Slow Baja - Mad Dogs and English Bikes -Racing Vintage Dirt Bikes with Hayden Roberts Scott Toepfer and Joy Lewis

Episode Date: January 5, 2021

Happy New Year! Thanks for tuning into Slow Baja. As I prepare for the upcoming Baja XL Rally, I wanted to share one of my favorite podcasts initially released in May last year. This podcast is very dear to my heart and was transformational for me in many ways. I want to thank Joy and Hayden for opening their home to me, and I was delighted that Scott braved a rainy morning on his old BSA to join us. As you will hear, the conversation was free-flowing and full of laughter. Joy owns the second half of the show, and I’m sorry that she wasn’t there for the entire conversation. My man, Christopher Keiser of Kaffeinated Films, deserves an Academy Award for Sound Mixing for his work on this recording. Hayden Roberts and Scott Toepfer race vintage British Dirt Bikes in endurance offroad events like the NORRA Mexican 1000, NORRA Baja 500, and The Mint 400. Roberts, originally from England, is a fixture in the Southern California Motorcycle scene. He crafts and customizes bikes at his shop Hello Engine, in Santa Paula, California. Toepfer, a lifestyle-photographer with a specialty in motorcycles, met Roberts on a motocross exposition in Japan. They have been fast friends -racing, wrenching, and traveling on their desert-sleds ever since. In this conversation, we learn the meaning of “Only mad dogs and Englishmen.” Hear stories of swapping motors on the beach, sleeping in the dirt, and surviving a sting from a dreaded stingray. Joy Lewis joins the conversation midway and recounts an epic night of worry from the 2015 NORRA Mexican 1000. Hayden’s GPS position had stopped suddenly. Did he crash? Was he injured, or worse? They were hours away and had no way to contact him. As she searched for information and tried to summon help -one grizzled Baja racer (jokingly) suggested that he was “shacked up with a local senorita, and in nine months -another Baja rider would be born!” The next morning, Joy found him, tired but well-fed. He had slept on the dirt right where his motorcycle broke down. In the middle of the night, somebody covered him with a blanket and left a plate of food. He woke to “half the village checking to see that he was all right.” Soon he was nursing a carton of milk and teaching a group of elementary school children about England. After rebuilding his engine during a sandstorm in Bahia de Los Angeles, Hayden jumped into the water to clean up and was promptly stung by a stingray. Joy became his nurse, and they fell in love over a cup of hot tea. Prompting Joy to say, “the stars are brighter, and the tacos are better in Baja.” I heartily agree! Check out Hello Engine here. Check out Scott Toepfer here. Joy Lewis Instagram NORRA Mexican 1000 here.

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. Sitting here, Slow Baja podcasting with Scott Tuffer and Hayden Roberts in Santa Paula in a rainy day. just going to talk about bikes and Baja and desert sleds and wherever this goes.

It sounds good. Yeah, thanks for having us. Yeah, well, I really appreciate you guys making an effort to get together on a rainy day with these crazy life events that are going on right now. Coronavirus, everybody hunkering down. We're drinking tea and sitting in separate rooms. Yeah, joy's out picking up tacos for us and we're just going to talk for a bit. Yeah, it's a great time for radio.

Great time for you. Right, right. Settle in. as we become socially distant. Hey, so let's talk about, I ran into you guys at the Baja, the Mexican Nora, Mexican 500. They call it the Mexican 500? Ran into you guys at the Nora Baja 500, and you guys were on, I think, the only things that were older than my old land cruiser. Yeah, we're both on what mid-60s bikes, triumph.

I was on a triumph, Scott was on a base. Yeah, the poor BSA. 67 and a 68, as I recall. Was that right? Somewhere around there, yeah. I forget now. And the Hornets is 67. I think that's what we...

It's sort of a hornet. It's sort of a spitfire. Yeah, the vintage box that gets so broken, it's just kind of a constant replacement. I don't know what year it is anymore. But it's a triumph still. Well, it looks old, which I think is important. Yeah. The suspension is old.

Yeah. And you guys are not that old. And it just amazed me. I just looked past a sea of, you know, new stuff that's not interesting to me at all, other than Michelle Bush standing behind her husband on that bike. Whatever their deal is, that's just, I love it, but that just seems crazy to have your wife standing behind you on a bike. I did two-up with my wife on my old BMW parry-de-car when we were just dating, and I thought, wow, this is terrible. I did two up with joy to Ohio on the back of a BMW, and she had never gone on the back of a bike again.

I mean, it's as funny as it is, they're like the coolest couple in the world and we're, you know, never think that they'd be terribly fast because how could you go fast two up on a dirt bike? And they passed me like I was standing still. It was a feat. I mean, you know, saying like you ride with your partner. Michelle's waving to you. Yeah, she waves at us and she's screaming. Yeah, you can hear that voice. I bet.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Three dunes away. Yeah, she tells us, oh, we're going to let you guys pass us so that we can see your ride. and they didn't, I mean, it maybe saw me ride for a quarter of a corner and then just shot rocks at me. It was great. I love them. Yeah, no, it's funny. A minute in, we're talking about the craziness of Michelle standing on the back of the bike and her enthusiasm and her voice. It's just so, it's just so wonderful.

Which I think gets me to the next point about just Baja and people who go to Baja to do things. I mean, Baja is special. It's funny because it's so close and it's so accessible. mean, if you live in the southwest, but even anywhere in the United States, it's very easy to get to Baja, yet I don't understand why there's like a threshold or a sort of. Yeah, we were saying we did the mint last week in Vegas, and we could have been in Ensenada in exactly the same amount of time. Yeah.

And it made more of an adventure out of it. Yeah, it's a special place. I mean, it's, and it's funny because it really is, I mean, it's California as well. we know it just without all the people. And it's just a different, it's a different world. But it attracts, it attracts people that are one notch away from like the, you'd say like the mainstream or whatever it is, the normal. Like I live in the suburbs.

So, you know, there's, there's people that love their suburban life and keep it simple. And then there's the people that are one notch removed from that. And they love Mexico. And like, so on my neighbors, like, you just know them. You know people that when you meet them. You're like, yeah, you're a Baja person because you just, you know, like it in a way. Yeah, I'd never been down there. I mean, the first time I've lived in California now, in California for 20 years and coming

out from England. And I'd never been to Mexico until I did the, the 1,000, the first one. That was your first time? That was the first time, Mexico. What year was that? That was 2015. Yeah, I think so. So 2016.

Again, on a triumph, and a few of us went and tried it. And never in New Mexico, I've never been to Mexico. And I got stranded down in Sanamara, I don't know. Sandin, Sanita, I don't know, somewhere, I can't pronounce. Bike broke. And I got stranded next to a village for about 22 hours or something out of radio contact. Sleep next to the bike. Woke up three in the morning.

Somebody put a blanket on me. And, you know, they've been a little pain of an internet. something, got up in the morning, the whole freaking village had turned out. I had more breakfast than I could eat. I think they found me about 12 hours after this, and I was in a school teaching an English class to the local kids, and they were feeding me like cartons and milk. It was pretty good down there. I love Mexico. So I think, again, the reputation that Mexico struggles with is just It's dangerous and the people are, you know, cartels and you're going to be hanging from a light post before you know it. But here you are broken down.

Now, had you had any other vehicle besides a British bike, you probably would have had a local that would have offered you a way to fix it or something. Oh, for sure. Yeah, yeah. But that, you know, somebody brought you a blanket. Somebody brought you food. And, you know, before you're out of there, you're in the local schoolhouse teaching is kind of a real comment on what the real Baja is. is like. And I think that's a thing that's what half of my draw to that place is the people, they live with less. Life is harder. They're friendly. You know, they're not inside air conditioning

watching a flat screen. They take care of each other. They do take care of each other because, you know, they need to. Yeah. I mean, I went to college in San Diego, and so I had Mexican roommates. and I mean, you get to hang out with Abolita and she would make you tacos and we would have these great park visits and all these things. And that was my first like real, like authentic introduction to it, you know, to the culture. And it's like the sweetest thing in the world. And Baja, we went to Baja a few times in the early 2000s and it was great. Like the college dropped you off. You went and partied and college picked you up and brought you back.

