At this point, though, my character should be really frikkin awesome. I've had too much thrown at me over the years.
I did travel to Mexico, to work the start line for the Baja 1000 race...so here's a few photos of that:
Okay, that's not really fair. That was the rear end of one of the Coca Cola girls who stand around during the pre-race activities. She was definitely a member of the Coca Cola "B" Team. But who would look good in those pants, anyway??
Seriously, here are some race photos...
This is an ambulance that was entered as a race vehicle. It didn't finish.
We stopped in a restroom and I had to laugh at this sign. I've always known that they expect people to refrain from flushing their toilet paper--but I've never seen it put in writing before! Mexico has very poor sewer systems--if they have any at all--and flushing the toilet paper leads to big problems. So there's always a nice sized waste basket next to the toilet...
This is one of the Osh Kosh trucks entered in the race. Not as in Osh Kosh B'Gosh, but the huge truck manufacturer that generally does military stuff:
I did manage to get my annual photo with the girls. The Tecate girls.
Here's Jesse James pulling up to the start line. He didn't finish.
Roger Norman pulling up to start.
It was the nicest Baja race I've ever worked, because Jim changed things up. Normally, we have the same staff handling the start and the finish. We start the racers on Thursday morning--that takes a few hours. Then we verify all our numbers and go on break. The racers have 44 hours to complete the 1000 miles, so we estimate the time that we need to be back at the finish line to begin logging their returns.
But this race wasn't a "loop," it was a "point to point." The start was in Ensenada, the finish was 1000 miles south at LaPaz. Instead of scrambling us all to an airplane to get us to the finish line after the start of the race, Jim had three of us handle the start, then fax the numbers down to him and his crew at the finish. Then they logged the finishes. Once we sent our numbers down to him, we were done. Awesome!! We packed up and headed to the border.
