Meyers Manx 2004 Baja 500
Press Release
Well, although it was a dark night, at least it was
not a stormy night! The little Manxter performed in almost a
flawless fashion at the Baja 500.
Rafael Navarro started the race and brought the car down the beach
side of the Pacific. He handed off the car to John BajaMaster
Castillo, who brought the car through the dreaded Southern loop.
John reported no problems, with the exception of the difficulty of
passing the unwashed unfortunates on the side and in the middle of
the course. John reported that his section was the worst that he
has seen in 20 years of Baja racing. Tons of silt, churned up rocks
and water, water everywhere! John passed the car off to Deano
Watkins, who brought the car to Dave Dietrich (yours truly) at BFG3
at Jamau.
The entertainment of the day was listening to the BFG
crew try to pronounce Jamau"! It sort of came out as Ham-ooo! Sort
of like listening to cattle. The BFG guys at Ham-ooo were awsome!
We watched their professionalism all evening. We can't say enough
about the great guys of BFG. Deano reported a pesky shifter, which
was adjusted by the BFG crew in about a minute and a half. I took
off with the car and immediately noted electrical gremlins. The
radio was making a banshee wail and making all kinds of racket that
reverberated in your ears. Having prerun the area just days before,
I
expected a quick 4th gear run to Bruce Meyers and the checkered
flag.
However, the wail of the radio was accompanied by dimming
LightForce lights. I cut the lights to the 3 100 watt lights, but
they continued to dim. At about mile 337 the lights dimmed to
candle light and the little car ran out of spark. We were on a long
down hill section and gave up the ghost in a hole at the bottom of
the course. The battery was so flat that the radio would not
transmit. Gene Levell and myself bailed out of the vehicle ASAP and
ran back up the course to stop traffic from piling into the little
car sitting in the hole. When the race traffic subsided, we noted
the boldness of the local coyotes. We could see their eyes with our
flash lights circling about 100 feet away from us. We then widened
our horizons by gathering stray bits of Manzinita, pucker bush and
exploded fence material for a fire next to the car. I tried the
radio again after we were there for about 3 hours or so. I was able
to raise Johnnie Golas, Deano and Paco. I informed them that we
were terminally anchored to our position, were safely out of the
car and
were enjoying our camp fire. Someone picked up about one-half of
the message and began reporting that the car was on fire, but the
drivers were safely out of the car! Only in Baja! Deano arrived at
our position as the sun was coming up. His tow rope, although much
appreciated, was about 6 feet in length. The 90 Km tow into
Ensenada was white knuckle to say the least. We arrived at El Joker
around 8:00 a.m. Unfortunately, we were not able to deliver a well
deserved finish for Bruce Meyers and our friends at LightForce, San
Felipe Off-Road, El Poquito Mas and Fox Shox. However, this will
just serve to improve us for the assault on the Baja 1000 in
November!
The Power Box transmission built for us by Rick St. John was
awsome, having performed perfectly. Likewise, the new engine built
for us by "Mean Dean" Moore performed perfectly, generating tons of
power and not leaking a drop of oil. Photos should be available
shortly.
Regards, Dave
Check out the Meyers Manx at www.MeyersManx.com |