And then that kind of went away over the last, you know, the last, you know, last few years. But, you know, my stance on a lot of places is if you're looking for trouble, it's pretty easy to find, you know. So in Baja's no different than that. But if you really get into, you know, the day-to-day lives of people and their families, like they're all the sweetest people. And just like here, if you saw someone stranded, actually, maybe even more so in Mexico, if you see someone stranded, people help. It's very easy to pass by people here. You had no I'm there about the police and stuff down there, which is where I always kind of stayed away from riding bikes down there. The first guy to come over was a cop and he's like, well, I've got whatever it was. He's like, you're welcome to take whatever parts off here.

Finish the race. Yeah. Yeah. No problems down there with them. Yeah. So, thinking back on your mention of the police, Baja Excel, I'm in my old land cruiser. We've got us. We're on the very end, hour 15 of the 16 hour day, you know, got lost. out in the middle of the night, driving around. We're on a paper map with headlamps, you know. And we finally found the town that we were supposed to be in. And we had a hotel, which was awesome after being in a Land Cruiser for the whole day.

So we weren't camping with the rest of the group, but we couldn't find the hotel. And so at 3 o'clock in the morning, there's a police officer. And after we circled his police station for the third time, he walked out and waved to us. And we pulled in and, like, you know, you don't really want to. talk to a cop at 3 o'clock in the morning in a little town after you've been driving you know forever and you're just thrashed but we told him the name of the hotel and he got in his car and we followed him and we're down this dirt road and all this I thought oh no now we're going to get robbed you know shot up at the end of the your mind goes to these definitely been there

yeah yeah and the cop pulls up and it's this it's this little hotel beautifully done architecturally significant hotel and it's on a river which feeds into the ocean and people go there basically for whale watching so it's remote from the actual town it's out a couple miles out out on a dirt road and the

cop went in and woke up we thought he was the security guard turns out it's the owner who's been sleeping at his desk waiting for us to arrive right it's three something in the morning and the cops waking him up and he shows us to our room and you know we had a double fort-a-lasea hit the hay and that same owner is

up four hours later making us breakfast. Like, it's nothing. Like, hey, guys, hey, and thanks for sending these other racers to my hotel and sending me some business. He couldn't have been nicer. Yeah, same thing. And I'm sorry, I'm terrible with names of villages. And Scott probably knows about me.

When the first of the thousand, we got the first night, going in late, he was a late start. And same thing, no hotel. We was playing on sleeping in a dirt lot. And the same thing, a policeman came off. I was like, I know a guy who's got a guest house. Do you want to use it? Took us around the corner. And I remember he took us in this back room and he looked like in 1980s like Laura Ashley

catalog in this. You never seen so many floral prints. It's a nicest thing. And the guy goes to send me up in the morning. I think there was three of us. There's a whole head. I think he charges 40 bucks or something for the night and breakfast. And he, you know, didn't even want to take that.

I think we just added in our pockets. But yeah. Yeah, the propensity for people to be. you know, sweet is, is actually pretty incredible. I mean, we're, we're often, it's easy for, for us to, you know, default to scared. I don't want to do that, you know. And so just to, like, take a step into something that's a little uncomfortable, I think it goes a long way and you realize that it's, it's a very open culture, especially, I mean, especially Baja. Like, everyone's just, you know, it's beautiful. Like you said, they, they live on less and they're happy with what they have

and they're sweet when you come in and, you know, it's being respectful goes a long way, you know, on both sides. And I think it's, it's created a really sweet atmosphere for racers when we go down there because it's high fives and jokes with kids. And if you can speak a little bit of Spanish, like it's always good for a laugh. Yeah, yeah, throw a few stickers in your pockets. Yeah, the stickers thing's incredible. The sticker thing's big.

I love the stickers. I was that kid. You know, I went into surf shops. I went into motorcycle stores, begs. And for stickers, you know, probably stole a couple stickers off of jackets. You can leave off stickers in bar. You fill pockets full of stickers. It's as good as dollars.

Yeah. It's been very stark to see you. Yeah, that's the best. Well, let me back up a little bit and say, how do you two know each other? And how did you come to devoting your life to these old British bikes? And you refer to them as, tell me how you refer to these bikes. Desert Sleds, British Bikes. What's your, what's your show?

shorthand for what you do. Yeah, I think that the ones for, I mean, they're all old British bikes, triumphs, Beard Sayes, mainly. But yeah, they're all, what everybody's called them, desert sleds. They're just old, what was a dirt bike in the 60s, you know, pre-Japanese, Hondas, you know, big boars, that kind of thing. Just open twin desert bikes, really to strip down, it is a stripped down version of the road bike, you take the lights off, throw along a shock on, and a set of,

you know, motorcross tires and big comfy seats and you got a dirt bike. And a skid plate. And it's definitely a skid plate, yeah. Yeah,

skid plate, especially in the Baja. And high pipes, I'm assuming you, at some point somebody made higher pipes for these things and got them off. At some point,

yeah, I mean, yeah, a bit of grain clearance. It was really a California thing. They're very like gentlemanly British bike. What you think of like

the classic Triumph Bonneville. You don't think of a dirt bike, but he got to California and quickly realized. that they work real well and they're pretty bullyproof. So we're looking at the bike in your living room.

So let's talk about what number 16 is here in your living room, Hayden. So number 16 is a 1960 triumph TR6, which is just a single-carb version of the Bonneville. And it belonged to a guy called Buck Smith. It was kind of one of the top guys of the time, won a couple of national championships.

and I just found it in a barn down in Beverly Hills of all places and it's just not been tutts since I think 65 but yeah it's got every trick in the book on it like if you could make a works it's the equivalent of a works bike for 1960 it's got every little modification from rake in the forehand what dealership did that bike come from this was from Johnson Motors which was the the import of all triumphs to the west coast up until they closed you know from from the inception really uh and yeah so that i just kind of make copies of that

with a few little you know modern conveniences electronic ignition uh being being one of the biggest kind of upgrades and the new carbs and that kind of thing but ultimately it looks very much like a bike that would be raced the one i take to buy a whole all the time looks very much like a bike that be raced in 6566 yeah and when you know it answer the other part of your question because i mean hayden's really the expert on the the bikes and i pretty much learned anything and everything about these from him we i think we met on our trip to japan yeah again for old bikes yeah with old bikes you know this is what 2000 12 13 something like that yeah we went to we got invited um or we actually we kind of put together a big group of friends to go

to Japan and race on like a vet motorcross track. And I brought an old, like I think a first year Evo sportsster with 15 inch rear shocks and stock front end and race on a motocross track, which didn't fare well to say to say the least. I did really, I did really well in practice until we raced. And as Hayden can attest, I don't do well in races because I'm more competitive than skilled. And so, but I had, I had pictures of Hayden. Hayden racing on the triumph.

And I'd owned an old BSA. Never really got too far into it. But then after we got back from Japan, I'd been getting more into Flat Track, and I bought my first flat track bike from Hayden. I think it was either the day after Christmas or something, maybe the following year. Yeah, I treated myself. Yeah, I'm really good at that. You can ask my wife.

I'm great at treating myself. to motorcycles in lieu of anything else. And you're your tax right off, baby. I got a tax write off. Yeah, you know, yeah, working in the motorcycle industry. I definitely have written off a couple props. And so I got into, you know, so Hayden and I kind of got into that. And I think when we became, we became better friends when he started coming up and hanging

out with Joy, who is a mutual friend and now Hayden's wife. And Joy kind of just, you know, you. you know, brought us together in like a more of a hanging out thing because Hayden moved out from Los Angeles and I joined. I lived down the street from each other at the time. Ventura, right? In Ventura, yeah. And we're in Santa Paula. We're in Santa Paula now, yeah.

20 miles. 20 miles from Ventura. Yeah, 20 miles from Ventura. Quick farm road ride, which is how I got here today. Yeah, in the citrus orchards, it's all like sunkies country, I think. Yeah. It's pretty, it's all agriculture. It's pretty neat around here.

