Slow Baja - Photographer Boyd Jaynes On Baja NORRA And Why Satan Drives A Bronco

Episode Date: August 22, 2021

Boyd Jaynes is a Southern California-based photographer and the creative director of Dusty Times Magazine. His professional bio reads, "When not shooting, he enjoys traveling to far-flung beaches with his wife or racing his vintage Bronco in Mexico." In today's podcast, we will get to know all about Jayne's vintage Bronco, Caballo Del Diablo, why he's raced every NORRA 1000 since 2010, and his profound love for Baja. Check out Boyd Jaynes photography Follow Boyd Jaynes on Facebook  Follow Caballo Del Diablo on Instagram Check out Dusty Times Magazine Check out National Off-Road Racing Association 

Hey, this is Michael Emery. Thanks for tuning into the Slow Baja. This podcast is powered by Tequila Fortaleza, handmade in small batches, and hands down, my favorite tequila. Hey, I want to tell you about your new must-have accessory for your next Baja trip. Benchmark Maps has released a beautiful,

beautiful Baja California Road and Recreation Atlas. It's a 72-page large-format-book of detailed maps and recreation guides that makes the perfect planning tool for exploring Baja. Pick yours up at Benchmarkmaps.com. Okay, let's do this. It's a podcast. It's Slow Baja. We're doing a Zoom call.

I've got Boyd Jane's famous photographer right here on my screen. Nice to have you. Welcome to Slow Baja. Hey, thanks for having me, Michael. I've watched this podcast from afar and I'm super excited and honored to be on your show. Well, that's great. Hey, I just have to ask you. Was your dad a car guy? Are you named after Boyd Cunningham or something like that? No, no, no, no. I don't know that Boyd Cottington was even a thing when I was born. I'm a little older than I let on. But no, Boyd Cunningham. Boyd Cottingham. Two historic voids in the car. Yeah, okay, yes, there is another one. No, it's purely a Gaelic name that means green eyes and fair fair hair is what I was told.

I've got some heritage over in that part of the world. And so that's how my name came about. And let's be honest, it was the 70s. And who knows what my parents were doing when they were trying to name me. Right. And you were a SoCal kid? Did you grow up there? I did.

I grew up in Southern California, although I was born in Detroit. Okay. My parents moved from Michigan to California when I was about two. So I always say that I'm a, California thrown through despite the fact that I'm actually a Michigander and still have lots of family over there. And I proudly wear a tiger's hat, not because I'm a fan of the Tigers,

the baseball team, but just, uh, Ex-M-D-I. Well, it's sentimental to me. My father took me to it. One of my earliest memories, my dad took me to a Tigers game. And I still have that baseball hat, it recently found it again.

Very cool. When my dad bought me a little child's hat. And so I probably about four years ago, I started wearing a tiger's hat again just to kind of show my Michigan pride. But love it. Yeah, it's something that we actually used for a creative brief for Noro one year. We decided that we made a motto that said born in Detroit, but built for Baja, which I kind of feel speaks about our vehicle and also myself. Well, let's get into that. Let me just read this for our listening audience. A little blurb about you, buddy. When not shooting, he enjoys traveling to far-flung beaches with his wife or racing his vintage Bronco in Mexico. You still married? I am. So the vintage Bronco racing in Mexico over the last 10 or so years hasn't blown that up. That's amazing.

No, you know, I'm very fortunate. I have a very understanding wife. You know, every year for the last 10, like you said, last 10 or so, I guess I bought the Bronco in 2009 and that first year, Nora was canceled because of a hurricane. So we didn't race until the following year in 2010. So every year for past, this will be 11 years is, you know, for the three plus months leading up, to the start line at Nora in April, you know, Brian and I spend hours and hours and hours every evening, if not every Saturday and every Sunday working on the Bronco. And so it takes an understanding spouse to realize that that's a reality every spring that we're going to be missing in action every moment we have to go and wrench on that thing or to go pick up parts or to do whatever it is we need to do to get ready. Yeah, like the swallows returning to San Juan Capistrano or baby turtles returning to Zazzi. That's right. The cycle of Nora continues. It does. It does. You know, and despite, you know, us thinking every year, we're like, oh, we're pretty much ready to go.

