, hey, man, rope a dope, cover up for the first 15 rounds and then come out swinging at the end if there's anybody still in your class?

that actually that's basically it everyone there there's this funny thing that happens with class 11 which is something i didn't fully understand prior to going into this which is they get so much respect from everyone you know like uh you can go back to the dust to glory movie and at the tail end tail end there when they start talking about c11s all the big guys are saying like we're all a little bit crazy but those guys are the real nut jobs and i felt that we were getting respect from all the trophy truck drivers like you guys are the creek for wanting to do this and doing it that way you guys are awesome and they were all very free and open with their advice and help and everything like up until the the day before we had the very well-funded trophy truck drivers like giving us their

GPS maps which is something that they invested well over a hundred thousand dollars into procuring and they're just hand and mock to us, loading it into our GPS machine and saying good luck guys. And then we're finally out to start line, like the best piece of advice that I was getting is, you know, run your race. It doesn't matter what anyone else in your class or other classes are doing. The entire idea for Class 11 is to survive. If you can't go as fast as them, that's fine.

Because if they break, then you get past them, right? Just don't break, don't stop, keep going, and don't let anyone push you into it. don't feel the compelled to stay on the tail of the guy in front of you. Don't be compelled to speed up because there's a guy behind you. Run your race and be calm. And you know, I can take that to the standard piece of racing advice. You can't win a race in the first turn, but you can't lose it.

Right. And that was the other thing. Like, you know, don't get ahead of yourself. The first 10 miles, they are going to be worse than you think. And don't let your vigor get ahead of you and do something stupid. which that being said saw a couple of guys who did exactly that and as i passed them i felt bad and really grateful that it helped me keep my mind straight just be calm run my race and get there well do they put a green flag over your windshield and count down in like five four three two one

and a big you know wave you off or how does the start actually go well that that's pretty much it there's two nice people on either side with a big green flag. And then there's this guy who's just listening to his headphones. He showed you a little hand sign. And then, you know, like the official guy is just there hardly caring. He's just, you know, falling whatever said into his ear. And then there's the two people with flags. So yay, open him up, and then we go.

And who's in the car with you? We haven't talked about your navigator yet. My navigator was a man named Robbie. He was a dude I met at the Hoop de X thing, actually. And yeah, he's from him. Georgia. Okay, so I'm just going to ask you straight up, is that seat open right now? Yes, sir. All right, Slow Baja, we'll be talking about this in the future. I don't know, you haven't listened to any of my podcast, but I've been saying repeatedly, I'm going to get into a class 11 and do it.

Well, it's coming the day that we start prepping for the C-11, we have a lot of seats to fill. For the 500, we had two teams of drivers. For the 1,000, we're going to need at least four. All right. We'll talk about that. Anyways. So, Mike, the green flag drops. Sure. You're doing it. I really do. Did you rev it, dump the clutch, do anything fancy, or did you just put it in gear and take off at a putt putt?

Midway in between. I, yeah, it's one of those things where, you know, I really want to go off and be awesome, but I also don't want to do anything stupid. I don't want to be that guy who stalls on the line. And that's what I was worried about. So I wasn't going to dump the clutch, but I wasn't going to put off. So let's just give it, give it a little bit and get rolling and get going and then, you know, put on a little show. I was mostly just worried about looking stupid. Well, we're not here to talk about me, but I did the La Carrera Pan Americana in 100 horsepower Dotson in 2006 for the first time.

So much like you, no experience, built this car, got down to the, and that race is 2,000 miles. over six days and it starts basically on the Mexico side of the border with Chappas, the Mexico side of the border with Central America. So you're way down there. You've got to tow your thing all the way down and then you race back for six days. Missed qualifying, you know, just total Greenhorn,

don't know what we're doing. So literally, I'm literally starting, whatever, 88th position, last position. And you get up onto the, they have a big ramp that you drive up, like you're in the Monaco Grand Prix or something. And they talk all about, you, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you tell him, introduce your team. And there is,

there is probably a half mile straight away off of this ramp with people standing, cheering you on on both sides. Yep. So you can't help it. You get down this ramp, you know, they pull the green flag off and you get down this ramp, and I'm flat out. And so by the end of this thing, I may be doing 75 miles an hour. And I'm turning into a huge boulevard that goes along the main waterway, the Malacom, we were starting in Veracruz this year. And it's, you know, four lanes, traffic's closed, what have you. There's a police officer. And I just think I'm going to be, you know, put on a little show. Last place. Why not? Put on a little show. I'm just going to slide it sideways through this intersection. And as I get to this intersection, the police officer,