You've got the mountains 10 minutes away. and there's a little backroads to go and playing. So, yeah, so I mean, over the past few years, you know, Hayden's been, Hayden's been building these bikes for himself for a long time. And, you know, he and I have a mutual friend and old dealership guru, mechanic named John, that we had both worked with kind of separately. And then now we, you know, kind of build and work on these things together. And I think I went, our group of friends that went down and did Baja the first time for the

1000, for the Nora 1000, I drove chase and took pictures and kind of got the bug. I was like, okay, I get what you guys are doing on this. And slowly I've been doing less flat tracking and trying to chase Hayden around in the desert and the riverbeds out here. Yeah, there's nothing more fun than, I think about one of these. It's almost like a vintage Dill Sport. There's nothing you really can't do on them. you know, little file trails and stuff up in the mountains is the perfect bike for it. And so they just shoot bar how so well that the vintage class would be real.

You know, if you could get 15 guys in that vintage class on all British bikes, it'd be a hell of a sight. Yeah, and people give us a, it's funny, because you get high fives and odd looks and, like, you know, the off quote, you're crazy comment. Yeah, and you're just like, it's really not. Yeah. It's really not that crazy. Like, granted, you're going to have to.

replace your fork seals and you're going to have to grease a few things and you know it's going to hurt a little but i mean there's i mean that's how we did it yeah is on a vintage bike you have the challenge of kind of extending you and the on the machinery without having to do the paradigal you have to get such an extreme there to break a modern bike you know really back a bit like i don't want to get captured down in libid or whether the hell they're racing through but you take a vintage bike down to buy it's the same challenge you ever mean but you ain't having to do that and you're keeping it running i mean that's the thing like you really do have to listen to your bike and you have to know how to how to do i mean minor if you break something big you break it there's only so much you can do but just like

anything but with like little stuff like you got to pay attention to the bike you got to be nice to it and then when you know you can get away with it like you have to know your motorcycle you don't just turn it on and that course down there i just riding bar high i guess free riding with the same it changes so much but there's so much you know down by the beach there it's such fun to ride and I'm through those ranch trails but the perfect bike for that

really that's a good thing about Baha it's not technical it's kind of fast a little bit sandy but on a vintage bike yeah it's hard but it's makeable and you feel like you completed something after yeah that's the one thing going for him you do that on a new KTM you're like well

cool you know there's no there's no chance I was it going to make you. Yeah. I mean, that's, yeah, you end up, I think even with a modern bike, you can almost exceed your talent by pushing that. I mean, if you had a brand new KTM 500, I mean, I'm not a terribly good rider, you know, just in general, but you put me on a brand new bike with double the suspension, half the weight and three times the horsepower, like, I could hurt myself in a big way. And like, you know, I guess I still hurt myself on the triumph a little bit, but it's, you know, the bike's a big equalizer. And if I can keep it.

running. I tore my airbox off in Nevada recently and I could tell that the bike was running weird so I stopped and fixed it. Otherwise, you wouldn't even know that. So it's an equalizer for sure. I think I feel a little bit like that in my old land cruiser. And part of the, part of the approach of painting Slow Baja on the side is setting my own expectations as much as the expectations of others. Yeah. But, you know, the vehicle that I have was the tool of choice. 50 years ago for what I'm doing. So I'm not doing anything new. I'm just haven't evolved the way that all the others have evolved.

And I think there is something special about having to listen to your machine a little bit and not push things. And I feel a bit like you. Maybe I don't want to get over my head and my skills. I'm enjoying the event. I'm enjoying the camarader. I'm enjoying the challenge of it all. But I'm not sure I have the skills, frankly.

if somebody stuck me in a trophy truck, I might ball it up very quickly. And don't me wrong, if someone would let me ball up a trophy truck, I wouldn't mind. I wouldn't mind taking a class in real off-road, long travel racing. Yeah. You know, but at the same time, I think, yeah, there's something, there's something special. And maybe it's, maybe it's too much of a romantic notion to get hung on sometimes. But in earnest, like, I've been down to Baja now a handful of times of the bike. And I love going down there.

Well, it's a very, it's... Take the expectations for sure. Like the Slow Barth thing, before we left, I had a slow pole Rodriguez painted on the gas tank, the bikeer up for that same reason. You know, you've got to keep it within your limits. I just, you know... Well, the finish line is the challenge.

Yeah, to just finish it on the vintage bike is, that's the win. There's no use to going down there and screaming along and blowing up motors because you can. You know, if you want to go balls out, you know, there's hundreds of miles. holes of it that you can. But you've got to have a bit of mechanical sympathy, you know, you've got to both make it. That's that for me is the challenge of the vintage class.

I think it would be an interesting experiment to get three or four of your friends together on old bikes and three or four old scouts, land cruisers, land rovers, what happened. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm not sure we need the, I hate to say this, folks, of Nora. I'm not sure that we need the entire organization of Nora around us, but maybe we just need three or four days in a couple locations, good beds and a few bottles of tequila and find our tacos as we go. I think that's a much better way of doing it. You know, you kind of get your own pace at your own speed and just have a little rally rate around there kind of on your own time. It'd be a lot of fun. Yeah.

And I mean, not to take away from the organization, because I don't think that's the point we're making. But there's a little, you know, with the way things are right now in the racing community, there's not as much sympathy for the old stuff. And it's, they're happy to have a vintage class as long as you can keep up. And sometimes maybe that's not the message that the vintage class that you want to give to vintage riders and not necessarily the guidelines and the parameters that the vintage guys want to hang out in. So, you know, maybe there's, we've had these conversations. Yeah, you look for those are like Bruce Brain pictures in the 60s

and going to fishing village to fishing village and on the old pubs and, you know, they've got the old truck and bag and that to me is the way. Or even seeing like, you know, Ed's dad, was it my poem or? Yeah, Mike's. Yeah. Running that in the early in the 60s, like in that land cruiser.

Right. To, you know, that to me looks like the way to do it. It's a lot more civilised. It looks like more fun. You know, you're out to the middle of the sandstorm and a couple of guys Bob passed in a lot. Land crews are thinking to Kela asking directions. He's like, that's what we should be doing.

Right. And, you know, and I think I love racing because, I mean, even though I don't win or whatever, I think I love racing and I love that competitive piece of it. But at the same time, going to do one race or two races a year should not be the only time we're spending time in Baja. I mean, like you're saying, like those adventures and like just getting a handful of people out there and just going and cruising

and doing the fishing villages and trying to catch your own dinner and failing at it and then you just go buy tacos instead. I'm super down for that. I mean, when I got stranded me and my buddy, Eric,

he draw me back up and he has a place in like the Bay of Conception and just we hold it there for a couple of days after and just went out, I got stung by stingrays and I didn't catch crap, but I'm going to credit

that stingray with blooming your and Joyce in a big way I think that stingray I saw it that stingray that stingray was a helper

helped you out and wait for the pain to go away you know I well what happened was I blew a mowler up somewhere on the beach

in the Bay of L.A. Yeah Bay of L.A., yeah and I was changing the motor rate on the beach and just covering in grime and oil and Joyce

like you don't have a swim I'll get stung guarantee. I don't know what I'll get bin by a shark or something. Shuffling your feet. That's what I'm told you. You didn't learn that in England. You got to shuffle your feet. Well, I was shuffling. Shuffling all around. And not getting stung. I was fine. Then Joy takes a flying leap. Amers me. I step back. Strait back. So I'm sitting on the beans. Blame it on joy. Yeah. With a sit of boiling water. You know, it's not so bad. You know, it's like a little foot massage. You got to pee on it for a bit. You know, that's what I'm telling. Well, and in our group of whatever, there were probably 15 of us from the L.A. area down there. And Joy was in earnest, probably the only nurturing character in that entire.

So Hayden had the good fortune of. Hayden was the first to get injured in the most lucky. Yeah. Well, and when he got stranded, I mean, Joy was the one calling the weatherman and calling the radio. I was like trying to figure out where he was. And the rest of the race. fine. We got to fix the other bikes. He'll be fine. Yeah. Maybe. If you're just cruising around together, you ain't stranded anyway.