The truck was great last year. Or we only need to do this, this, and this. That never makes any difference. It's always just as much work every year. Well, so, you and Brian do work together to some degree. You're the content director for custom wheelhouse. Is that? I am. I am. And custom wheelhouse, can you explain that? We've got method wheels there and a couple other things. Yeah. I've been here for a year. Brian has been here for several years. Brian's background as an executive in marketing. He's worked for several companies, but has been here for, boy, I don't know how many years he's been here, but I've only been here for, just a year, but so it's fairly new for me. Custom Wheelhouse is the parent company of Method

Race Wheels, TensorFlow Tyncer Tire, GMZ tire, as well as Dusty Times Magazine. So yeah, it's great. It's really, really good, and I enjoyed a lot. I think in our past conversations, I told you that I worked for trackside in the middle 80s when I was a college kid shooting. I shot a number of events for them, 86, Baja 500 being one of the most memorable for me, and had pictures published in Dusty Times back then. But Dusty Times then versus Dusty Times today, are you responsible for figuring out that the return of that venerable title? I am, you know, and it was a project that I've been involved in before I started working here full time. I was approached by Brian and Kevin Fitzgerald and they, you know, said, hey, we've got the dusty times name and nobody's

doing anything with it. And it's such an iconic brand. It's such an iconic, you know, everything that stands for, it deserves to exist and not to just let blow away in the wind. So they tasked me with figuring out what to do with it. And we all agreed that, well, hey, we have to do some sort of a printed book, so, or magazine, but really it's not a magazine. It is a book. At this point, it's an annual. And yeah, very different than the original. But super cool. And, you know, I mean, we're jumping around a little bit here. Maybe I've had 16 cups of coffee already, so I'm not. I'm like 17, so I got you. Yeah, I'm not quite thinking in the linear, slow Baja methodical way that I like to. But how do you explain?

well let me just say your last issue was stunning i loved um andrew norton's piece on the banquet bronco guys and so you got tom duffy and vick i'm going to muff his last name a bruise a bruise yeah i think you hit it right i believe it's a brucees yeah bruce i'm sure there's some pronunciation nuances there but it basically that's it so these guys race broncos in the early nora races and, you know, they're going up against, you know, Parnelly Jones and big time serious Bill Strapped, serious racers. And these guys show up wearing tuxedos. Well, I have to say, you know, they, those guys have been, are definitely, definitely an inspiration for what we currently do. Well, that's why we're talking. We're going to get that. You know, it's not, it's not

coincidence that we we dress up in funny outfits and you know but the the irony is is that you know appearances may think you may think oh well these guys are some clowns that are not taking this seriously and they come dressed as mariachi's and and you know they're always got shenanigans going on at every time they're outside the truck and yeah all that's true but we do take it very seriously and what people don't see is like I said all the work that we put into getting ready for the race and you know we we put a lot of thought into strategies and and logistics and everything else that goes on outside of driving the truck itself but we take it very seriously and it is you know we at this point have contracts and sponsorships that require us to perform and

and there's a certain amount of pressure to do well. So, yeah, the banquet Bronco guys, I mean, what they did was just, you know, nothing short of, you know, definitely inspiring. But, you know, I mean, come on, they were they were pioneers, literally. So it's appropriate that we raised in pioneer class to honor guys like that. Can you explain Nora to folks who maybe don't know what it is? Can you explain that the original racing? I mean, you had guys like Tom and Vic, and then you had guys like, you know, Parnelli Jones,

IndyCar legend, and then you had, you know, Steve McQueen and, you know, Jim Garner. So explain the crazy cross. So the Nora of old, for those who don't know, Nora, the National Offroad Racing Association, was the original sanctioning body for what is now the Baja 1000. Back then, they called it the Mexican 1000, and it started with some guys

who basically were having a gentleman's bet so who could make it from Tijuana to La Paz fastest. And it got more and more organized every year until finally Nora

was bought by I believe it was Mickey Thompson. and now it's score international is what it morphed into. My Perlman, who is the son of the original Nora organizer, Ed Pearlman, recently in 2009 announced it. He was going to reinvigorate the Nora brand and bring back the Mexican 1,000 in a format that's a little bit different than, I should say a lot different than the Baja 1000 in that it's a multi-day format rally

style event that goes from currently in its current format, goes from Mennonata to Cabos and Lucas every year, with the exception of last year. And that format is much, much different than an all-out sprint race like the Baja 100, where they start, never stop until they get to their final destination, whether it's a loop or point to point. It's, and that's, that is, I mean, that is the highest level of off-road racing in the Baja 1000. Nora, I think, keeps a lot of the original spirit of the Mexican 1000 alive in that really anybody can participate, anybody can come.

