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

Episode Date: May 14, 2020

Hayden Roberts and Scott Toepfer race mid-’60s vintage British Dirt Bikes in events like the NORRA Mexican 1000, NORRA Baja 500, and The Mint 400. Roberts, originally from England, is now a fixture in the So Cal Motorcycle scene, crafting and customizing bikes at his shop Hello Engine, in Santa Paula, California. Toepfer, a top lifestyle-photographer with a specialty in motorcycles, met Roberts while they were on a motocross exposition in Japan. They became fast friends, and have been 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 dreaded stingray sting. Joy Lewis joined us midway through. She tells us about an epic night of worry on the NORRA Mexican 1000. She was in the chase-truck, supporting Hayden, and his GPS position stopped moving. Her mind raced; did he crash? Was he injured, or worse? They were hours away and had no way to contact him, let alone reach him. As she searched for information and tried to summon help -one grizzled Baja veteran (jokingly) suggested that he was “shacked up with a local senorita and in nine months a little Baja-racer would be born!” In the morning, Joy found him -tired but well-fed, nursing a carton of milk and teaching a group of elementary school children about England. During a sandstorm in Bahia de Los Angeles, they fell in love over a cup of hot tea.  Prompting Joy to make the observation “the stars are brighter, and the tacos are better in Baja.” We couldn't agree more!   Hayden & Hello Engine Website, Instagram  Scott G. Toepfer Website, Instagram  Joy Lewis Instagram  Buck Smith Facebook  Nick Ashley Instagram NORRA Mexican 1000 Website  NORRA Mexican 1000 Instagram 

Hey, this is Michael Emory. 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. and we're 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 radio. Great face. 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 both on what mid-60s, by you. I was on a triumph, Scott was on a BSA.

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, sort of a spitfire. Yeah, the vintage box that gets all broken, it's just kind of a constant replacement, you know. 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 Perry Dakar 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. be her and she'll never go on the back of the 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 too up on a dirt bike and they passed me like i was standing still it was it was a feat i mean you know saying like you ride michelle's waving to you yeah she waves at us and she's screaming yeah you can hear that voice like that yeah yeah yeah she tells us

Oh, we're going to let you guys pass us so that we can see you ride. And they didn't, I mean, you 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 a sight to be seen. The whole thing is 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. I 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. It met 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 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 some of my neighbors, like you just know them. You know people 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 ever lived in California, you know, so in California for 20 years. And coming home from England.

And I'd never been to Mexico until I did the, uh, the thousand, the first one. That was your first time? That was the first time Mexico. What year was that? That was 2015. Yeah. Yeah. So 2016.

Again, on a triumph. and a few of us went and tried it and never into Mexico, I'd never been to Mexico and I got stranded down in Sanamaru, I don't know, San Antonio, 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, slept next to the bike, woke up three in the morning somebody put a blanket on me

and you know I've been a little pint of an internet or 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 like kids and they were feeding me like cardons and milk it was pretty good I love Mexico so I think

again the reputation that 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 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 I you know that was my 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 you college picked you you up and brought you back. And then that kind of went away over the last, you know, the 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 nightmares about the police and stuff down there, which is where I obviously 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, uh, thinking back on the, the, your mention of the police, uh, Baja Excel. I'm in my old land cruiser. We've got us. We're on the very end. hour 15 of a 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 three o'clock in the morning and 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, and shot up at the end of the, your mind goes to these dark places. And the cop pulls up and 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 you know a couple miles out and out on a dirt road and the cop went in and woke up we thought he was the uh security guard turns out of the owner who's been sleeping at his desk waiting for us to arrive right out's three something in the morning and the cop's waking him up and he shows us to our room and you know we had a double

fortoulaza 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 1,000, we got the first night, going in late, it 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 in his room. It's the 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 live on less and they're happy with what they have and they're 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 and. Yeah, yeah, throw a few stickers in your pockets.

Yeah. Yeah, the stickers. Incredible. Yeah, 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 begging for.