You got a few guys rear. You know. You make us race and all of a sudden it's like we're leaving each other in the dust or whatever. Like Hayden and I got, we'd get separated and then find each other during the 500. It's just much more fun to, on these, you know, it's just an accomplishment to get down there and do that little tour. You know, you don't need a, you don't need a $3 trophy. Sure. But I do, I'm, I'm super, I'm super glad I have a trophy. You know, it's funny you mention that. I've never gotten a trophy in my entire life, Little League and all that stuff.

You grow up. We grew up in another era where not, you know, everybody didn't get a golden star next to their name or a trophy and what have you. And years into the La Carrera obsession, I finally, I came on as a navigator to help a guy in a 53 Lincoln who had run the race a couple times and had crashed out or blown up and had not gotten across the line. And God dang it, he desperately wanted to get a trophy. And so the organizer, the U.S. director of the race said, I know you can help this guy get in and just do it. So I did it. We crashed. We didn't have any damage to the car, but we got back.

By the end of the race, there were only three cars in our class. But son of a gun in Mexico, the timing or whatever got screwed up. And on the final night, the big night, we're all dressed up. We're in Zocatecas. We're at the huge fiesta at the hotel in the bull ring. and they called another team's name for third place. And Tom, my driver, almost started crying. And I stayed with the timers until 3 o'clock in the morning.

And I had the Fortalese of Tequila sponsorship. And I'm sliding them bottles and this. I said, you've got to get me that trophy back. Well, they've already left for the hotel. They've got, you know, how can we give me the trophy back? The trophy for me has become being there. That I have a beautiful wife and three loving children. and I can go do these adventures in Mexico and survive them and live with some pain like

you you guys riding your motorcycles you get uh there's a toll on your body driving that old land cruiser I mean you feel it for weeks afterwards your back hurts you're this hurts the neck pinch this you know arm problems whatever you often hear oh you know but the trophy is that yeah yeah you hear you hear that for sure oh you know back in the back in the barhouse still is back in the whatever you want to do it. it is still 1968 down there. You know,

you can go and launch the bike from Ensenada to La Paz and no one gives a shit where you are. It's the best one down that way. Like, it's still kind of lawless in a lot of parts, but not like unsafe. It's just there's no one there. Yeah, and so I interviewed a guy

that I met through the Baja XL. Pete Springer. He's been going to Baja since 1960, maybe, 79 years old. He won the 1973 Baja 1000, which was a year that they stopped the race. Nora and score hadn't come in. Norah had left.

There was the last race and he won it that year and navigator and a land cruiser. So he became friends. And I asked him, what does Baja mean to you? He says, it's just freedom. It's freedom. It's freedom from people telling you what you can and can't do. Yeah, you can... Joy's back, smiling. She's got to talk about... She's got a grin on her face and a beautiful bar. Marper jacket.

Joy just happened to miss our little love session telling her how great you were. Yeah. Where's the taco shop affected by coronavirus? No coronavirus activity at the time. Yeah. I mean, Baja's just, the first time I went down there actually was on a sort of photo shoot sort of thing where we were camping and taking pictures and hanging out. And of course, we got skunked on waves, but we got to ride a little bit. And I was just like, you know, I guess that was my first riding experience in Baja.

And I was like, you know, this place is pretty wild, like pretty cool. No one, no one really cares that you're there. You're just kind of doing your own thing. Well, just don't be a dick. You know what I mean? Yeah, just be an awful. Like, just have time and be respectful. You know, if you don't blast, you know, there's like little houses on farm ranches.

Like, maybe you don't blast them with. dust you open it up when you're out of town a little bit and you know just do all that yeah there's room for everything to go race along the beach and you know going it to do that stuff yeah yeah that there's not beach racing in california is the like proper beach right no no they don't let you do that yeah it's it's a it's just a different world down there i really enjoy um i never been to the mainland so i can't really speak to that but yeah the further south you get the more fun it is as well you know you get a bit, you get a few areas outside of Ensenada.

Yeah, it really opens up down there. And, you know, even though, I mean, I'm writing down, was it the 500,

last time, I remember being lost in the middle like a sandwash, uh, somewhere. Looking for Scott, I'd double back three times. No,

no navigation, no clue where it was. And a guy rode up on a horse. Wait, and now let's start there. And a guy rode up on a horse. A guy rode up on a horse. And I followed him.

You need to be back down to the, to these guys at the checkpoint. Wait, I'm looking for my friend Scott. Have you seen him the last time I saw me was going over his handlebars and leaving his wallet behind? Basically, yeah.

No, I look at Spanish, but I was just like, well, the guy at one of these and you, yeah, follow me, took off after the horse.

And that's funny because, speaking of that when we got separated on the 500, I mean, it was day one, you know, we made it through all the beach stuff, and then we're crossing over. and that was just this whole thing where, you know, there's a fork in the sand and only one of us has a GPS working at that moment.

And we're like, uh, we're separated. So then Hayden's talking to a cowboy and I'm riding up to like high ground looking for like a dust trail. And I was like, that's, I mean, you're, it's kind of, it's odd. But yeah, you just like transported in time and like, no, I have a. cell phone that doesn't work right now. I have a GPS that's useless because I'm looking for my friend. You're never that word. You're never that word. No, you're just, I mean, you're not going to, it's not like you're stuck in traffic somewhere and someone's going to clean you out. Like, no, you're just out in the wilderness and you just got to keep riding for another 10 or 20 minutes.

And then you'll link back up because the trail just leads to the same place eventually. Yeah. And you've got to use your wits and your brain to figure it out. And I think the interesting thing about, you know, my experience, La Carrera, I was out by myself a lot. A hundred-something cars from around the world, I never saw them because I was the slowest guy. Right. I was hidden in my experience. We weren't staring at each other. We were lost. I don't know how many vehicles were in your, how many bikes were in your class or how many bikes were in the, the bike group total. But I'm sure they rode off and left you guys rapidly. Oh, yeah. You were stranded back there. Rapidly. So they start off, you know, every minute or something

and they're way gone. And the two of you are doing your own thing. And then somewhere behind you guys is, I guess, where we were in the safari thing. But I was all the way at the end of that pack mule. And, you know, you just think, well, you know, if we get lost, you can always just sort of look at the sun and figure out which direction.

And my rule in Baja is just look for the most current tire tracks and just try and figure that out. but you must be a little different when you're jiggling your eyeballs out on the bikes. It's a funny thing. I mean, and you don't have two cases of tequila with you. You don't have two cases of tea. It's dusty as hell,

especially, you know, the night time and it's proper dark and it's like country dark. There's no town lights in the distance. It is pitch black. Scary dark. And we was going up some backtrackers, you know,

you've got to get back to town. See, this is just all the benefits. now of a land driver that you can just pitch up on the side and not have to do that again. Yeah, we could go do that. Because we went through, middle of the night, and I guess we went through, you know, okay, we got into town. We did the same part of the course the next day.

And the truck driver says, you did that last night quicker in the dark. And I was like, no, we didn't do that section in the dark. He's like, no, you did. That was the exact same section. I was like, no, this was all like cliff edges, you know, you'd ride up. off into the oblivion is like same section middle of the night when you can easily see three foot in front here you ain't really for the cliff edge yeah that's one thing with the vintage bikes if you you know if there's a we could get a little bit more lighting out of that charging system i'd be thankful

because that was i'll say and that's that's another great part of baha when you're out there and there's no town hey cody cody's thumping the floor we um we're running late essentially you know off-road race, quote, late in terms of timing. And Hayden and I probably had 80 miles to go at a 250 for the day. And the sun's going down. And I kid you not, that was probably the most beautiful sunset. The most beautiful sunset we could have ever hoped for that we didn't look at. And, you know, the sun went down.

The sky turned this really rich. As a photographer, that was, I could, he was a kiddie. He had a camera with him and it never came out of the back. I never took. I didn't take any pictures after contingency, you know, and that's, you know, not kidding. We were riding and the sky went purple. I was like, if this was any other situation, I would stop and I'd take a bunch of photos. I'd say, hey, Hayden Ride Pass right here.