who's directing traffic has just taken a little mental break. And a huge Dodge pickup is driving through the intersection. And we did a full skidding stop and came within a foot of going my front, you know, driver's headlight into his massive passenger tire. And I just find, wow, this thing's kind of dangerous. This is a ceremonial start of a 2,000 mile race. And I've had a nearly had a crash a half mile in. and it just it put me in my place to say enough i mean just just drive slow you're not going to beat

anybody on speed you're only going to beat people who break or crash or whatever and you know so six days later we finished in last place and we beat 19 people who you know blew up or crashed back to you you're doing it you're driving you're you're in motion somebody's calling out the are you looking at it on a screen or is your navigator calling it out to you? He's calling it out to me. We have the, you know, being Baja, the roads, paths, trails that we are on aren't actually map. So we just have GPS coordinates. And along the course, there's little arrows that say kind of turn here, turn there. So my navigator is both working the GPS as well as kind of keeping an eye out for all the arrows. You know, he's looking 2,000 feet up. I'm looking 1,000 feet up. So, you know, that's how we like,

we start out for a four-mile road section before we turn off and he was basically just calling out like stay on here eventually we turn left okay left quarter mile up you know and kind of go from there and at this stage so you've got four miles of pavement as have the guys behind you caught caught you yet um no no one that caught me at that point wasn't until we got onto the dirt section that I got past the first time. But the guy ahead of me did, the guy ahead of me had a much better motor than I did. So he got some legs on me. He was going like probably 70 miles an hour. And I'm just, I'm just, for sure. We're just going to say that. Yeah. I mean, I don't know how fast he was going, but I certainly wasn't going all out, right? I don't want to

redline my motor in fourth gear and blow things up, right? Like, one of the guys who's helped me a lot along the way where the project Baja guys and they have their their worst finish ever was they got down to the 1000 and made it seven miles into it before their car destroyed itself right and like one of my biggest worries is I don't want to destroy everything so quickly right so I was not going to give it full beans on this road section which is just for show and for fun right I just just be calm get to the dirt section now we can start playing around and having things. on. And that wasn't until after that that the next car got around me. And how did that, how did that dirt section feel? The dirt section was fantastic. Actually, the class 11 cars are

built for a specific thing. They are not fast cars. So in order to get around these tracks, they are designed to take a very hard hit. They're designed to take massive bumps. So like the shocks and the springs on these things are absolutely massive. So it feels the absolute best when you are on a bumpy dirt road. So on the roads, they're a little bit finically. They kind of travel in their own particular direction. But when you hit dirt and you start taking those whoops and those bumps, oh, it all just comes to life perfectly. Everything feels great. So when I got to there and we started taking the left and right in the crust and the troughs, oh, it came alive and I was just happy. It was going great.

It just warms my heart. So then tell me when the needle ripped off the record. Ooh, we made it 35 miles. Is Cynthia laughing back there? Yeah, yeah. We made it 35 miles, which was a great section. Is that an hour? Is that an hour and a half? How long is it? I think that one took about an hour-ish. Actually, I honestly don't know. You know what? Don't even quote me on that.

that. My perception of time at that point was completely skewed. It could have been 30 minutes. It could have been two hours. I don't know. I was having fun, but I was also nervous and I was also focused. Time just sort of left me. But we made it to the 35 mile mark and we went through some crazy touring in that. We did the road section. We did the dirt section. We got some whoops. We got some rocks. We got some sand. And eventually we came to a hill climb, which being class 11, We are the most incapable cars out there. And this track most certainly is not designed for our cars in mind. So when you get to some of these sections, there's what we ended up calling an alternative line.

Most cars go this way in the trophy trucks, who cares? But for us little guys, there's a nice little path off to the left that had been carved out. It's just a little bit easier. And in a lot of these sections, you'd come to it. And a group of locals would be standing somewhere and hollering and pointing in one way or the other. And you listen to them. So we came up to this one section. We saw the road going this way. It looked okay. But all of the locals were pointing this way. Okay. So we take the alternative route. And it was a nice, steep little climb. So we had hit it with a bit of gusto.