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. People are stark to see her. 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. Are desert sleds, British bikes? What's your shorthand for what you do? Yeah, I think that the ones for odd. I mean, they're all old British bikes, Triumphs, Beard Says, 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 robot. You take the lights off, throw along a shock on. and a set of, you know, motocross tires and a big comfy seats and you've got a dirt bike. And a skid plate. And a skid plate. 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 ground clearance. It was really a California thing. They're very like gentlemanly, the British bike, what you think of like the classic Trium 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 triumferm 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 toot 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 and the Ferrand What dealership did that bike come from? This was from Johnson Motors which was 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 um 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'd be raced in 65 66 yeah and when you know it answer the other part of your question because, I mean, Hayden's really the expert on 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, or we actually,

we kind of put together a big group of friends to go to Japan and race on like a vet motocross 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 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 that it was either the day after Christmas or something maybe that 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 do your tax right off, baby. I got a tax right 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, 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. In Ventura, right? In Ventura, yeah.

And we're in Santa Paula right now, which is like 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 Sunkees country, I think. Yeah. It's pretty salt agriculture. It's pretty neat around here. You've got the mountains 10 minutes away. There's a neat little backroads to go and playing.

So, yeah. So, I mean, over the past few years, you know, 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. And it's a good thing about one of these. It's almost like a vintage dual sport. There's nothing you really can't do on them. You know, little file trials and stuff up in the mountains. It's the perfect bike for it. And so they just shoot bar how well that

vintage class would be real. You know, if you could get 15 guys in that vintage class on all British parks, it'd be a hell of a site. Yeah, and people give us a, it's funny, because you get high fives and odd looks and, like, you know, the off quote, your crazy comment. Yeah, and you're just like, it's really not.

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, on a vintage bike, you have the challenge of kind of extending you and the machinery without having to do the paradigach collar. 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 go and, you know, get captured down in Libya or whether the hell they're racing through. But it's like a vintage bike down to buy. It's the same challenge. You know what I 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 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. You have to know your motorcycle.

You don't just turn it on and give it. That course down there was just riding in Baha, I guess, free riding with the same. It changes so much, but there's so much, you know, down by the beach there is 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.

You know, a little bit sandy, but on a vintage bike, yeah, it's hard, but it's makeable. And you feel like you'd completed something after. Yeah. that's the one thing going for them you do that on a new KTM you're like well cool you know there's no there's no chance I wasn't going to make it 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 you had a brand new KTM 500 I mean I'm not a terribly good rider you know just in general but when you put me on a brand new bike with double the suspension half the weight and three times the

horse power, 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, like I tore my airbox off in Nevada recently. And I could tell that the bike was running weird, so I stopped and fixed it, you know, and 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 in 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 knowing me wrong, if someone would let me ball up a trophy truck, I wouldn't mind. I wouldn't mind taking a class and real off-road, long-travel racing. Yeah. You know, but at the same time, I think, yeah, there's something special.

and maybe it's, maybe it's, maybe it's too much of a romantic notion to get hung on sometimes, but in earnest, like I've, I've been down to Baja now a handful of times of the bike

and I love going down there. Well, it's very, it's... Take their expectations for you. Like the slow Baja thing, before we left, I had a slow pole Rodriguez

painted on the gas tank the bike are up for that same reason. You know, you've got to keep it within your limits. I just, you know. Well, the finish line's 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 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 for me is the challenge of the vintage class. I think it would be an interesting experiment to get three or four. four are your friends together on old bikes and three or four old scouts land cruisers land rovers what have 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 i think locations good beds and a few bottles of tequila and uh find our tacos as we go i think that's a much better way i do any um you know you kind of get your own pace at your own speed and just have a little rally raid 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'd look at those are like Bruce Brown pictures in the 60s and going to fishing village

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

It's a lot more civilized. It looks a lot more fun. You're out to the middle of the sandstorm and a couple of guys Bob passed in a land cruise are drinking tequila asking directions. He's like, that's what we should be doing. Right. 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. Like, I'm just super down for that. Oh, yeah, 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 we hold it there for a couple of days after and just went out I got stung by stingrays and you know I didn't catch crap but um I'm gonna credit I'm gonna credit that stingray with blooming your enjoys romance in a big way maybe maybe I think that stingray I saw that stingray that stingray was a was a helper yeah I helped you out I held you out and wait for the pain to go away you know I I'll be well what happened was

I blew a motor up somewhere on the beach in the Bay of L.A. Yeah. Bay of L.A. Yeah. And I was changing the motor out on the beach and just covering in grime and oil. And Joyce, like, you're going to have a swim. I'll get stung. Guarantee.

