The next morning the real adventure started! We decided to cross the border at the East entry in Mexicali which turned out to be a great decision. The border agent who processed our FMM was super friendly and a rider himself which made the crossing one of the smoothest I have ever had. We opted to ask for a 6 months Mexican tourist permit ($30) so we could use it again in future trip.
From there, we had one and only one goal - to watch the Baja 1000. It was about 10:00 am when we left the border area, and we were aiming down for San Felipe to see the race, but we did not know exactly where. An American couple at the border with a house in San Felipe had given us some pointers. They said "Go to 'Zoo' road - the race passes right behind our house! - the road is just passed the Pemex".
So I put "Pemex San Felipe" in the GPS, and with our heads filled with excitement we hit the road.
We were passing many chase vehicles and other Baja 1000 spectators, and once we got to La Ventana we knew we were on track.
Not much however was happening there so we decide to keep pushing to this famous Zoo road where they had promised "trophy truck jumps"...
It's a this moment that my friend Jorge indicated to us that his fuel level was about 1/4 of a tank. It's also then that I realized that unlike JP and myself, he had not filled up his tank the night before...
We were riding pretty fast and I was hoping that he would be able to make it to the famous Pemex in San Felipe. Our main focus right now was to catch the race and nothing would stop us.
Well, despite my best motivation, he did run out of fuel. About 10 miles before San Felipe, just about where the road turns into 2 lanes highway in both directions. Not the best place to stop.
Jorge had 2 spare REI type bottles but both empty. One was 1 liter and one 0.5 liter. There was no time to waste, there was a race to watch. So I grabbed the 2 bottles and started my own race.
I was pretty sure that 1.5 liters would not be enough to carry him back to the fuel station but we did not really have many other options.
Luckily for us, there is a (I am guessing new) ARCO fuel station a few miles before town. It tooks about 10 minutes to get there, 10 minutes to fill up and another 10 to get back. Let's just say this was a good opportunity to test the Super Tenere in the 3 digits speed department. Remember we had a race to watch.
We emptied the tiny containers in the bike fuel tank, got back on the road and Jorge made it. On fume. Literally. The bike died again about 200 feet away and he was able to coast all the way to the pump.
This gas station was filled up with trucks, buggies, 4x4, etc - it was hard to tell which vehicles were in the race, chase trucks, or just supporters. But it looked awesome and got us even more pumped up.
We filled up all 3 bikes and head back to the infamous Zoo road, near the Pemex. Well, at least that's what we thought.
I started having some doubts when I realized that the GPS took me to the PEMEX station in the center of town. That did not seem to match the couple's description. Then we started asking about the zoo road and no one really seemed to know about it. And then I realized by looking at the map that we were actually quite far from the race course. And that at this pace, all the vehicles would have passed us by the time to get ourselves situated. I was not happy.
That's also where Jorge experienced in first time riding in the sand with a big bike, and dropped it almost instantaneously.
While he was getting himself and the bike up being watched by the people at the local taco stand, I spotted someone who was watching something on his phone...and surely looked like someone who knew a thing about the race. He had the SCORE app and was following the race in real time. He had no idea about this famous 'Zoo' road but started mentioning the 'Dump' road and looking at the map with him, I finally realized that this was the road the earlier couple was referring to. And then I also realized that while they had said Pemex gas station, they in fact meant ARCO which is the same station I had been twice earlier to get gas. And that is also where there was so many Baja vehicles. DAMN!!!!. THAT'S WHERE THE ROAD WAS!!.
This is one of these moments when everything comes clear together in your brain.
So with that in mind, we forcefully pushed the taco from the same stand I mentioned earlier into Jorge's mouth and hit the road as fast as possible to backtrack to this Zoo/Dump/whatever road.
And sure enough, we found it. And that's where we had the first breakdown...