And we get up to the top and things are just going weird. And we're not making any more forward progress and said now we are going backwards down the hill with no control or anything whatsoever. whatever. We're just sort of along for the ride. I have the brake pedal mashed and yet it's not doing anything. Right. You guys come up running up to the window shouting problema problema and pointing at my wheel. Okay, what's wrong with the wheel? I know it didn't stop me. I shut down the motor and my wheel is on its side. I had broken the top ball joint on my driver's side front wheel and the whole spindle just sort of fell over to be parallel with the ground. And this is why I had no control. I had no brakes. I had no nothing. I was sliding down on that because of that. And this is when like 15 locals

just descended upon my car. The two men who told me I had a problem were just to start. Next, there's a guy with a high lift jack coming running at me. Then we're like, we're on a hill. So there's three guys on the back stacking rocks behind the wheels. Guy gets the jack in there he starts lifting up. Now there's four guys holding up the side of the car, keep it from rocking and rolling. And then there's three guys who jump onto the front wheel and they're starting to figure out the problem. We're to start handing them tools to take off the wheel. They figure out that the problem is a stripped ball joint so they know exactly where on the car to find the parts that they need, which is a new nut and a bunch of washers. And they just go to town. We have 15

people working on this car. Me and my co-driver are just standing around there like taking photos, having a drink of water, just they got this. There was literally nothing that I could do. They had all of this handle. Like it's a, what, a Formula One pit stop at this point with 15 guys working on their car and me just been sitting there picking my nose. It was brilliant. Yeah, actually, one of my internet friends, Louie, a guy who I talk to quite regularly on Instagram, you know, we've become very friendly. We've talked about cars. We talk about class 11 we talk about everything like you know life love happiness and all that good stuff it turns out he was there i broke down at this time where this guy happened to be standing and like you know i'm like

watching all this chaos sort of go on around my car he's like hey mike you you know me right oh my god louis holy yeah right and like and now i'm talking to my friend in real life at the like here happens and said i broke down next to him right how fortuitous is that You know, we can't wait to drive our old land cruiser down to Baja, and when we go, we go with Baja Bound Insurance. Their website's fast and easy to use, Baja Baja Bound insurance, serving Mexico travelers since 1994. So, Mike, the reason I reached out to you was you're aware with all to, your attitude for one, but you're wherewithal to understand that part of the roller coaster that you were on where the wonderful people of Baja do, in and save, you know, saved your, their, your bacon with their bodies.

Yeah. In their efforts. Nobody needed to do it. They all did it. And that's the beauty of that, that place and those people. Yeah, absolutely. So from there, take us to the next part of the roller coaster. So they got all of that fixed up in maybe 10 minutes, right?

Considering the problem, that's impressive. It would have taken me 30. but then they all just started dictating to me. You got to get going back in the car. Ready, we're go. Okay, okay, we get back in the car. There's this F-150 backing down the hill with a toast strap that's now wrapped around my bumper,

who's now telling me up the hill, and we're at the top of the hill. Hazzah. Again, these guys did everything. So it's time for us to get going again, and our bowl joint is bush fixed, which means it can limp us along, not quite greatly.

So we understand that this idea of pacing ourselves has to be slowed down a lot. We know the problem, top front ball joint. We know where it's going to come into issues, which is when the front left wheel comes off the ground. So we have not allowed that to happen. So we're just putting along, putting along, understanding that we need to get with our chase truck in order to get this part actually switched out. And that's kind of one of where the biggest problems came into play.

A miscommunication about localities. We were told that they had an intercept at mile 37. And we were at mile 35. Great. Two miles down the road, we can hit each other. Well, that's where the problem is nodding in the background. Yeah. It's sort of raised.

It wasn't my fault is what I see on her face. Absolutely not. We learned a big lesson at that point, which is one of the more imperative things that we need are matching GPS machines. The exact same make model in the chase truck as well as the chase car. And here's an experience. Let me just say that. Yeah.

And here's an experience on both sides. Go ahead. I'm not your marriage counselor. Yeah. The problem was they did not have an intercept at mile 35, 37. They had an intercept at mile 32, which was actually behind us. So when they said, oh, we're on the track. We're going to be there in 20 minutes.