I don't get in the water. I'll get bin by a shark or something. Shuffle your feet. That's where I'm told, yeah. You didn't learn that in England. You got to shuffle your feet? Shuffle. Well, I was shuffling.

Shuffling all around. And not getting stung. I was fine. Then Joy takes a flying leap. Ammers me. step back, straining her. So I'm sitting on the beach.

Blaming on joy. Yeah. With a, sit a boiling water. You know, it's not so bad. You know, you just like a little foot massage.

You got to pee on it for a bit. You know, I'll, you know, I'll pee on it. That's what I'm told. 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. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 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. The rest of us was like, 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. Right. 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 on, in the 500. It's just much more fun 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 $3 trophy. Sure. But I do.

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 gold and 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 Bullring. 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 Fortalays at Tequila sponsorship. ship and I'm sliding in bottles and this. I said, you just, you 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, 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, if you're still like...

But the trophy is that. Yeah, yeah. You hear that for sure. Oh, you know, back in the, back in the... Barha still is back in the whatever you want to do. 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 fun 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.

You know, Nora and score hadn't come in. Nora had left. Okay. But there was the last race. And he won it that year, a navigator and a land cruiser. so we 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 tacos. She's got a grin on her face and a beautiful barber 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 of it. I think so. Yeah, I mean, Baja was 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 I was my first riding experience in Baja. And I was like, you know, this place is pretty wild, like pretty cool. And no one, no one. No one. really cares that you're there. You're just kind of doing your own thing. Just don't be a dick. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Just be a normal, like just having 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. And to go race along the beach and, you know, going to get to do that stuff.

Yeah. There's not beach racing in California is the, like, proper beach race. No. no they don't let you do that anymore yeah it's just a different world down there

I really enjoy 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 few errors outside of Ensenada

yeah it really opens up down there and you know even though I mean I'm writing down was at the 500 last time I remember being lost in the middle like a sand

wash somewhere. Looking for Scott. I'd double back three times. 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 on a horse. And I followed him. He made 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, I was just like, other guy at one of these. And 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 like, 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 know you're never that word I was never no you're just I mean you're not gonna 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. That 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 oh yeah you're stranded back rapidly so they start off you know

every minute or something and they're gone 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 that uh um 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 it 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 me. You don't have two cases of tea. It's dusty as hell. Especially, you know, the night, 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. 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 drive 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 drive. It 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 said, no, you did. That was the exact same section. I was like, no, this was all like cliff edges, you know,

you'd ride off into the, you know, oblivion. He's like, same section. Middle of the night when you can easily three foot in front here, you ain't ready for it. You ain't ready for it at 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 another great part of Baja when you're out there and there's no town. Hey, Cody, Cody's thump in the floor. 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 out of 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 the bag. I never, 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 pictures. No, we were racing. and so we're going the lights getting dark just to stop and camping some of them spots

just to spend an hour and all you know you're blasting through you're like crack a beer great spot to have yeah

yeah just soak it in and that's I think you know that's the difference between the race and the adventure and you know we well the good thing

about the race is it shows your place is that you're like I'm going to come back and see that point forest you know definitely saved

those race maps for sure because there's spots I mean that's but to hint's the point that was 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. Yeah. I can see six feet in front of me. And I am scared to death of everything that's out of that. And everything's rattling. And you're on a course made for a trophy truck.

You're on a course made for a lot. You're just slowly sinking into the sand as we're moving forward. Yeah. Or at least a course made by a trophy track, because you can tell when they've been through. You know, it's like dinosaurs have rampaged through the damn thing. And the Baja 1000 had been, what, a couple weeks before, a week before because there's still markers. Yeah, there were still markers on the road, which was screwed us up. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. To see these other arrows for when the Baja 1000 and the Nora. That was a hell of a task, yeah. That was like you said. That was amazing. But we got, I mean, 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 was 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 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 blow-up arch thing. And so they let us do it.