They do a really good job with accommodating whatever you want to race, as long as you've got certain safety features and built in, they'll let you come and run it. which is why we see today, everything from actual trophy trucks and very, very serious teams all the way down to guys with, you know, reggae themed Volkswagen Vanigans and knuckleheads driving vintage Broncos with mariachi suits on. So, you know, the multi-format race is is part of what makes it very accessible because it is a long, very difficult race. Let's not kid ourselves. But what makes the multi-day format good is that you can have a terrible day, and you can even not finish a stage, as long as you can make it to the next town and get your repairs done before your start time,

you're still in the race. We know this firsthand. We've had a couple of years where we've had what seemed to be terminal, mechanical failures, and that we've been able to overcome them overnight and show up the next morning, much to the chagrin of our competitors. and restart the race with a big time penalty, but again, you can overcome that too. So we've actually lost the transmission in the middle of the race, had to rebuild the transmission on the side of the road with the help of some locals and got it back in and we're able to

rejoin the race, and we actually won that year. So that's what makes Nora great amongst other things. You know, the ball 1,000s run mostly at night. Nora's primarily during the day. So not only do the racers and the chase crews get a chance to rest at night, but we get to see the peninsula and the daylight, which is something that people that have only done the bottom 1,000 haven't really experienced. They drive through the night and don't really see a whole lot.

So there's that also. And the camaraderie that you get by stopping every evening and working side by side with another team, you know, in a hotel parking lot or, you know, camping next to each other or whatever. it is, is something unique as well. So Nora's just really, really, really great experience. If your listeners haven't tried it or come down for it, it's really special. And from the position that you're in where you're flogging a high-performance V8, you know, sheet metal, original sheet metal 68 Bronco, hard through dirt and silk and all that, going airborne,

and such, all the way back to what I'm doing in the safari class in a completely stock 71 land cruiser on 30s, you know, just plodding along at 25, 30 miles an hour trying not to go airborne. But there's a place in Nora from from all the way up front in a few-year-old trophy truck, as you said, with Jack's Redline, 16-year-old phenom at the wheel, to, you know, the safari class. where you can basically run your street legal four by four in any format. Yeah. With Kurt Ladoot making sure you're going to get. I think that that's a perfect example of the length that they've gone to make this very inclusive,

to make this race something that that's attainable to just about anyone. You can come down with a stock truck and do that safari class and get a taste of Baja in a safe and guided environment and still be a. part of this bigger thing, which is the Noro-Mexican 1000, you know, that's, again, you know, you don't need to have a truck that's got a roll cage and a fire extinguisher at your ready. You can come down and just do a little cruise like you were saying with Kurt Leduc. I mean, let's be honest, a freaking legend. I'm guessing that there's barrels of laughter every time you stop.

And Kurt tells you a story about, oh, I remember that cactus right there. I crashed into it or so-and-so, you know, whatever. I mean, he's got so many stories. But again, that's part of what makes Nora so special. And, you know, the, again, the inclusivity that the, you know, I think that there's something for everybody, really. So can you, boy, can you explain people off-road race, people drive off-road. There's a lot of dirt in Southern California and Nevada and Utah and other places. Can you explain how the dirt and the people and the terrain are different in Baja?

You know, I think there's one, there's something that that, that, that Baja has that driving in Arizona, California, Nevada, like you mentioned, where we have some similar terrain, there's plenty of it. There's, there's, there's, there's something about Baja that makes it special when you cross the border is, is that you realize that you're starting an adventure. You are in a foreign country. You're in a place where, where, you know, there's a certain amount of a sense of danger, a sense of, you know, you being by yourself once you get out off a dirt road that, you know, really there isn't anybody that's going to come and help you. There is a sense of adventure every time you pull over to stop to get something, whether it's

to buy a soda or to get some fuel or to go into a taco stand that you just saw a sign on the side of the road. All of that is what adds to the allure of Baja. And I can tell you firsthand, when we got our driver's licenses in Southern California, the first place most of us wanted to go was Baja. And we all did. I mean, as soon as we got a driver's license, we would go to Baja, whether it was to go surfing or to go and watch the Baja 1,000 or to just to go down and get drunk and buy booze because you're 18 and smuggles and fireworks home. I mean, that was that is the allure of Baja.

It is worlds away, but yet so close to places like Southern California. Phoenix, etc. I mean, it's an adventure that's there for the taking in just a few hours drive that that is very different than going out and flogging your truck and Barstow. I'll tell you that right now. No offense to Barstow. Oh yeah. No offense to Barstow. There's a great great purpose. It's called shock testing. Well, again, we've jumped all over the place from your work for Dusty Times, which is an amazing magazine. Is that Dusty Times mag on Instagram? Do I have that right?

I believe so. I can check. You love dirt and you love off-road and beautiful photography, and I think that's what drew me there first to see the work that you did to bring that venerable title back with really beautiful photography first telling the story, but well-done stories as well.

