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Wow! I just got home from Baja at about 10:45 PM Monday night and I figured I?d better send out my race report right away since I've lost my voice from telling my story so many times. My story realy began on Monday Nov 6 as I finished loading my van, kissed my wife good bye and headed down the road, a quick stop to pick up my driver for the trip, Fred Rohrs, and we were off to Bell mountain for final testing on the race bikes. When we got to Bell Mountain my partners Steve Hengeveld and Mike Childress had already finished most of the testing and all I had to do was ride the bike and give it the thumbs up, as usual the Precision Concepts CRF 450X was awesome. After waiting a while for it to get dark Steve and I set the race lights and the backup sets, then we were off to Mexico. We drove to Ensanada that night and the next morning got up and continued another 8 hours south to Bay of Los Angles where we met up with my friend Tim Withers to start pre-running.
My section this year started at El Crucero race mile 333 and ended just north of Loreto @ race mile 724, that's about 390 miles, and Fred would drive the van on the hi-way for about 275 Mexico-miles, that?s equal to about 500 USA miles, and meet me at the bottom. Then we would load the van and drive back. We repeated this routine for six straight days almost always starting at 5:00 AM and finishing after dark every day. By the end of the week I had been over most of my section six times (that?s over 2000 miles on my pre runner bike) and felt really good about every mile.
Race Day:
I woke up at about 6:00 am on race day and tried to go back to sleep for a while as the 1X bike was not scheduled to arrive at our location until about 12:00 PM. I laid in bed for about 45 min then I realized that Mike Childress was on the bike and racing through the dust some were outside Ensenada. It sure is nice to be lying in bed while your partner is pounding whoops somewhere out in the desert trying to get the bike to you. That thought got me out of bed and I decided to go to my van to make some breakfast. I whipped up a batch of what I call the 400 mile mix because it stays with you for at least 400 miles (oatmeal, a big scoop of crunchy peanut butter, honey, Platinum Performance and a banana ). After breakfast Fred and I jumped in the van and headed out of Bay of L.A. to Honda pit 6 were I was scheduled to get on the bike. When we got to pit 6 my buddy Kendall Norman was already there waiting for his bike 6x. We still had about three hours before the bikes were supposed to get there, so we screwed around for a while trying to keep everything light and fun, even though Kendall and I were going to be racing each other at 100+ MPH before long. Just as we were about to start getting our gear on we heard a sketchy report form someone's radio that 1x had cleared check 2 in the lead which was great for me because we had started in 12th position 3 minutes behind the 6x bike, at this point things began to get a little more serious at the pit. Now all we could do was wait. Kendall and I shook hands and agreed to ride a safe race, just then we got more reports that 1x had a large lead and 6x had crashed and was having problems. Now my hands began to shake as they plugged my radio in to my helmet. 1x was due to arrive any minute. A few minutes later we spotted the chopper over head then Mike came ripping into the pit and the pit guys attacked the bike quickly changing front and rear wheels and an air filter, Mike told me the bike was awesome and I was off.
As I got the up into 5th gear I heard Bruce Ogilvie's voice in my headphones "1x you have a 45 minute lead, we need to land to refuel we'll catch back up after Bay of L.A. You?re on your own" Great! I had about 15 miles of fun twisty roads to warm up on then about 30 miles of pavement with a 60 MPH speed limit before I got back onto the dirt and began racing again. About 5 miles into my hi-way section I was following two trucks and watching my GPS speedo to make sure I didn't go over 60 MPH when this helicopter came down and landed on the side of the road, the wind off the rotor kicked up so much dust that I couldn't see any thing and it almost pushed me off the road. As soon as I broke through the dust cloud I looked up and the truck in front of me pulled out to pass and the truck he was passing turned left right in front of him. The guy locked it up and slammed right into the other guy. As that was going on I locked my bike up and swerved to miss both of them. WOW! I almost got taken out by a car accident on the HWY. That scared the crap out of *** I was relived to get back on the dirt and begin racing again. Everything was going pretty well and I was trying to find a good pace without making any mistakes. I've never had such a huge lead before and I wasn't quite sure how to ride. Just then two choppers swoop down over me one on each side, I look to my left and there is one with a huge camera the size of a beach ball hanging off the bottom of it, then to the right was the other Honda chopper used for spotting oncoming traffic on the course. At that exact moment I felt the pressure for the first time and I instantly went into full on squid mode. Everything tightened up. I began going into corners with the front end pushing all over the road, I felt like I was trying to hold off R.C. and Bubba at Glen Helen. In reality the next bike was over 45 miles behind me. It took me about 20 miles to recover from my squid attack after yelling at myself a few times, "COME ON YOU SQUID RIDE THE WAY YOU KNOW HOW!!!" I finally began to flow down the road. Now it was on. I found my pace and never looked back again. Everything went flawless from that point on.
I made it to Scorpion Bay just as it was getting dark. The Honda guys put on the lights and a fresh set of tires while I had a little bit of food and refilled my drink system, as I had been on the bike nearly 5 hours at this point. Bruce O informed me that Kendall had crashed and broken his hand and to tell Johnny Campbell that 6x was over an hour down when I got to the other side of the mountains. I was off into the darkness only 70 miles to go but I had to go over a pretty rough mountain range where most of the roads had been washed out by the recent hurricanes that hit Baja. I made a clean run. Other than a few herds of cows and donkeys in the road there were no problems. I handed off the bike to Steve Hengeveld and he headed off towards La Paz. My ride took about 6 hours 30 min to go 390 miles.
At this point I got swooped up into a box van with Marty Gomez and began to chase Steve to the next pit. I had to leave all my gear on just in case Steve had a problem and I had to get back on the bike. At this point we had pulled out a 1h 50min lead. All Steve had to do was ride it in. But Steve was on fire. He hit every pit ahead of schedule. At pit 18 we decided to change a rear wheel just to make sure we didn't have any problems in the last 120 miles. I pulled Steve aside and told him that we have a 2 hour lead and to just bring it in. All he could say was, "Did I pull any more time?" as he sucked down a whole Red Bull through a straw. "I don't know, dude, but we have a huge lead just bring it home...." "Yea, I know, but did I pull any more time?.... I'M feeling it tonight." This worried me a little bit, but no one even remembers the last time Henge threw it away during a race so I just patted him on the back and said go get 'em.
Now it was all up to Henge. Mikey and I drove into the finish and waited. Their were thousands of people waiting for the first bike. We waited nervously at the finish knowing that Steve was on his way. I can?t explain the feeling I had when that bike crossed the finish line. This was something I'd been dreaming about since I was twelve years old. We won the Baja 1000! Time 18h 17m, 2h 13m ahead of the second place motorcycle and 57min ahead of the first Trophy Truck
I just want to thank everyone who helped get the CRF450X to the finish line, especially all the Honda pit people. Over 100 people, all volunteers. They are great and we could not do it without them. Special thanks to Precision Concepts Racing, American Honda, Johnny Campbell, Bruce Ogilvie, Fred Rhors, my wife Samantha, O?Neal, Sidi Boots, OGIO, and everyone else who helped out.......... Of course my partners Steve Hengeveld And Mike Childress, you guys rode awesome
Congrats to my sister Anna Cody for finishing the Baja 1000 Solo in 33h 35m first woman ever....... way to go sis. Also congrats to Robby Bell on his SCORE championship, way to tough it out...... 1x. And Jim O'Neal the Dirty old Men finished 3rd O/A!!
Thanks gain to everybody,
Quinn Cody
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