We're going to get this great picture. No, we're racing. And so we're going. The lights getting dark. We're plugging in our lights. Some of them spots, just to spend an hour, you know, you're blasting through. You're like, just a big gray spot. Yeah.

Just soak it in. And that's, I think, you know, that's the difference between the race and the, and the adventure. And, you know, we... Well, the good thing about the race is it shows your place is, like, I'm going to come back and see that point first. We definitely saved those race maps for sure because there's spots. I mean, that's... But to Hedon's point, that was crazy. We did, I think, about 70 miles of that first day for the 500 in pitch black with our crummy little lights.

It is so dark. It's dark. And my truck doesn't have light. So I'm right there with you. I can see six feet in front of me. And I am scared to death of everything that's out of that way. And everything's rattling. And you're on a course made, you're on a course made for a trophy truck.

You're on a course made for a house. We're just slowly sinking into the sand as we're moving forward. Or at least a course made by a trophy track because you can tell when they've been through. It's like dinosaurs of rampage through the damn thing. And the Baja 1000 had been, what, a couple weeks before or a week before? Because there's still markers. The four. Yeah.

Yeah, there were still markers on the road. which was screwed us up a little. Yeah, yeah, yeah. To see these other arrows for when the Baja 1,000 and the Nora. That was a hell of a task, yeah. That was like you said that. That was amazing. But we got, I mean, the, the chase guys caught us.

I can't remember if I might have crashed or something happened, but the chase guys caught us. And they were, you know, this is vintage racing and I love it. The chase guys show up in this beautiful truck. And they're like, are you guys okay? We're like, yeah, we're fine. And they're like, okay. Well, do you want to keep riding? in. We're like, yeah, well, the bikes are still running. So let's keep going. And they're like,

all right, we'll hang back. If you need us, we're back here. And then just let us go. And like, look, like the course is done. Like, the day is over. It's just you guys out here in the middle of the dark. So they're going to keep everything set up for you. And when you show up, they will turn the lights on at the arch, you know, the blowup arch thing. And so they let us do it. And we, it was hilarious. But we, we did that. And, like, Like Hayden said, we did that section in pitch black faster than we did in the daytime the next day. But pure delirium. Like you just, I think we spent 14 hours on the bike.

It was too much. Off road, you know, and just having a real hard time navigating. You know, we were trading off leading, depending on whose phone had more juice to run in navigation. And, you know, it was. That's a problem when you have somewhere to be in it, like, you know. Yeah, any other situation, we would just be hanging out. Yeah. I should just start a fire.

Yeah, yeah. Start a fire. Pull out that sleeping bag. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Who's got up when the sun goes and just do another day. The spots we rode through it like, yeah, that was the problem.

You just want to, you want to stop a lot. That trip should have took two weeks, not. Oh, man. Not 28 hours. Yeah, that definitely. That's the problem with our modern life, so we don't have the two weeks to devote to these proper activities. No. Vintage bikes and driving vintage vehicles through Baja.

Yeah. Well, I mean, I think that. Goals. Goals. Yeah, goals. And I think it's about making time. Yeah, it's not that. It's not that bad.

It's really not that expensive. No, and that's a nice thing about going to Baja. It's not like you're going to Paris and you're spending $27 plus per, you know, small meal. You can go down to, I mean, it's not cheap like it used to be cheap. If you can still go down there and enjoy yourself and, you know, go out to a nice dinner and not break the bank. and a nice dinner is just hanging out with a family-run restaurant, you know, and that's, I think, the charm of it is that you can go down there and take a week and not even get that terribly far from where we are right now, you know, like you can adventure as far as you

want, but you don't have to go terribly far to be away from, you know, a typical urban environment and just enjoy yourself in the quiet and not really be bothered and not bother anybody else. Joey's got tacos. Yeah, we should, we should jump on the talk to see. And then if we still have time to finish up, we'll finish up. I don't want to have cold tacos. Yeah, so we've just had tacos. And thank you very much for Joy for bringing this.

And why don't you introduce yourself? We've got a fourth here on the Slow Baja podcast. Joy has joined us. Yeah, I'm Joy. How did you guys introduce yourself? Joy Lewis, I'm the wife slash friend. I'm the Taco Wrangler slash Pit and hearts girl is what it feels like.

Slash. Yeah, also very crew chief. Crew chief. Rider as well. Half of this podcast has just been talking about you. Oh, geez. Triumph Cub racer, extraordinary. I don't know about that. But yeah, no, it's fun.

I mean, Baja, I had before even going down with these guys and doing the vintage stuff, I had been running Chase with a good friend of mine who did like the full on Baja 1000 and he would ironman that. So I would do the pre-year-old. run for his events and we're important to joy I know I know I know but that was like a little real deal the proper bar this is so good now we get to dig on joy but I think you know whether it's that and pre-running or whatever or doing what we did I feel like you always come back with some kind of crazy story you know like I won't forget my pre-running was like okay you had out there's a peanut butter

jelly sandwich and I'll see you in three hours at this GPS coordinate with fuel and any spares or whatever and, you know, inevitably find a place to pull off the road and dig the sprinter into up to the axle in the sand. You know, I'm like, shit, I only wear a strompero in a bathing suit. I hope someone pulls me out. But, you know, Mexico, that's, everybody is just so great. And there's just such this sense of like camaraderie and I love it. So yeah, you stand out on the side of the road with a cold beer and someone inevitably pulls up with a winch strap and gets you out and you know you don't skip a beat so i don't know i love i love mexico you know you get stung by a stingray and in the middle of a motor swap and um you don't skip a beat and love happens yeah yeah i know also said

the best share i've ever had was on that beach on the bay of la in like a tent they put a share up in a tent and it was a hot shower and the windiest night you know there was gale for us i was sleeping under the truck and I got the shower and I remember you know just been making the canvas flap in there and it was a scalding hot water it's a greatish shower I've had in my life and we saw you in the morning and it's a good thing like you had it's not all you guys look in hell they looked rough and we stayed in like a posh hotel down the road and yeah we woke up the next morning and they were picking sand out of their noses and it's brutal sleeping under a truck and the windstorm on the beach It was pretty after doing a motor swap in the sand.

Like you guys were, it was pretty, what's the word, bleak might be the morning. That morning was a bleak morning in Bahamas. On the beach, like with this beautiful, I mean, we're on the beach in Bahamas. It's incredibly beautiful. It's not that bad, but when you saw your faces, it's like, I don't think you guys slept. That's too bad. While we were having the tacos that Joy brought us, lovely tacos in casillas. Scott, you were talking about the 500 with my good friend, my new friend, your stepdad, Dave,

and about how easy it was. Just the round trip, getting here, bikes in the back, what have you. Could you just recap that? You know, when you left, I don't know, you went over to the handlebar six times or something. Lost your wallet. Lost your tool roll, but both of those things were found. Yeah, we don't have to talk about that part. But I'll give you a head.

No, I'm just kidding. Yeah, our trip for the 500 was really cool because the way they set up the course, we started and ended in Ensonata, so we didn't really have to caravan too far. We could have all of our stuff, you know, stationary overnight. And our main, you know, we left, what, Wednesday, did tech on Thursday and race Friday, Saturday, and then we're home on Sunday. I mean, it's very... Yeah, we were down there and threw the board up.

I mean, it took, what, 15 minutes to get through, through going and coming back. Yeah. It was set up. It was super easy. I mean, even getting down to Mexico when we, you know, they looked at the bike's kind of funny. We said we were with the race. And they looked at the bikes funny and realized they just didn't want to deal with us. And they're like, yeah, whatever go.

So we just, you know, we pushed on through. And coming back is great because you're dirty and you're a little tired. And, you know, the border, the border crossing guys are like, welcome home. high five, you know, it was pretty great. And so, I mean, people build it up as if it's like a big trek. And at least where we are, I mean, it's, it's half a day's drive to be in Ensenada and even kind of at the gateway of all of northern Baja. It was fun.