The writing is superb and the photography is superb and it's packaged beautifully. So kudos to you. Thank you. And it's not just me. We have wonderful contributors, both photographers, writers and have a fantastic partner who heads up to design, Brett McMillan and Ratt Smith. It really is just the two of us, you know, obviously being guided by the folks here at Custom Willhouse. but it's a labor of love and we're both very passionate about the subject matter as well as the medium of print and graphic design. So it's a dream assignment that every year when we are doing another one, which we're doing right now, we're underway with issue four,

is I still have to pinch myself and just can't believe that we have such great clients and such great material to work with as well. Can you give me a few minutes on the arc of your career as a photographer? You do beautiful adventure-based, I would say adventurous sports-based photography, but also as much of that as you're shooting, I don't know, rugged portraits of people who do interesting stuff, whether it's off-roaders or, you know, Navy guys or, you know, well, the rest of my work, it really, you explain it to me. Sorry. Well, first of all, thank you. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

You know, I think I always wanted to be a photographer. My mom is a very talented artist. She's a painter. And I from a very young age was frustrated when I realized I didn't have the illustration skills that she has. And so I ended up picking up the camera that she always had around. And that's how I first are getting interested in photography. And as I got older, really dreamt about going to a proper art school and was fortunate enough to get accepted to the art center in Pasadena. I went there.

Pretty special place. Very special place. Late early 90s. Was that when you were there? I was there late 90s. And for those who don't know, it's, it's, it's. Art Center is a very, it's a very important place, particularly for transportation design, which is a little bit ironic that I ended up going into that field on the commercial photography side of things.

That I was, you know, in a very small school with a small number of students, and a lot of them were transportation design students who were there learning how to design cars. and I didn't want to be a car photographer or be in the automotive space. When I went there, I thought I was going to be a National Geographic photographer, but was lowered towards the really commercial end of photography, and particularly automobiles by an instructor I had, and ended up going to work for him, sweeping his floors, and eventually became a first assistant and then an associate and then a partner of his

in a studio after many, many, many years. and that's how my business started. But yeah, I've been very fortunate to shoot things that I love and subject matters that I love, everything from, you know, motorcycles and jet skis for Kausaki and motorcycles for BMW, shooting, you know, divers underwater from the U.S. Navy, hanging out of helicopters for the Navy, hanging out of helicopters for a lot of people. Scares the shit out of me,

but I still end up doing it. You know, it's really helpful when you're passionate about what you're doing. And, you know, I suppose I could have been a bikini photographer, but I think I love getting dirty and doing the kinds of things that I do more. So yeah, so here we are. I was really in more of the pavement space when I went off on my own. In the beginning, I was shooting indie cars and sports car racing and super bikes and all sorts of pavement type stuff. And kind of got reconnected with a world that I was a fan of when I was younger in off-road.

Like I said, we used to go to Baja a lot when I was when I was younger. And I had a pickup truck with with stickers on it that I thought looked like Ivan Stewart when I was in high school. And, you know, coming full circle to that, I guess just makes sense in hindsight. But, you know, it really is a space that I love a lot. And I am definitely passionate about. And, you know, now being able to participate with my Bronco is just even sweeter. You know, we can't wait to drive our old land cruiser down to Baja, and when we go, we go with Baja Bound Insurance. Their website's fast and easy to use, Baja Baja Bound Insurance, serving Mexico travelers since 1994.

Hey, do you have a 4x4? You love off-road racing. You've got to join Slow Baja in the Nora 500. It's Ensenada to Ensenada, three great days, October 7th through 10th. Kurt LaDuke, Offroad Hall of Famer, leads the class. If we can do it in our old truck, you can do it. it. Get your street legal four by four, get into the safari class, and I'll see you in Ensenada. More info at nora.com. That's www. N-O-R-R-A-A-com or on Slow Baja. So you, you bought your Bronco to basically do the Nora race. I did. I did. And I had, and I've mentioned this before on the show, so I hate to keep flogging this, but I had the same epiphany. I was racing in a lot Carrera. I had this little Dotson two-seat convertible.

and when I heard about Nora, I thought, hey, you know what? I bet I could just jack my little dots and up a little bit. And, of course, they race TR3s and other dumb stuff in the original race. You know, it wouldn't be that far off. And I called Pete Brock and he said absolutely, positively, no effing way. Peter, Peter doesn't pull any punches. No, I mean, it was nice enough that, you know, Gail patched me through after my impassioned request. And she patched me through to the legend.