That was completely wrong. all based around the idea that they did not actually know where they were at. At this part of Baja, there is no cell phone signal. They have old school paper maps that aren't exactly listing roads like we have them here in America. It's just like lines of dirt path going everywhere. So they had a functional misunderstanding of their particular location in regards to the race mile of the track. So we kept going down trying to hit them at 37. We ended up stopping at about mile 38, 39, before we quite realized that they're actually pretty far behind us.

And we absolutely need to allow them to catch up with us in order to get this, the whole thing, fixed. And from my perspective, we were at this particular stop when there were a bunch of other people there. And we could see the cars going through. He positioned ourselves in such a way like there's no way that they're going to miss us. You know, if we, if they come through here, they will see us and they will stop. We had like fuel ready to go. We were ready. And then all of a sudden, another chase truck pulls up and says, hey, we saw your guys.

We said, what do you mean you saw our guys? They came through here a while ago, man. They're down there. What do you mean they're down there? So that's when the chase, like the literal chase started happening because every person we ran into, we would say, hey, have you seen this car? You know, we have the logo on the side of the chase truck. And they say, oh, yeah, they're about five miles down. So we go along and the roads are all starting to look the same out there.

You know, the trails, I should say, are all starting to look the same out there. And every person we ran into, they're, oh, they're five miles that way. How can they always be five miles that way? So that's like Mike is saying, our biggest problem was trying to locate them. And so finally when we did, it was a relatively quick pit stop. But actually getting to them was a real challenge. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, I'm just going to say, Cynthia, you had the hardest job and your job is the thankless job because you can even if you're pre-positioned and perfectly in place when they roll through, that's what the expectation is. Yeah. So even if you do that, that's because everybody else was doing it. It was a big problem. Right. But really, you did that.

I was in the chase truck with the other team of drivers. So the other driver and the other navigator were in the truck with me. And once we started getting into the gnarly mountain passes, I turned to one of the Georgia boys and I said, please have at it. Now, please take the wheel. This is, again, this is not my realm at all. And so he said, okay. And so in the end, he ended up saying he had a great time because he got to do a bunch

of off-roading and a Toyota Tacoma. So that was good. well Mike pick it up pick it back up you got the piece you fix the ball joint yep yeah we just said out we had it pre-packaged on a spare beam that we had we just took out the swing arm put in the new swing arm and we were back to go which is you know second lesson learned which is we need those pieces in the race car ready to go you know lessons learned well um we were waiting for how to have been about an hour for them to get there you know something like that it took some time. So after that, we got going again and we made it another 10, 12 miles down the road

before, like, we started noticing that something was off. Like the motor was just losing power. We were bogging down. I'd hit the gas and it just wasn't giving it to me. We'd get to low RPMs and it's wanting to stall. Not great. Eventually, we had come to this, one of the downfalls with a class 11 was when you get to deep sand. You know, it's like trying to run through the far end of the beach. It just sort of sucks you in, takes all the power to get through it. And we just didn't have it, which was weird, right? So moral of the story there, the motor was acting off. So we took a stop on the side of the road to kind of see what was happening, popped open the hood of the car and see a few things seem to be off. For one, the alternator pulley seems to have a weird shimmy to it.

right so we stop the motor and we see that the belt is now upside down so quick diagnosis found out like the the volkswagens have two plates that make up the alternator pulley and the they're kind of keyed so the rear one can't disassociate itself from the front one well it did it had honed itself circular and now it's just wobbling around at will not a good day so we kind of adjusted that up with another bush fix we have these really thick zip ties with us put one of those in there, rammed it down, and it seemed to do okay, but it didn't solve our problem. So at that point, we kind of realized it's a fuel delivery problem, and the problem is in our carburetor. So my co-driver, Robbie, started digging into the carburetor, opened up the float and see that there's a lot of sediment in the float bowl, which is not supposed to happen.