Baja's great. I mean, for that, it's actually pretty simple. And I think, you know, speaking of for this year, our temporary crew chief, David, He'd been talking about your new friend, David Tokele in the wild with Dave. I don't think Davy said he was easy. I think he said he was easy if he did it.

David would say that. Yeah. We made David sit on the side of the road like five hours waiting for us. He would have been easy for him to do it. But also my impression from that was where the 1,000, you know, there's so much logistics that goes into point to point, that kind of point to point route where I remember us so many times. I'm saying we're racing.

Like there were times we're on the road, you know, where the special section might be cutting the cross somewhere, but we had to do the roundabout long way. And I remember us just flying through Mexico where it got, you know, sketchy in places. Of course, inevitably you hear someone hit a horse and their whole trailer went off the cliff. I mean, it gets gnarly. But the point in his experience where he just has to sit around and fath for four hours, while you guys make your way through the sill beds. Yeah, he had a...

he was funny like you know david was really excited when you guys pulled up and and had some tequila with him because i think he'd probably been pretty lonely out there for a bit you know joy couldn't come with us on that one and which is probably a sad day for for david but ultimately i think joy probably dodged four hours of conversation on the roadside with my my stepdad but he's he was a good sport he's an off-roader at heart for sure and so when when the opportunity came when we knew Joy wasn't going to be able to come with us on this trip, like the next best person I knew that could handle logistics. And if we gave GPS coordinates and a rough timeline, like, we knew he'd be there.

But he had the best time down there because he locked him with it like, you know, the race controller. So he could kind of track us around. Oh, of course, because he knew all the radio frequencies. He was already dialed. He was more prepared than we were three years ago. You know what I mean? He just, he was already ready. If he was just waiting for someone to ask him to go.

So he was, he was jamming. He was like, oh, me and the weather matter buddy. He was giving me weatherman updates. Yeah. So, yeah, he's like, oh, he's in my manx club. I'm like, of course he is. So, yeah, that was, that was funny. So, I mean, you always, and ultimately, you know, you build, you build good relationships with your, with your crew and your team that way.

And you always come back with something funny, whether it's a stingray or, you know, feeding my stepdad street tacos and peanuts in the middle of the night and Ensenada. Like, it was great. And what did he say? I just remember getting up in the morning. and ruin out the bathroom saying I'm running rich he's like gear head like I've never heard that I said the same thing

yeah he came home and told me and I was like okay we got to make that that dude definitely is like he's like a dirt dog like that dude is just an off-roader like he has a whole other vocabulary we didn't know existed well joy tell us a few Baja tales before we wrap this wonderful podcast up. Gosh, I don't.

I mean, I hate to repeat anything. You guys already covered. No, Hayden and I had met just, we had literally started making out, what, two weeks or so before Baja, a week and a half or so. And Hayden, you know, we did the, it sounds like you guys talked a little bit about that motor swap in the,

was at the Bay of L.A., right? But it was funny, Hayden had that stingray. broke out my jet boil because I always want to make tea on the road, regardless of where I am in the middle of the desert, I want a cup of tea. And so it came in handy, boiling water for Hayden's foot. But then they, you know, slept overnight, like we said, under the truck, in a windstorm. It was crazy. It woke up the next day and his teammates started the race. So after that first special section, you know, our guy came and went and we hung up for a little bit. And Hayden's kind of frothing, you know, that's a guy called like Nick Ashley.

And we love Nick. And Nick raced the Parry Dakar back in the 80s. But Nick's an older gentleman there, and he's got different priorities in racing. Right. So, you know, there waited it. And I'm sure Hayden, I know, was seeing red because he was like in race mode at that point. Like, where the hell is he? What's going on?

Well, we ended up taking off and not waiting to see it. But by the time Nick pulled up, you know, he said something about, well, I had to stop for a shit, and I met the nicest couple. They made me coffee. And I think, you know, I'm on the middle of a race course. They did it twice. Two shits, he says. Oh, and I brought.

Two different couples. And he's like, and I met this guy when I was here 20 years ago. And that just to his testament, like, you only have to meet Nick Ashley once. And he's one of your best friends and someone that you will never, ever forget. Yeah. You know, you have dinner with that man once. There's plenty of characters down there, you know. But I just remember.

So we hear that, you know, Nate pulls up and says, well, it doesn't matter anyways. I broke the clutch. And Hayden's like, I don't fucking care. And trying to shove this, you know, stingray swollen foot into his boot, pulls the liner out, throws this big old motocross boot on and hits the road. And was that a 160-mile special section? And it was through like a river wash. So he just ultimately ended up frying the stator about 20 miles out from the end of the day, I'd say. At that point, though, the trophy trucks had caught up.

And, you know, I'm in, where were we that night? I don't even remember what town we were in. Our guy had come in. The other guys had come in. Okay. And so I'm tracking him, you know, trying to keep track where he is, checking him with the weatherman. And, you know, everyone said, oh, yeah, he broke down. Drivers are saying he came in and waved him on.

And so, you know, I go into the Nora folks. And I'm like, he's stuck. We need to pull his, you know, what's his GPS? We need to get someone out there chase to pick him up. Well, you know, by that point, the sweep crew was at the ball. And they're like, oh, they didn't tell us there were any bikes out there. Sorry, everyone's half in the bag. And we're done for the night.

And now you can't go backwards up the course because trucks are coming in. So he's going to have to say, I was like, are you kidding? You know, what? What? You know, I'm in the office. I'm trying to like cheap trap everybody. And they're like, just don't worry about it. I'll be honest, on my end, it was far less stressful.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You know, ours because we're like, fucking his teammates, like, well, that were out of the race then. Like, whatever, you know, happened. I don't know. So I talk to them and the God I'll never forget says, don't even worry. He's probably shacked up with someone, Eta. Nine months from now, little Jose is going to be running around.

I was like, are you fucking kidding? So then we'll set the scene here. So Hayden's sleeping in the dirt, perfectly fine with doing so. Joy's freaking out that he's going to get run over by a trophy truck. The Nora people don't care. His race team is super bummed because now they're not in the race anymore. You know, and the state of affairs, like, it's so Mexico. Yeah.

Redo in the whole primary and everything for our racer. Right. And we, yeah. And I was just, I was just changing oil and air filters like kind of oblivious. Like Joy would show up and I'd see her like pacing in the parking lot on a phone and then disappear and then come back. And we're like, man,

sounds stressful. That, I'll tell you, that was one of the most comfortable night sleeps I've ever had. So then what's funny is I, so as I'm in there, I end up talking to some local guys kind of picking up what's going on. He's helping with the race, but he comes over and he's saying, where about is he?

And so I show him on the satellite where he is. And he says, I know someone, I think, a cop in the village, you know, two hours away from there. I'll see if I can't get him to get there. So sure enough, by the time we hear from Hayden again a day and a half later, he says, yeah, I was woke up by some cop with a gatorade in like an expired cliff bar. At that point, someone in the middle of the night, come put a blanket over him. And then so he said, you know, helps on the way.

basically they're coming for you. And his teammate had to double back and drive all the way around to come pick him up. So it was 22 hours, I think. You've seen all that. And by the time they found Hayden, he was in the little... Put on white. Yeah. Yeah, he was like in that, you know, the little town, someone's house, they brought him in,

and everyone from the town brought him empanadas and tacos. He said he was shoving him in his backpacked. So it didn't look rude. And then by the time they found him, he was drinking like a box milk in the school, teaching kids about. England. It's amazing. I mean,

moral of the story, joy care is a lot more than everybody else. Yeah. And second, that's, I mean, they're like, they're looking at things,

you know what I mean? Like, that's, that was way more fun than finishing that, that stage. Oh, absolutely. Well,

and if you think about it, I mean, if you were to, you know, step back, a step back a generation or two, I mean, in earnest,

like, that's how people stay in Baja. Mm-hmm. And that's how, that's how expats happen. And like, actually, this way of,

like, rules. I'm just going to stay here. You know what I mean? So we're lucky to have Hayden back, but there was a moment where I'm sure you thought this is pretty chill. I could take dirt naps all the time. Didn't you get stuck at the border too?