And he just said there's no way, no way, even with bypass roads and other stuff that you're going to take a Dotson roadster, you know, across Mexico. And then he told me about the trials and tribulations of racing a Dotson 510, which was my first car. And, you know, I thought I was John Morton when I was a high school kid driving that Dotson 510 around. I really thought I was a racer. As we do, as we do at that age. As we do until you go to the Bonneran school like I did, and you realize, hey, I'm really not that good. But, you know, rallies and things like that where people break gives me a chance to go slow at the end and participate. But getting back to that epiphany of the Nora thing, you pulled the trigger on a pretty, well, those cars were not cheap then, but they've gotten damned expensive since you bought yours.

We got lucky. We got lucky. I was back in 2000, probably eight or so. I had a friend and work associate, professional associate, who was a graphic designer, who we did a lot of work together. And we both worked in the off-road space and heard about Nora and the fact that it was going to be a vintage rally format and that, you know, it was open to anyone who was willing to come down with something.

And we both decided, boy, hey, wouldn't it be cool if we found an old Bronco. And like you said back then, they weren't as crazy as they are now. And in fact, we looked at several all the way from up to north in Santa Barbara down to San Diego and landed upon this one from a gentleman off a Craigslist in El Cajon. And I'll never forget that day when I was actually going to my niece's graduation at UCSD. and I decided, well, I'll go look at this one by myself on my way to the graduation because I was going to be down there and I went and looked at it and went, and I went and looked at it and went, holy crap, and this thing was just immaculate. He was a gentleman who used this Bronco to be a volunteer corner worker out at local races,

like HGRA races and things like this, and he would actually trailer it. to the races and then drive it out to his his assigned spot out on the course and then put it back on the trailer and trailer at home and he had a you know a fake cage in it it had some be of goodrich and elkhorn stickers on the side and was painted pretty racy and and so it looked and felt like a race truck it had super trap muffler so it was appropriately loud and um it was just like i said immaculate the wiring was just perfect. Everything was so well maintained. And it had been in his family. His uncle had bought it brand new, and he'd had it for some time after him. And I went to, I looked at it and immediately wanted it and, you know, ended up being late to that graduation for

my niece because I had to run to the bank to go and grab money to give to him to say, hey, I want this. Here's a pile of cash. just hold this for me i'll be back yeah exactly exactly and he wanted like 12 grand for it and i whole brain mind at work yeah he wanted 12 000 box for it it's 1968 and um i ended up giving him i told him i'll give i'll give you 10 grand cash right now and that's what we ended up at and that same bronco would be upwards of probably 60 grand today the way that thing looked and what it had on it and all that. So, yeah, I was really, really lucky.

And when I went to pick it up with my partner, my then partner, who's no longer my partner, but we went to pick it up and we told him, hey, we're going to know, we're going to race this at the Noremax 1,000. And the guy had like the keys and all the paperwork in his hand. And he actually kind of like pulled it back and went, wait, you're going to do what? He didn't want, he was worried that we were going to destroy it. He was so passionate about this car and he was so nervous and really kind of heartbroken that he was selling it.

but I forget what the reason was, but his garage was just immaculate, just like the Bronco was the way he had everything organized, and now his dirt bikes lined up, and it was just indicative of how well it was taken care of. And he even had three by five cards with notes for various types of things to do with the Bronco that we referred to for years and years and years, to be honest, were his three by five cards. And, yeah, we just got really lucky.

I mean, super, super lucky to find that at that time, because, again, if you were to go and try and find one today, you'd be in it a whole lot more and you'd probably be not so likely to want to race it and possibly destroy it and knock on wood. We've been very fortunate. It still has all the original sheet metal. We never had a serious incident that has required us to, you know, replace any of that. We did replace actually one fender that just it was so old. old, it just kind of the attachment points all cracked on. So we had to put a new fender on it. But yeah, other than that, can we hop through those, those 10 years?

I think first year you guys were last in class or pretty close. So, yeah, that's actually funny, you know, we went down there with full head of steam and thought, you know, a lot, but. Oh, yeah, yeah, we'd seen it done. Both, like I said, my partner and I at the time were both involved at heavily in off-road racing. and we've been, you know, countless races, have been embedded in teams. We know how to do this.