So through some other quick diagnostics, kind of realizes that we have a contaminated system and that our throttle jet or whatever is completely clogged up. We're not getting fuel to the motor, which is leading to what our bogg in situation is. So at this point, the carburetor is off the car. Right. You know, we're in the middle of the desert in the middle of a sandpit. I'm ice shirts off acting out as like the tablecloth while he field strips the carburetor to every last bit in piece, cleaning it all out as best as he possibly can.

right we had again come every single piece of it apart which is something you don't normally do yeah and you've got a little in-car toolkit or something but you don't have you know spare jets and a bunch of other stuff right correct i mean we have our full toolkit but you don't expect this to happen or if your carburetor we didn't have in a chase truck a full secondary ready to go carburetor slap on slap off slap on and get going again but you expect carburetors problems to take a while to manifest to the point that you'll know at the next pit stop, something's off, let's just switch it out to be safe. It's sort of having a bit more sudden than that. So we were sort of left in this bind to rebuild this thing in the middle of a race,

which again is pretty crazy. So Mike, I'm going to have to ask you to put it in high gear now and bring us, bring us home to the, we've been clicking up this roller coaster and we've got to get to the top now and go flying down because I'm I'm I need to hear it I apologize so I'm on the edge of my seat we made it through there uh we got the thing all put back together we got clip back in we got going down the road again and if you listen to any of my um Instagram stories you know that we ended up making it to mile 54 which was 10 miles down the road from the carbureator problem we ran into a hill a pretty gnarly hill that's made up of that loose shaley rock that once you get onto it, it breaks apart and kicks backwards. So grip was a massive problem. We got to this hill,

addressed it, saw that it big, took it as best we can, and didn't even make it halfway up. We were down on power. It was too steep. Things just weren't going well. So it's another one of the situations where the Honda device gets a little moaning because we're backing up, back and down this hill all the way down. Find a nice flat spot and just give it the full beans. Gas to the floor, hit this the best we can do all that's in this car we broke the front shock hitting something so hard trying to get up this and we added an extra three feet to what we did the first time right so we push this catapult yeah we push this thing beyond its limits trying to get the momentum for this hill and we didn't make it at which point me and my co-driver are just staring at this hill like well

this is the line we are on the line the best that we can be best of we possibly take this hill and we didn't get it. Okay, okay. One last time, I let Robbie, my co-driver, take over, get you all the way down, all the way back, all the way up there. Just do all that you can. And he did. I mean, mind you, we had one shock on the car. We're acting Pierce Springs right now. We're just trying to get further up this thing. Are you in the car or out of the car? I'm out of the car. I'm now coaching left, right, straight, anything. You're given direction. Yeah. And. he made it six foot past me, which is not even halfway up this hill.

Right? As we're out of the car. Your weight was out of the car. Yeah. At this point, like, we just gave it literally everything. And as we're out of the car, we can see we're halfway up this thing. That's the time that we called it. We kind of realized with the car being down, the suspension being broken, all of these little

problems that we have, we can't make this thing without some assistance. we got to pack it in. With a quick call to the chase team, they were much further down the hill or much further waiting for us at RM70, which is where the trail intersects with the road. We were supposed to meet there, kind of pass a few things off, but they got bored and started trying to find us. So it kind of turned out that we just needed to be plucked out. They come out with the chase truck, and the road that they had to take was not easy in and of itself.

It is one of the most more terrifying aspects of off-roading that you can do, going down these loose hills and someone else's truck and all that good stuff. At sunset. With the trailer, or do you just have like a tow bar? No trailer, just toe straps. Okay. So it's just the truck out there with a toe strap to kind of pull us out. And eventually they get there, and eventually we need. And eventually we get everything kind of set together.

And it's just the truck pulling us out, right? They had to take us about five miles through this crazy mountain hill climb section. So we get to this part where like sort of plateaued, just a nice lovely flat spot. We get up to the top of the flat spot and we all kind of acknowledge that like our race is over, right? At which point the two co-drivers, the two young guys decide that they just want to have a bit of fun, right? car's not going anywhere, whatever. So with the alternator pulley kind of had its problems again, right? Our bush fix sort of fell apart.

So they just cut the belt to the alternator pulley. Your Volkswagen guy, you know that the alternator shaft controlled more than just the alternator, but also the internal cooling fan. Secondly, seeing that this was operating purely on battery, the decision was made by the other driver, Charlie, that we need to save power so they cut the wire to the external oil cooler fan. And when then the boys jumped in and decided to redline the motor for the entirety of this straightaway section, going 60 miles an hour, until the motor blew.