So it was like everything was trying to keep in Mexico. I got detained at the border and, you know, all the good things. Yeah, the year with a thousand was a little complicated. I mean, that was completely my fault. I didn't have a green card yet, did you? Well, I had a green card, but I just didn't take it. Wasn't it like an ex-wife tried? his same sponsorship and so, you know, it got all stuck and, you know, whatever happens.

Real life, yeah. But still worth the trip. Yeah. Absolutely. And I think that's the important thing is to be here looking back fondly on what many people would say, wow, that's the worst case scenario. I had to sleep out in the dirt. And I remember looking at the first published rules for the, the Nora 1000 that didn't happen.

I think it was 2008 or nine. They tried to get it off the ground and it didn't occur. And you had to have a sleeping bag in your vehicle. And I thought, oh, this is for me. But it separates people, right? I mean, that's, you're, I mean, if you're, you want to draw like a line in the sand, you know, to pardon the pun, but that's ultimately like how you separate two types of people. There's people that are totally okay with being like, oh, well, it didn't go as planned.

I guess I'll just crash here and then I'll figure it out tomorrow. And then there's people that, that, that. That idea sounds like a nightmare and anxiety. So, I mean, that's, there's two types of people in the world if you're going to divide it that way. I mean, there's both ways to do it as well. And I mean, for most thing, the way I got down there, Joy tells me that when she got down to the end, like, she's, I had the best hotel up a stop team. That is true. That is hell is legit.

But that's the thing. I mean, yeah, you could go ahead. I mean, maybe that's another gem of Baja. You could spend one night sleeping in the dirt in a windstorm and then one, night later, it's, you know, $100 a night for a five-star resort on the beach with with tacos being served to you while you're swimming in a pool. You know what I mean? What's not to like?

That was pretty great. I mean, actually, yeah, now that you bring up that, I mean, that rules too. I mean, there's only, that's one, I love that about that trip. That was a great little send-off. And to speak of Nick Ashley one more time, I hope he listens to this. He takes a deep dive on the podcast. But Nick had finished that. And one of my favorite photos from that whole week is Nick Ashley pouring a bud light over his head in a can.

Like he opened it and he crushed the can while holding it over his head. And he's just like he's always put together. He's always got good hair. He's dressed well. And this is just dirty motocross, Baja Nick Ashley covered in bud light of all things. And then when we went from. from the finish line to the hotel where we checked in. And then I think eight minutes later,

I found him passed out on a marble floor in his gear. I hadn't even taken off his boots, I don't think. That's right. I was pulling his boots off. Yeah, we're like trying to make him more comfortable while he's asleep on a marble floor. Like, it was crazy. Scott, he had to take his top two shits. Before he lay down.

That's the next Hello Engine T-shirt. Yeah. The Nick Ashley. Nick two-shirts, Ashley. This is a special Nick Ashley too shit. Modelled by Joy in the field. That could be a special. That could be a special sponsorship award.

Let's go around the table here and just say where folks can follow you and whatnot. And we'll wrap this up. And I really want to say thanks a lot for the hospitality and making some time on this rainy day when everybody's so socially distant. And here we are. The three of us on a cage? Cuddled up in a couch with a dog. under my jacket with this wonderful dog here. You warmed up to you pretty quick.

It's because you can't see you. Oh, yeah. I have a blind dog too. I just like so. Sweet. I smell like tacos. Yeah. Joy, go ahead.

Start us off. Yeah. I mean, my, I'm joy, like I said. I guess you can follow me. Mouthful of Joy, not my porn name, but the name of my future bakery. Wow. A lot of joy. My future baker.

Okay. Or, you know, as I'm tagging a lot of joy. with these two on adventures. Yeah, Joy's always making stuff happen and actually making sure we need to be where we're supposed to be, where we're supposed to be there. Yeah, I couldn't get through a lot of that shit. I mean, I need someone to keep on track, but yeah, I'm Hayden. I guess Hello Engine is my Instagram and I'm just a motorcycle mechanic up in Santa Paula.

And I'm Scott and I'm a fan of Hayden. and Joyce, and they're a couple of my best friends. And Hayden's bashful because he built some really incredible motors. And Hayden's a lot better of a rider than I am. And so I think I test his motors better than he does because I try and ride them upside down more often for another day. And anyways, yeah, my Instagram is SG Tofer. You might be able to spell it. You might not.

It's totally cool. You know, it took me the longest time I was like was Sergeant. Sthofer. I was like screwed up. If you type in SGT into Instagram, there might be, it might pop up and it might not. You know, it's fine. And Scott's part of the reason Hayden and I even together. Scott's a professional photographer and a damn good one.

Except I don't take pictures when I race because I never come home with anything good. Like I have a picture of tech inspection and then I'm home. Whoops. Driving a land cruiser, it's hard to make good photographs as well. You know, it's maximum. Well, you're not there for the photographs, really. are you know no and i think that you know that's a funny distinction you know because i you know working in the motorcycle industry and you go down to do these races and people expect you to be

shooting or something but it's like no i'm here to i'm here to i'm here to try and finish you know i'm just trying to hear to have a good time to stop and take a bunch of photographs she didn't do the trip right yeah man i'm racing i got to try and catch you well the funny thing i talked to my mexico adventure buddy ted about all the time we used to go to to baha in the 80s when we were college kids. I said, remember we just go to Baja and we would do stuff and not have to post about it or talk to anybody

about it? I'd shoot film and then develop it months later. You know, it's just, we just did it. You've shot a bunch of film. And we saw it months and months later when we were there years ago. The video stuff? I mean, we did that. Yeah, I mean,

I have it. It's sitting there. No one ever in a shoebox. Yeah. Yep. I got, I have I have a lot of photos from that trip that no one ever really saw the lighted day because X, Y, or Z. But, I mean, hopefully, you know, that one time I got to peek into Bruce Brown's, like, film collection.

And, I mean, that man had stacks and stacks of film reels, like, in a cupboard. You're not organized, barely labeled. And I was like, I want to be like, you know, there's certain aspects of Bruce's life that I'm like, yeah, I would, that's me. That's a life goal. And there's other parts of it where I was like,

but, you know, we all have our parallels. And one more lap around the coffee table here. What does Baja mean to you, Joy? Oh, gosh, to put them first, let me think on it. No, I think we always say Baja is probably a lot like California was 50 years ago. And I think there's something really charming about that. So, yeah, I love it down there. There's just a sense of, you know, vastness and comfort, you know, it's, it's, you know, I don't, I've

never felt scared down there. I've always felt, you know, well-fed and well-rested and kind of an awe of, you know, stars are brighter and tacos are better. The stars are brighter and the tacos are better. D-shirt. You're not advertising? Yeah. Well, this is really copyrighter over here. Yeah.

And the tacos are. I just don't have anything to say. I mean, just pull this. No. You know, a wise woman I knew said once the stars are brighter and the tacos are better. Your turn. Martin, I always wanted to know the answer to this. Where does the phrase mad dogs and Englishmen come from?

What's the genesis of that? Do you know? Only mad dogs and Englishmen stay out in the midday sun. Mad dogs and Englishmen. stay out in the midday sign. Yeah. And I think that's probably true. You know, I think that's probably from that like early days.

Like empire building where, you know, the locals obviously wouldn't be seen as in the Sahara in the middle of the day, but we'd be marching across some desert boots and silly hats. Mad dog. Yeah. But Barha to me, I always have the best time down there. like, and I've, like, ten the story, some of the stories now,

and I've been, I've been there a couple of times. But it's all you talk about, whenever you talk about, like, an event you've been on, it's Baja, you know, straight, straight to it. Yeah, it's still so, it seems so, like, untamed down there still. It's still, yeah,

you grow up watching, like Sergio Leone films, and that's, it still looks like that, you know, down there. I love you. For me, you know, like Baja, I think, is, is as easy as you let it be. You know, you can, you can go down, you can plan every minute of your day during the week or for a vacation or whatever you want to do.