And I don't think we were 10 miles in the first stage before we were pulled over with some sort of an issue. And I think right then and there, we learned what Nora was all about when the guys, the BFI guys pulled up in big blue suburban when we were stocked on the side of the road in Laguna Salada, and they pulled over on the side of the road. And they were in the race.

they pulled over and leaned out the window and, hey, you guys, okay? We're like, yeah, we don't know, some sort of ignition problem. And they're like, okay, you guys want a beer? And it was 8.30 in the morning and they had a big cooler of beer and they're suburban racing with all those, all three of them, I think, or three or four guys are in the suburban. So they handed us a couple of cold beers and pulled away. And we said, well, at least we got a cold beer. And right then and there, kind of realized what the spirit of Nora was all about. And yeah, we did really terrible that year. We were second to dead last. And I'll tell you what's awesome. And to this day, I still have that timing sheet just because it's, you know, historic for me. And the timing sheet says second to dead

last boy, James. Last place, Parnelli Jones. Parnelli was the Grand Marshal, and he was driving one of his old pre-runners. I think it was the rancher one that he had. And they were just driving. and just stopping a taco stands, and they weren't really racing. But they were still on the timing sheet, and it turned out they were behind us on the timing sheet. And so I have that my first professional, quote, professional race, I'd beat Parnelli Jones. Well, in the press release, I'm sure it said something like, in his first race, Boy James beat legend Parnelli Jones. Yeah.

There was zero press releases. So, yeah, that was that. And then the second year, we came, actually, we showed up to the race with that cage, which was not really a cage. We had done some stuff to tie it into the frame. But I remember the technical expector looked at our cage and went, hey, I like what you did underneath here, tying it in. But he's like, he kind of flicked the metal.

And it kind of went, ding, ding, think. He's like, yeah, don't show up with this next year. So they let us race, even though that thing was pretty less than regulation. And so the fall of year, we came back and we put some money in, had a full cage built and had a proper fuel cell and all that stuff. And one thing that we didn't know much about back then was transmissions. And we actually, when I first bought the Bronco, I had a three on the tree. And we learned quickly that that was next to impossible to drive off road with three on tree at any sort of speed, at least in a Bronco. So shifting was just, it was next to impossible.

It was so difficult. I've said this before, and I still think it rings true. It was like trying to sign a check on a jet ski. It was really, really tough to drive that thing. So that was the first thing we did even before we raced that first year, as we put a C4 transmission in. So we came back to the second year, and it turns out that our shift gate was just not quite lined up.

up properly. So anytime we were engaged in a gear on the shifter, we were actually in between gears. We didn't know that. And again, we're a photographer and a graphic designer who hardly had two wrenches to rub together. We didn't know what the heck we were doing. And so, yeah, we burned up the transmission outside of Bay of L.A. and we got a DNF that year. Yeah, so that was our our real big start to racing. A second to dead last on the DNF. But somewhere along the line, you really figured it out. And you guys have been pretty reliably up front with several wins in a row.

I'm not sure how many here. My research is somewhat faulty this morning. But six, seven, eight, what do you have there? He doesn't want it. I mean, it sounds terrible, but I don't even know. I think it's seven. And that's perfect. Because this really isn't about winning, but what I'm getting to is you take this pretty seriously.

We do. And I'll tell you what happened. That third year, my partner and I went separate directions, and I ended up buying him out of his half of the Bronco and was at a industry event. And at the time, Brian Godfrey was the marketing director for Fox. and he had some fog shocks for fog shocks yeah fox shocks and he had helped us the previous year get some shocks on the bronco so he was aware of what we were doing and that was at a like I said an industry event and there was an open bar involved oh perfect yeah yeah perfect yeah exactly and I get an invite can you get me in yeah so over over a couple of beers a conversation with

Brian Godfrey and the conversation ended with, hey, do you want to come and race Nora with me in the Bronco? And, you know, Brian immediately said yes. And off we went to plan that following year. And that was really the game changer. And it was bringing Brian on board. And Brian has got some background that I don't have in that he came from a family of off-road racers and motorcross. And his father was heavily involved in off-road racing in the 70s and 80s. And Brian, more recently to that was involved in management of one of the biggest, at the time,

one of the biggest trophy truck teams out of Arizona that had two trophy trucks and they had won the championship. And Brian was, he was team manager. And so Brian knew intimately what it took to logistics and strategy and things that I'd never thought about and didn't pay much attention to, which are critical in being successful in racing is having all your ducks in row with that type of stuff. But not only that, he also was a co-driver with Pistol Pete and he had been in the navigator seat and knew what it took from that position

to keep the guy turning the wheel under control. So there was a lot of things that he brought to the table, which was just game changers. So that first year, we won first year with Brian and won handily. As a matter of fact, in fact, I think that year we got like, you know, top 20 overall. And then the following year was even better. We came back and honestly, we didn't do a damn thing to the truck at that second year. But Brian, we just, I think we washed it off and changed oil and came back.