Oil everywhere, smoke coming out, we finally catch up to them. They have fire extinguishers in hand. So they blew the motor having a bit of fun. at which point we are 70 miles from Ensenada. We're given the opportunity to either flat-toe this thing at about 20 miles per hour into Ensenada or just leave it here. We'll go grab the trailer. We'll pick it out and get home, right? So that was our decision there.

Again, at the end of a long day, a hard-fought day with much confusion, much problems, much everything, we weren't exactly thinking straight. So when we decided to leave this thing on the side of the road, first problem, we thought that the worst case scenario is someone's going to go rifling through it and take away anything that is valuable. So we took out all the valuables, all the tool, the GPS machine, personal effects and items, and the Stella unit, which is the score mandated GPS locator system. That you've put a deposit on, of course. $1,000, yeah. It didn't want to read that into your car. Yeah, okay. Yeah.

That's what would have allowed somebody to say, hey, I know exactly where your car is, Mr. Yep. When we get to the next part of this story, which is sad to say. When we got back there, the car was not there. Somebody with the trailer got there for. It was a couple hour round trip to get to Ensenada

and back to the car, you know, to pick up the trailer and all that stuff. And the car was just gone. Our quick little detective works says that we can see tire tracks going that way, that we can see remnants of our car that they just sort of took off for their own duty and it wasn't there and that way was off into the back parts of nowhere there's not much in between ensanada and san felipe and it went straight into it so we drove around for a bit of time just sort of peering in bushes

behind buildings all that we could but we didn't expect much at that point because there's 10,000 square miles that it could be. And they have quite a head start on us wherever it may or may not be going. More so than that, in that area, there's no cell signals available. There's no anything available. So we couldn't even get like a call out to our team that something had been amiss. Right. They're just lost in the win at this way as well.

Eventually we found our way to a store and I had like one tiny little bar of a cell signal that on the fifth try, I was capable of getting a call out. and inform the rest of the team that we have a problem of a missing Volkswagen Beetle. And luckily, they got to work. They started making calls to score, making calls to locals, making calls to anyone they could.

But it's like three or four in the morning. It was three in the morning about that point. And no one's answering their phones. No one's getting anything. We're leaving voicemails. And that's literally the best that we could do at that very moment, which is disheartening.

And us being stranded out in the desert, given the opportunity of searching Nowheresville, we decide that the best case of action would just be to go back to Ensenava and hope that some of the right people are the ones that procured this car. Right. So we get back to the Airbnb. We're still just left in voicemail land and achieving nothing. And we just sort of pack it in. I was quite disheartened, having been up for 20, some odd hours at that point, I just emotionally couldn't take any more of it, and I just went off to bed, wake up and new the next day and start making calls when people are willing to answer. So, you know, 8 a.m. the next morning is when we're up and we're starting to run everything else,

right? We're contacting the police. We're making more calls to score, more calls the locals, more getting everything out. It's at that point. And overnight, my wife decided, to or my wife made a Instagram video for us just stating post. Yeah, Instagram post. Thank you. Just stating exactly what's going on. You know, car missing, need your help. Please be on the lookout. And overnight, it got some legs, right? There's a lot of people involved and invested in the Baja racing. And this thing was shared and reshared and further shared. And it really started traveling. And it was going everywhere. And we, we, we we kept sort of hustling this, give it as much as it could. And even like the Mexican audience,

right, these great people that had saved my car off the side of the road, they translated everything, put it on to the Baja post of Facebook, of Instagram, of Craigslist of everywhere else. And it kept going and going and going. It was amazing. Including the lady who owned our Airbnb. She came in and she called 911 for us. She translated everything for us. She plays a huge part in this too. Wow. Yeah. So finally it kind of came around.

Yeah, the next morning, as this thing was still making the rounds, we were working with the police to kind of file the appropriate claims. We had heard back from score, and none of the good people had procured this, right? The car is literally in the wind. Somewhere around noon, I think it was. By the craziest of circumstances, this one kid, Mitsu. who lives in the back parts of nowhere in Baja, drove past my car,

then made it to the store, pull open Facebook, saw a post, and then was bold enough to put his name and number out into the world, at which point other persons who somehow knew me or talked to me had contacted him and kind of ran everything around. Like there's a dozen different go-betweens here because there was a massive,

of language barrier that I could not jump. But it gets to me, Mitsu, knows where my car is, saw it this morning. Car has been located. It's broadly regarded as okay. And we can make this work. Awesome. All I've been waiting all day for. Lucy had gotten into contact with him on our behalf to figure out the location of the car, the location he is at. Well, the car was off in a ditch in a field off the highway. Like there's no physical address for a ditch off a field in the middle of the desert. So kind of came to the agreement that we're going to meet Mitsu at his house because he actually gets a cell phone signal there. And then he's going to show us where the car is. So Lucy worked all this out for us. And we had... You know from your B&B, right? Yes, exactly. Yeah.

