4:30 AM – Alarms are ringing, feet are stomping, and Piston are clapping. We all come to at about the same time. The rush is on! Cameras? Check. Bags and equipment? Check. Walkie-talkies? Wiley, where’s yours? Gasoline? Yep, we spent a good hour the night before shuttling five-gallon tanks back and forth from the gas station to our vehicles because we were blocked in.
Four days before we are driving down the 405 at 2:30 pm just barely missing traffic, and in a rush to get across the border before dark. It’s Monday the 14th of November 2011, and we are on our way to shoot the Baja 1000. Wiley and I are an hour outside the border with no Mexican insurance and limited spare cash. Last minute operations seem to be the way of life lately! We managed to make it across just before dark and with subtle interference from border patrol. A sense of comfort settles in when you glide Into Mexico passing familiar faces, who are getting searched by drug dogs, and hassled for everything they have. It’s the shits when they want to tear through everything to find nothing! Ensenada is only an hour and 45 minutes south of the border on highway 1.
Three days before, after early rise before the sun, we’re driving down a windy road with no shoulder, and nearly nowhere to pass. Wiley and I are heading to Borrego, a checkpoint that is 110 miles from the start, and filled with wide-open whoops in every direction. Kendall Norman, Quinn Cody, Logan Holliday, and the JCR Honda team are dialing in the race bike. Making sure every part of the bike suits each rider’s needs. Capturing some of the drama that’s involved with the mechanical part of the bike preparation was very interesting. The Honda 450 X looks and sounds extremely fast.
With a deep throaty snap out of the exhaust, and Kendall Tripling the car size whoops at 70 plus miles an hour; I have no doubt in my mind that they will crush this 692 mile race. Tyler and Tom arrive later in the day, and we spend the next day shooting B-Roll, and game planning how we’ll cover the race.
We break into to groups to cover the race. Tom and I are in the van, and Tyler and Wiley in the Audi wagon. The wagon looks a little out of place in the desert, especially with all the Ford Raptors lurking around. We touch base with Tyler and Wiley as they set up the shoot for the first checkpoint, move on out to our spot down the road, and try to reach the other guys on the walkie-talkie. No answer. After nailing the shot of Kendall storming through the section, Tyler and Wiley roll up as the JCR Honda helicopter floats out of site. We grab some food and go over the pit map and our plans.
After food we head back out. Pushing 70 plus on the crowded Baja roads, it almost feels like we are part of the race. We meet up again at Honda pit 5, where Kendall hands the bike off to Quinn. He looks pretty roughed up, and we get some pretty raw footage of the handoff.
Turns out he took a pretty good spill at mile marker 200, and had some choice verbiage at the pit. Quinn took over and ended up putting JCR Honda far enough ahead to hold the lead through the rest of the race.
We continued to chase the riders through the Baja desert till around 10:30PM. Got some interviews, margaritas, and called it a night. Complete footage will be released by late January.
-Hunter & Tyler
Your cart is empty.
All content © 2012 by Red Tide Pictures
Ya bucks!
Such a well written post.. Thnkx for sharing this post!
Hi! Great post!