And we had a great, great battle with evolved. people, Dave Cole of Ultra Four racing was racing a forerunner that somehow ended up in our class. And we battled for three days before the final day, the final day, Norov went up to Dave Cole or came up to us and told us, hey, that guy, that four runner in front of you, he's not in your class. That was a mistake. But we'd spent four days battling where we were literally just between seconds and just a couple of minutes apart from each other. And that caused us to drive a lot faster than we normally would have. I mean, kind of stupid speeds. And we ended up getting eighth overall. Wow. We won our class pretty handily, obviously,

but still got eighth overall and vintage going a lot faster than some guys who should have been a lot faster than us. And we had a lot of close calls. I'll be the first two minutes. every year we have at least one oh shit moment where we were like oh god let's not do that again but yeah so that that was the beginning i think really doing well was when brian came on board and then that fifth year i think we we Brian helped get us we had a title sponsorship with fox and we did a ton of we started then we started looking at the truck very intelligently as far as, you know, again, Brian's like, hey, we can make this better. We just need to, you know, we need to consult with some people that are smarter than us.

And that's what we started doing. And we went to some engineers from Fox and we ended up working really, really hard on the suspension and doing some creative things with springs and valving that we hadn't thought of, just seemed counterintuitive, but they've worked really well. And I'm not going to talk about them because there's still some stuff that we use today. But, yeah, so the truck all of a sudden worked really good. But, yeah, so that, we've done well. For folks who aren't totally up to speed with this,

and I have a lot of people who just love Baja who listen to this show and they're not off-road racers. So you're racing the desert. You're trying not to break, break physically. break your equipment. So you have to be sympathetic to your, to your vehicle. And, you know, I mean, stuff goes wrong. It's a long, it's a thousand miles on, you know, on dirt and you're going airborne and you're banging into stuff and, you know, something, you know, all sorts of things can happen. How do you and Brian deal with each other? You guys both switch over. You, you both drive,

you both navigate. We do. How do you guys keep from hating each other? Because you have a, you have a professional working relationship. You have this financial and, you know, physically demanding, emotionally, demanding, mentally. You have an in-vehicle marriage. So you hit the nail in the head. Everything you said there is 100% true. They're wanting to kill each other, the emotional, financial, contractual pressures that we have both in and out of the race car. And it's true. I mean, there's something to be said about our friendship and how well we mesh together. I mean, we sit in a race car with somebody for 17 hours a day and out in the desert. You learn a lot about someone. And we quickly learned that we made each other laugh a lot. And we had a great

time spending that much time side by side, both prepping the car leading up for the months and then racing. But the flip side of that was, is, yeah, that there are times we want to kill each other. And we do bicker like a married couple often. You know, it happens a lot. You know, there's a lot of pressure. And some of it's been caught in camera. We were sponsored by a dash camera company. And we still use this equipment. But we've got four cameras in the car that run all the time, and never stop and they have incredible audio, which is the funny thing, like the best, the most sensitive microphones I've ever encountered. I'm laughing, but not laughing, and I hope you do all the editing.

So we, and the other thing was that these cameras were, we were, as far as I know, the first team to ever do anything like this, these cameras had the ability to stream to Facebook live if we had cell coverage. And so we went through great effort to put cell phone boosters in the car and we had Wi-Fi Pucks and all kinds of stuff to do this. And we had a friend of mine who helped us put this deal together, who used to do the same equipment for Formula Drift. He was running the whole show from his phone in the chase truck. And he would connect whenever he could see us get cell service in the race car. And then he would connect us to Facebook Live. But there was an incident, I think,

between La Paz and Loretto, maybe it was going into La Pazza. I can't recall, but it was a big silk bed. Everyone's well familiar with these silk beds down there, and we knew it was there, and we always seemed to get caught out

in those things, despite having knowledge of where they are. And we got stuck, and Brian, I jumped out of the truck, and, you know, one of us wasn't moving fast enough or something, and a big argument ensued,

and there was some pushing and shoving. But we were good 20 feet away Yeah, we were a good 20 feet away from the race car and every single word got recorded on those cameras. I don't think we were alive at the time, but, you know, yeah, that happens. You know, we bicker a lot. When the stress level goes up, that happens. But always within, you know, 15 minutes or so, we're apologizing to each other and back to business. And that's the important thing is how you how you deal with that afterwards. But, you know, it's supposed to be fun.