The lady... now and your fixer as well as your landlord. Yeah. It feels terrible about what we would have. Our translator, our goal between our fixer and our landlord. Yeah. I mean, how amazing is this? Yeah. The other thing that I want to state here is through all this stuff, this crazy, awful experience that you had, somewhere you had the wherewithal to make another post that said, Hey, listen, you know, the people of Baja are still wonderful. This horrible thing has happened to me. And you found it somewhere inside your soul, inside your humanity to say,

listen, I'm angry at the people who did this. But let's talk about all the other people who are amazing. So as we were still at the house in the morning, I had gotten a lot of messages and comments and things from people. some of which had expressed some fairly negative views about the dark side. Yeah, I saw the dark side of opinions of the people and the nation and the place of Mexico and Baja. And I was unappreciative of that. I absolutely do not hold those beliefs at all because at the same time as this nasty thing is happening to me,

I'm also being expressed with the most glorious sides of all. these men who help me for no reason at all get back into the race, these people who are helping me contact all of these people. These people are helping to share everything. I am being given the best representation of Baja and the Baja people you could ever imagine because some idiots decided to grab a car and go for a run. Right? Like I feel absolutely no ill will to the place of Mexico

and more would I expect this type of thing to ever happen again. because what I have also been shown is that these are absolutely the best people I have ever met, especially in retrospect at the end of the story, to think back of how many people went so far out of their way and donated so much of their time and energy to help us out through all of this. I mean, it's a level of hospitality that I would not ever even expect to get from, you know, your finest of Southern gentlemen. This type of assistance to some random stranger

is not anything you will ever get from an American. And yet I had hundreds of people assisting me along the way. Dozens of people who were putting through immense amounts of efforts just to give me a hand, to help me find my car, to translate, to go between, do anything. They were absolutely amazing people. And I don't want to hear anything but this. right we can let some people can let the actions of one or two people dictate the life of a thousand

but instead i saw the gratefulness or i am grateful because i saw how wonderful a thousand people are and i'm not going to let that perspective be diminished by two yeah these guys you know go off do your thing man but i see the true nature of the mexican people the bahawk people and that's what really matters. Even now, I'm still getting messages. I'm so sorry that happens to you. That's a bad representation. I carry nothing but the greatest of memories of the people of Baja because they are truly the best people I have ever met in my life. Before we say, I should say right now, we're going to leave it right there, but I'm going to not say that again, and I really appreciate you, your attitude and you're making some time for me,

slow ball. You don't know anything about me. And I'm just delighted that you're here on the show, telling the listeners about it all. Cynthia, I appreciate you immensely for chiming in. And please come on back up here. You're in Southern California. The VW made its way to Warrior Made. I already saw that. What else has happened to you since you brought your car back? It was missing tires and a few other things. You can tell us quickly about what was missing and how you got the thing back and now where it is and what's in your immediate future. Well, we picked it up out of the desert with very much of the help of the police officers of Heroes de Independenceia, which I think is how you say that.

My Spanish is really bad. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So eventually we got it back up here. And as you say, it was missing a few parts. The thieves did not know anything about race cars. And I'm pretty sure hardly knew anything about Volkswagen. They took the four wheels and tires off, as well as the lights, which two of those were quality.

Two of those were harbor freight nothingness. And they took the battery, right? So all things considered, they took the cheap stuff, which is fantastic. Like if they actually knew what they were doing, I could be in a very bad position, having a very bad day. But they took the cheap crap. I'm okay with that. I mean, minus like the quality lights, which is where, we get back to after this. Like I've had so many people chime in, reach out, asking to help out,

kind of get this thing back. Apparently something that I did and somehow that I still don't understand my attitude has impressed a few people. Yeah, I really, I genuinely don't understand it. You know, it's another argument that, or not argument, another debate like we've been having. the opinions people I've expressed to me of myself are not the qualities that I would define myself with. Like earlier today, people were saying, wow, you're such a badass. Like, no, I'm not. I'm just an idiot.