And we, it was hilarious. But we did that. And 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 the problem when you have somewhere to be in it. Like, you know, I would... Yeah, any other situation, we'd just be hanging out. Yeah, yeah. I just start a fire. Yeah, yeah. You know? Start a fire. Pull out that sleeping bag. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Who's got after the sun goes and just do another day? The spots were you

row through it like, yeah, that was the problem. You just want to, you want to stop a lot. You had trip should have took two weeks not oh man not 28 hours yeah that definitely it's the problem with modern life so we don't have the two weeks to devote to these proper activities no vintage bikes and driving vintage vehicles through baha yeah well i mean i think that goals hashtag goals yeah goals and i think it's doable yeah it's not that it's not that bad it's really not that expensive i mean no and that's a nice thing about going to baha 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,

but 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 tacos here.

And then if we still have time to finish up, we'll finish up. Yeah, I don't want to. Sounds good. You 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.

Yeah. on the Slow Baja podcast. Joyce 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 parts girl. That's what it feels like.

Also very crew chief. Crew chief, rider as well. Half of this podcast has just been talking about you. Oh, geez. Triumph Cub racer, extraordinaire. 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-run for his events. Way important too, Joy. Yeah, I know. I know. But that was like a little real deal. The proper barrage. Right.

Oh, man. 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 head 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 and the sand. You know, I'm like, shit, I only wear a strump arrow on a bathing seat. 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 wint 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 you don't skip a beat. And love happens. Yeah, yeah, I know.

I also say that the best share I've ever had was on that beach, on the Bay of L.A. In like a tent, they put a shower up in a tent and it was a hot shower and the windiest night. There was gale force. I was sleeping under the truck and I got the shower. I remember, you know, I've just been making the canvas flap in there. And it's a scalding hot water. It's a greatest show I've ever had in my life. And we saw you in the morning and it's still look like you had in shower at all.

You guys look in hell. They looked very much. off the night. 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. Like it's pretty after doing a motor swap in the sand, like you guys were, it was pretty, what's the word bleak might be the more that morning was a bleak morning in Bahá. On the beach, like with this beautiful, I mean, we're on the beach in Bahá.

Like, 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 and casadias. 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 you

I don't know you went over in the handlebar six times or something lost your wallet that's a good your tool strap 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 not just kidding the um yeah our trip to for the 500

was really cool because the way they set up the course we always and started and ended in ensanada 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 and it's very yeah we were down there and through the border

I mean took what 15 minutes to get through the through going and coming back yeah he was it was super easy I mean even getting down to Mexico when we you know they looked at the bikes kind of funny. We said we were with the race. And they looked at the bike's 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, 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.

days drive to be in ensanada and even kind of at the gateway of all of northern bahaha it was fun i'd baha's great i mean for that it's 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 tequila in the wild today i don't think davy said he was easy i think he said it 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 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 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,

which is probably a sad day for David, but ultimately I think Joy probably dodged four hours of conversation on the roadside with my step-down. But he was a good sport. He's an off-roader at heart for sure. And so 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 a job.

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 man are buddy. Yeah. He was giving me weatherman updates. Yeah. So, yeah, he's like, oh, he's in my Manx Club. like, of course he is.

So, yeah, that was, that was funny. So, you 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 Ensonata. Like, it was, that was great. And what did he say? I just got getting up in the morning and running out of the bathroom saying, I'm running rich.

He's like gearhead. 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, but no, Hayden and I had met just, we had literally started making out, what, two weeks or so before. A couple weeks before, yeah. 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. I 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 it was seeing red because he was like in race mode at that point. Like, where the hell is I?

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, oh, God. On the middle of a race course.

He 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 characters down there, you know. But I just remember. You know, so we hear that, you know, Nate pulls up and says, well, it doesn't matter anyways, I broke, 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? 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 trying to where he is, checking him with

the weatherman. And, you know, everyone's saying, 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,

at the bar. And they're like, ah, 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 chip track of 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, happen. I don't know. So I talking to them and the guy I'll never forget says, don't even worry.

He's probably shacked up with someone. Eita. Nine months from now, little Jose is going to be running around. I was like, are you fucking kidding? So 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. Yeah. 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 one of the most comfortable night sleeves I've ever had.

So then what's funny is I, so as I'm in there, I end up talking at 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, you know, 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, we know, 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. And 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're still on that. Yeah. And by the time they found Hayden, he was in the little 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, um, that stage. Oh, absolutely.