But the reality is, you know, as much as we pretend that this is a fun, not serious race, as everyone does, boys will be boys. And the second that green flag drops, you know, it's game on. And, you know, all the mariachi outfits and funny mustaches are not going to hide the fact that we're there to win. Well, let me just say, you can come, Slow Baja community listeners, you can jump in back where Slow Baja is in the Safari 4x4 class where we're just having a good time. Kurt Leduc's going to put us on to some great tacos. I'm going to be pouring some Fortaleza tequila for you as soon as we wrap up our day. And you can watch the guys throwing their helmets at each other, wearing their mariachi suits

from afar and have a good laugh at it. Hey, Boyd, you've been sensational. You gave me a nice chunk of your morning. We're going to wrap it up. But before we do, I need you to talk to me a little bit about your emergency box. This is a thing that I've started to learn that every off-road racers got a little bit of an emergency kit, an emergency box. So I think yours is under the navigator's feet.

It is. It is. Well, we've got a couple of different emergency stashes. I mean, there's the obvious emergency supplies, which include a drive show. and zip ties, duct tape, all that stuff. But there's the... Is there anything you can fit, you can't fix with zip ties, baling wire, and duct tape?

That's my first go-to. J.B. Well, yeah. You definitely got to have a couple of ratchet straps with things really get rough. We've used those several times to hold the whole front clip of the truck on. But, you know, what do you do while you're waiting, while you're fixing that stuff?

You know, it's cold or it's hot out there. You need something cold to drink. So we've got a cooler that we keep. strapped on top of our toolbox appropriately enough. And it's got, you know, a couple beers in there, some waters, maybe a Red Bull. And that thing gets iced down before every stage. And then like you said, yeah, we have a Pelican box, which serves two purposes. It's a footrest, you know, much like a rally navigator.

They've got that kind of sloped thing that they can put their feet on. We've got a Pelican box that's got grip tape on it. And that's what the navigator puts his feet on. and it puts your knees up in a position where you can rest the rally road book in your lap and you can see it. So it really does serve a purpose in that regard, but also keeps your feet off the hot floorboard, which our headers go right underneath the floorboard. And I had a gentleman who was riding with me when we were filming some movie stuff. And his boot actually melted if he had it on the floorboard instead of the box.

But in that box, we keep our satellite phone. We've got paper Baja maps of all else fails. We've got those in there. We've got emergency blankets. We also have usually have a couple of cigars and a lighter, a bottle or a little flask of whiskey or a bottle of booze or some sort. And yeah, we keep that in there at all times. We carry some other stuff too. We've got a pick, like an Afro pick that we have Velcro to the door.

The navigator has a Velcro to the door. and that's really good for getting Choya stuck in your arm. Oh, yeah. The pick that flick it out. Oh, yeah. That's an old trick that Brian taught me. I never knew anything about that, but boy, it works perfect. I would say every, every Moto guy down in Baja should have one of those Velcro to their tank.

Because those guys really get nailed with those things. And if anybody's tried to pull a Choy out of the arm, what happens? It sticks in your hand. Now you've got to try to get it out your hand. But the Afro pick, you just flick it up. That's great. I wonder if I can make those slow Baja logoed. I'm going to be looking into that as soon as we go there you go. Cool. I'm going to want at least 10%. Exactly. Hey, best way for folks to follow all of your adventures. Looks like you've got a couple things going with devil horse racing. So yeah, we're on Instagram. Caballo del Diablo is the name of our truck and that means the horse of the devil. And that came about is it's a Bronco. Yes.

It's a horse. And also, I think the first time we drove it with that three on the tree, we were like, holy crap, this thing's possessed. So it turned out we started calling it the devil horse. And in Spanish, that is Cabo del Diablo. So on Instagram, Cabo del Diablo, it's C-A-L-L-L-D-E-L-E-L-A-B-L-L-O. That's on Instagram. And then we also have a website, and it's devil horse motorsports.com.

You can check out some, a whole bunch of stuff on. on that website. That was a COVID project of mine where I spent a couple months just gathering up all the content that we had. We had lots of it and built a website and there's some T-shirts for sale. Yeah, you've got some art and some good, good fun films. And, you know, everybody does know that the devil, that Satan drives a Bronco, which I think is great. Good to know. And I'm glad that you've gotten that out for the world to see. Yeah. That's, some people love that and some people hate it. Hey, well, Boyd, I really appreciate you spending some time with Slow Baja.

I look forward to seeing you down at the next Nora event. And thanks for bringing your smile and your stories to share. Hey, thanks for having us on. And hey, we really, really appreciate what you do here with this podcast and, you know, hosting some people down in Baja and enlightening people to what we know is something that brings such joy to us going to Baja. and, you know, any way you can do it, and it's highly recommended. Well, I look forward to having our paths cross soon.

Take care, buddy. All right, Michael. Bye-bye. Hey, so thanks. That was fun. Cool. Yeah, thank you. That was awesome.

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