Man, you have so much integrity. Really? Okay. So something that's happened here that, like, one of the first things that I did is the quality lights that I have, I really spent a significant amount of time. finding because I'm cheap. Also, I am thrifty, cheap, however you want to say that I, I shopped around hard to find a good deal on quality lights. And there was this company, GG lighting. Like I legitimately love their stuff. And I had plans to come here, very first thing,

grab some of these lights because shipping and handling is a lot to get out to Florida. So my plan was to kind of go home to Florida with as many bits as possible. But then, he sort of reached out to me and said, he wants to make me whole again. I'll happily take him up on the offer. So he replaced the lights that were stolen, except the ones I had were two generations ago because I bought them used. Again, I'm cheap. And he got brand new bits on there, which is awesome.

And now I have, you know, I'm getting together with Mbby this weekend. And I'm getting together like, people are reaching out to get this thing back together. Like, this has now become as much as. it was an intellectual group effort to get this car running and racing, this is becoming even more of a group effort to get this thing back in the races. I have so many people that want to see me at the Baja 1000 that at this point I personally cannot disappoint them. B, if I need absolutely any help in any which way whatsoever, all I have to do is ask and I can have a dozen people even flying out to Florida to get me going there.

This is now no longer just my idiot racing class 11 race car. This is the Volkswagen and C-11 world's class 11 race car, the vehicle of the idiots that everyone's going to help put together and we're going to get this thing going again. So life, as they can say, has taken a really strange turn that I'm still trying to figure out how that all works. But I'm not mad at it. Well, if Cynthia will come back on for the last 30 seconds here, I'd love to hear, I'd love to hear your take on it, Cynthia. Just, I mean, like, give, what do you say? You're a few days past it now. How do you process the whole thing? It's not my experience to process. I mean, you know, for it, this is all Mike's world. I'm just along for the ride in many ways. One thing I am trying to do, though, in terms of processing is to help him get,

exposure, you know? I mean, that's what's led to all these blessings that have come to us since this race finished, you know, from getting the car back. And literally people, random people on the highway as we're driving north back into the state waving, saying like, yes, that's that key. I mean, we're cool. I like that. Yeah, I mean, people literally recognized us on the way up. And, you know, he got interviewed by the San Diego News. I mean, he's so much coverage. And so, I mean, I think we're all just kind of, we're just like gripping the handlebars holding on tight right now. And I don't think it's going to hit us until we get back to Florida, how crazy this, this week, you know, this whole journey has been. You know, I need to highlight that aspect of crazy. I've been saying that I need to take the time to write this thing down because so much has happened, I feel I'm already forgetting a lot of it.

Right. It's just so many little things and larger things and craziness and helping out for something. and everything. I'm already losing some of the memories of it because literally so much has happened and I don't have the capacity to store that much. And that's what I think is the most terrible shame. I'm always going to remember those guys just standing on my car, right? But I'm not always going to remember those awesome tacos that I had or all those people who like smiled and waved at me as I went by just cheering the fact that this thing came home. And that's what I want to remember. Yeah, there's not a lot of places you can get that. Baja. is you found the place, buddy.

Yeah, great place. I will absolutely always be back. Well, tell us where people can continue to follow the story and get in touch with you if they have something that they feel like they need to share with you. What's the best way? The biggest and best way is just go through Instagram, idiot.orgian.

I also have a website, idiotracing.com. That's where kind of everything gets put together. And you can reach out to me directly on Instagram and it's a nice and convenient place to see where I'm going, what I'm doing, and as well as message me directly, just the way you did. All right, man. Well, I appreciate Cynthia. Thanks for sharing some of your experience with us.

I look forward to seeing you in Baja in September for the 1000. And best of luck to Idiot Racing. Thank you, sir. We can use all the luck we can get. Thanks, buddy. Slow Baja's wardrobe is provided by Taylor Stitch. responsibly built for the long haul, Taylor Stitch makes clothes that wear in, not out. Wherever your adventure takes you, Taylor Stitch has you covered.

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