And Baja is just one of those places where you can kind of freeform it a little bit. And there's always, there's always a way to make something work. And you don't always have to have a perfect plan. So I think it, it just represents a, like a more looser way of life. And it just, like, little more free form. And if, you know, if you're one of these people that you think of the phrase like go with the flow, like Baja is that place, you know, it can be as adventurous or mellow or crazy as you want it to be, you know, and I think that's what we're talking about with like the racing. Like it can be intense.

You can be super intense. And you can buy a ceramic cock at the border. Right. On your way back then. You know, you used to be. That's so true. You used to just be a monkey on a surfboard back in the day. But yes, you can.

Speaking of, yeah, David, love that. Large-breasted mug. Yeah. Yeah. By cold churro is like from the super aggressive. Don't get the church. Don't find interest though because you all coming home with a cock. Don't look.

Don't even side-eye the ceramic penis in the corner because it'll show up in the window at the border. Wow. Scott, I think you're on to something profound there when Hayden dropped that bomb. It's so good. No, it's probably better because I'll wax poetic. in like a foolish way. So it's, it's better that way.

All right. Well, for the Slow Baja podcast. Well, what about for you? From Santa Paula. Well, you know, I think so I was just thinking about what Scott was saying about being so wound up. There's a trip that I took with my girlfriend, now wife of almost 25 years.

In 1993, we're on my nearly new BMW Perry Dakar. And I'd been in Baja with my buddies for a week where I was riding around on that. And there's a crumbia. the old VW Beetle from the 60s and a international scout and a Volkswagen camper. So it was kind of a motley group of four of us rolling around together. And then I rode up to San Diego, picked up my girlfriend at the airport, and I told her you can only bring that little tiny book bag with you.

That's all. You need a pair of boots and a swimsuit and I don't know what else you can put in there, but that's what you need and a jacket. So picked her up, rode down across the border, and we're on the toll road, heading. down to Ensonada and it's a holiday weekend and there's a lot of traffic and we're just at the last toll booth before Ensenada north of Ensenada and an old guy in a car leans over and says have I passed Long Beach yet? Oh my God.

And I'm like, pull over. Pull over. Long story short, a guy with Alzheimer's had just gotten in a car and started driving and, you know, driven all the way somehow across the border and all that. So we had all these plans. We were going to get to here and then we're going to get to there and then we're going to get to there. And we're on my motorcycle two up and we're camping and we've got this and that. And it's like first day.

It's like, okay, let's get to this hotel right here. I'm on a, you know, pay phone in those days with calling cards, calling the highway patrol in California saying we've got this 80-year-old fellow here. He obviously has some cognitive issues. And great gas mileage. And then you can great gas mileage. Yeah. Too bad he didn't stop to use the restroom along the way, which was kind of smelly. But, you know, there we were.

And it's like, well, now the Highway Patrol is coming in four hours and we better get a hotel room here, which was half of our week-long budget to get that one hotel room. And then the next day, you know, we're driving and riding again. We got him off with the Highway Patrol. We were feeling pretty good about our, you know, our life. And we rode up to the Melling Ranch, which in those days that, you know, Internet, you know, it didn't exist. We're reading guidebooks.

And we had read that if you rode to this working cattle ranch, I don't know, 50 miles up the dirt road, they had a guest house and you could spend the night. Well, we rode 50 miles up this wash and dropped the bike six times and soft sandy stuff, which was new in our relationship that she was riding on the back of my motorcycle. And we were falling over a lot. We did a river crossing, all this stuff. And then we got up there and they said $100. Oh. What are you going to do? You're going to turn around and ride back?

So the rest of the trip was just camping. We just camped on the beach, ate mangoes, drank coronas, ate tacos, and we blew our entire week's budget in two lot, two unexpected lodging experiences. But, you know, that moment of out of control, didn't know what was going to be around the next corner, dropping a motorcycle, getting stuck in a river, digging it out, all that stuff. I don't know if that helped prepare us for like three kids and, you know, careers and all this other stuff. But the draw of Baja for me has always been sort of what is around that next corner or what happens. And, you know, you can sleep on the beach here and maybe somebody will come and collect, you know, 20 bucks for me. Maybe they won't. Maybe you're just sleeping on the beach and nobody cares.

And the whole boondock and I've done it from the old BMW Perry de Car to a Volkswagen camper to an old land cruiser FJ40 to, you know, know, it's just a place where you can go and be whatever you want to be, and nobody really cares, especially if you're not a jerk. Yeah. So to tie this in, you either, this woman never spoke to you again, or you married her. Well, that was the next trip, actually. We went back to Volkswagen, Westphalia, that had we'd gone up to Guadalupe Canyon, and I jiggled some sort of EGR valve or something loose, so I was having terrible throttle control.

issue. And it was also another, it was holy week, so Easter week. And so I'm driving in bumper to bumper traffic with very little throttle control. So it's throttle racing, hit the brakes, put the clutch in, you know. And just, it was, it was just gnarly. And got back into Ensenada and basically I saw a guy who had a Volkswagen powered sandrail. And it looked like he kind of had a little shop. And I told him what the problem was. And he said, yeah, I, I, can fix it. It was 8 o'clock at night. He said, I can fix it, but I don't have the parts. I'm not going to have the parts until Monday, and this was whatever, you know, Thursday or Friday or something. So I'm like, fuck it. Have my van. I'm taking a taxi for going to the hotel. Hotel freaked out.

You know, I had the guy's card, but the hotel freaked out, like you left your van at this guy's whatever. And came back on Monday. You had the part, had it fixed. Thing drove beautifully, but got back to San Francisco and it was clear out your drawer, pal. I've had enough of you. We sort of it out after that That was the straw that broke the cable Wow That was it And you find your tribe this way

Yeah These are the trial by fire sort of things that You know That define relationships And the people you spend your time with And it's always fun to See where life takes you When you do those leaps, you know

You know when you hit that like in and out Just north of the border When you come back like if the gang's still together You know it was a good trip Right, yeah. If you don't leave, yeah, if you can all sit and hang out and have a burger on the U.S. side of the border afterward, yeah, you've finished well. Well, there is something about that where you come back and it's all of a sudden snap your fingers. One side is this, the other side's all more civilized and the roads are better and all that. And you go to that first fast food restaurant and you have a modern bathroom where you can put the paper in the toilet or whatever you need to do.

and the food that's going to not make you sick probably. And for many years, especially as a college kid, there's just this exhale of like, made it another Baja trip only with scratches. But now it really does draw me. And flipping Tijuana, I had a great day there a couple weeks ago where just the food's great and the people are great and walked into a brew pub and there's the owner

and we're talking beer for an hour. And it's just like it wasn't like that when I was a drunk college kid. But now Tijuana's really grown up and it's very interesting. The food is really terrific. So there's a lot to see there. Yeah. I think people blow past too wanna,

and in doing so, I think miss an opportunity for an interesting cross-cultural experience. But that's, I mean, there's a lot of Baja to Sea. And there's a lot of, you know, without getting too deep in this, there's these conversations about

like people being scared or being taught to be scared and stuff like that. It's like, you know, we talked about this. a little earlier, but, you know, you be respectful and be aware of your surroundings. Like, you're, you can have a good time anywhere. I'm sure Bucharest is awesome, too, you know. I mean, I've never been there.

You just go. Just go. I think people need to just sometimes take a little bit of a plunge and learn something about themselves. That's maybe a different discussion. Well, I think on that profound note. Yeah. See, he got it out in the end.

Yeah. Wait a second. We're going to have Joy for 30 more seconds to close out. Slow Baja podcast from Santa Paula. So thanks again, everybody. Yeah. Take us out, Joy, with a big smile. Oh, gosh.

Thank you for coming. And I can't wait for all of us to get down there to do a trip together. I think that's the next phase of this. That was a good lead in. We'll leave it there. Hey, you guys know what to do. Please help us by subscribing, sharing, rating, that stuff. And if you missed anything, you can find the links in the show notes at slowbaha.com.

I'll be back before you know it. And if you want to receive notices on new episodes, please follow Slow Baja on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook for you old folks.