Well, 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 life 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 the 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 to? is same sponsorship and so, you know, 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 rule, 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 that 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 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 think, I had the best hotel up a stop team. That is true. That is legit. But that's the thing.

I mean, yeah, you could go ahead. And that's, 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 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. We went 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. He 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. He's asleep on a marble floor. Like, it was crazy. He had to take his top two sheets. Before he laid down. That's the next Hello Engine T-shirt. Yeah.

The Nick Ashley. Nick two-sheets, Ashley. This is a special Nick Ashley, two shit short. Modeled 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 all. The three of us on a couch. 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 to like. 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. Oh, a little joy. Future baker. Okay. Or, you know, as I'm tagging along with these two on, 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 i couldn't get through like that shit um on me on need someone to keep on track but yeah i'm hayden um i guess hello engine is my instagram and i'm just a motorcycle mechanic up in sanapula and i'm scott and i'm a fan of hayden's and joys 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 what was Sergeant Stouffer. Yeah. I 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 are even together. Scott's a professional photographer and a damn good one. Except they 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, you know, 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, you know, I'm just trying to here to have a good time. If you get time to stop and take a bunch of photographs, she didn't do the trip rides. 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 Baja in the 80s when we were college kids. And I said, remember we used just go to Baja and we would.

do stuff and not have to post about it or talk to anybody about it. I shoot film and then develop it months later. You know, it's just, we just did it. Yeah. There's something good about it. You 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, you know. In a shoe box. Yeah. Yep. I got, I have a lot of photos from that trip that no one ever really saw the light of

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, that's a life goal.

And there's other parts of it where I was like, but, you know, we. 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, you know, 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. Be sure you're not advertising. Yeah. Well, this is a copywriter over here. Yeah.

The tacos. I just don't have anything to say. I just pull this. I just pull this. No. It's not what I'm talking about it. 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 us. 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 sun. sign. Yeah.

And I think that, I think that's probably true. You know, I think that, that's probably from that, like, early days, like empire building where,

you know, the locals obviously wouldn't be seen out in the Sahara in the middle of the day, but we'd be marching across some desert boots and silly hats.

Man, God. We're in the noise and silly hats. Yeah. But, uh, but, uh,

I always have the best time down there. Like, and, like, 10 the story, some of the stories now. and I've only been there a couple of times. But it's all you talk about.

Whenever you talk about, like an adventure 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 watching, like Sergio Leone films, and that's, it still looks like that, you know,

down there. I love you. For me, like Baja, I think is, is as easy as you let it be. You know, 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 just represents a, like a more looser way of life and it's a 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 like the racing like it can be intense you can be super intense and you can buy a ceramic cock at the border right back on your right back you know you should be so true 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, or even by cold churot is like 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 crummy 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 same. the border and we're on the toll road heading down to Ensenada and it's a holiday weekend and there's a lot of traffic

and we're just the last toll booth before Ensenada north of Encinada 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 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.

And obviously has some cognitive issues. And great gas mileage? And then you can get great gas. smile it. 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's 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. And 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, did a river crossing, all this stuff, and then we got up there and they said $100. What are you going to do? You're going to turn around and ride.

back, right? It's like, oh. So the rest of the trip was just camping. We just camped on the beach, ate mangoes, drank coronas, ate tacos, and, you know, we blew our entire week's budget in two lot, two unexpected lodging experiences. But, you know, that, 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. You know, 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 baha 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 um boondock and and i've done it from the old bmw peri to a vkart to a vkswagen camper to a uh an old land cruiser fj 40 to you 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. I went back to Volkswagen Westphalia that had we've 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 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 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 like, you know, whatever. And came back on Monday. He had the part, had it fixed. Thing drove beautifully. But got back to San Francisco.

in Cisco and it was clear out you draw a pal I've had enough of you. What? Yeah. Oh my God. We started 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, 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 yet, 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 and 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. It wasn't like that when I was a drunk college kid. But now Tijuana's really grown up it's very interesting.

The food is really terrific. So there's a lot to see there. Yeah. I think people blow past Tijuana. 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.

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. So he got it out in the end. Yeah. Wait a second. Let's talk about it. 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, all 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.