Who Here Has Actually Run the Baja 1000 in a UTV?

[CrazyAlaskan]

Greetings all!

New here. Long story short, I'm putting together plans to run the Baja 1000 in 2017 or 2018, maybe both. I have a 2013 Walker Evans 900 right now but am looking to sell and get myself into a 1k two seater as a better platform.

I've been watching videos and perusing the internet for several months now, looking at builds and read suggestions. At this point, I'm just trying to find good sources of information as to what mods are considered absolutely necessary to complete the race. Me and my team were considering buying a used rig but the logistics of moving it up to Alaska and then back down added up fast. We're now looking at a line on a cheap 1k that could be used as a platform.

I understand the absolute minimums to race but I'm trying to find out if a LT suspension setup is absolutely a requirement? This is a 7-10k cost which I'm on the fence with right now. Can I get away with beefing up the stock 1k suspension and some 2.0/2.5s as shocks? I've been scoping out the rigs for sale and copying build lists to start but I'm just trying to draw the line between MUST HAVE and luxury.

Anyone that can help point me in the right direction or get me in contact with people who can share some advice, would be awesome.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Team Green]

I have done it prior to the current high level of competition and popularity and actually won the Baja 500 and Baja 1000. I have been around Baja since my dad raced the very first Baja 1000 in 1967. I have been a part of legendary Baja teams like, Kawasaki, Herbst, Rob Mac, Mastercraft. With that said taking on Baja for your first race is not recommended. If you really want to do Baja then start with NORRA Rally which is way more fun then the pressure of racing Baja 1000. It is way easier logistically and the experience and fun factor will be greater. I will guaranty you will still come home with many Baja stories!

Racing Baja is like going to war, the pre run is fun but after that the course rarely resembles what you pre ran, the visibility is nothing like pre running as you'll be in dust continuously. During the race you'll wonder why you are doing it but after you'll have stories for a lifetime.

So, In my opinion you should think twice about doing the Baja 1000 as your first desert race let alone your first Baja experience. On the other hand if I had my life to do over I would still have spent half of my racing life in Baja.

Go buy a used Race UTV as there are plenty of good ones to be had right now. Starting from scratch is costly and some things you never want to scrimp on when it comes to racing, especially in Baja.

That is my opinion. So go ahead dive in head first! Plan for the worst and hope for the best!

 

[baja specialist]

Reid just gave you the best advice that you would ever find about Baja. To me Baja is the most magical place in the world when it comes to racing and adventure. But the Baja 1000 is like no other race in the world. If you are the most prepared team in the world and have been doing it forever, Baja will still slap you in the face and knock you down to your knees, no matter how good you are, or think you are!

Get your feet wet first to make sure that you and your crew are ready. In a race like the Baja 1000 driving the car is the easy part. Your crew has the hard part and also bears a lot more of the risk.

 

[BiggJim]

Reid just gave you the best advice that you would ever find about Baja. To me Baja is the most magical place in the world when it comes to racing and adventure. But the Baja 1000 is like no other race in the world. If you are the most prepared team in the world and have been doing it forever, Baja will still slap you in the face and knock you down to your knees, no matter how good you are, or think you are!

Get your feet wet first to make sure that you and your crew are ready. In a race like the Baja 1000 driving the car is the easy part. Your crew has the hard part and also bears a lot more of the risk.

This right here is FACT....We showed up to last years BJ1000 more prepared than we have ever been, pre-ran for days, Ready for every scenario...And it was still not Kind to us. If your not prepared you will not make it far.

 

[rockstarcustomz]

I have a sweet 2 seat BITD/SCORE legal car for sale. PM me for details if your interested.

 

[george.felix]

Race BITD first and get your feet wet....OR even SNORE or PURE.

 

[george.felix]

I have a sweet 2 seat BITD/SCORE legal car for sale. PM me for details if your interested.

This car right here is a really good deal imo. You be hard pressed to build it cheaper but more importantly it's built by one of the best builders in the business. That can't be emphasized enough. I'd ask them to remove the pink wrap.... Car has a legacy for finishing races.

 

[goMRgo]

Murray Racing here in Anaheim, CA has a B1k race proven 2 seat Can Am Maverick 1000 (uses a 4 seat chassis) for sale. This UTV completed every mile of every race in Baja last year and is ready for more if interested. We have the SCORE Milestone Trophy to prove it. Just finishing the B1K is an awesome challenge and this one can do it. Let me know if you're interested.

 

[Glamisfan]

Check out Wide Open Baja. They have an arrive and race program that everyone seems to love.

 

[CrazyAlaskan]

Thank you for all the responses!

I should probably state that we'd be thrilled just to finish the Baja 1K! We're still on the fence between buying and building one. There is much hesitation in buying a used rig from across the country, but it could save or cost us extra money in getting it to Alaska.

Buying a used rig might allow a couple of us to fly down and hit up a smaller race to get our feet wet though. This is mostly a work in progress right now, with the idea being to have a plan nailed down by April/May.

Several of you reached out to me with advice or offered a phone number to just talk. I really appreciate that. I was told the Baja community is a small but supportive one and as an Alaska, I can really appreciate that.

Thank you very much for the responses!

 

[///Airdam Clutches]

if you want to race, i would recommend running smaller races, there are some small races in baja with little traffic 180-250 mile range to get your feet wet. you wont need multiple pit crews chasing you up and down the peninsula or multiple fuel stops to account for, or run the risk of needing to rebuild your entire car because of the mortality rate.

then sign up and pre-run the baja 500 this year. sign up and pre-run the baja 1000 too. dont race them honestly your first year trying to run either of those races in my opinion would be asking for a nightmare. even the most well prepared teams, with multiple chase trucks, tons of fuel and spare parts, still get stranded in the desert for 30+ hours without a blink of an eye. you need to have some small races under your belt to get to be able to understand how it works, what it takes, pre-run the larger races to see how the logistics pan out, you naturally want to think about hopping in a race machine and running the longest race in north america and having an awesome experience. what you arent thinking is how do you plan fuel stops, how often to plan fuel stops, how do you have a team with fuel and spare parts and spare tires at fuel stops in time since sometimes the paved roads they travel puts the chase teams apart from the car so far you cant radio them and they cant keep up with you at race pace. what happens when your chase team needs to fuel up and they are in an area where all the fuel stations within 100 miles close at 10pm, you need to go down and spend a week or more pre-running to figure out these kinds of logistics, understand that if your course takes you down one coast, then cuts back over to the other thru the desert, you will HAVE to have a chase team on each coast because the team will not be able to chase you across and beat you to the other side. in most cases, if your team sets up for a pit, and services you and you leave the pit at race pace, they still have to pack up, and very well may not be able to reach the next pit before you get there unless you have a half dozen trucks spaced across the peninsula in strategic locations. you have to plan all of this, everyone has to know their job, everyone has to stick to schedule, and you have to anticipate and plan for what will likely be inevitable, a crash, a part failure, running out of fuel, multiple flats or broken driveline that strands you in an area between pits where your crew is no longer in that immediate area waiting for you and is already out of communication range and doesnt realize you are stranded. everyone needs to know what to do when something like that happens because it WILL happen.

personally, this is just purely from my standpoint as to what i have seen. getting yourself a stock 4 seat NA RZR and take the back seats out and get the storage boxes to go where the seats were. stack things like spare parts, tools, stack fuel cans on it everywhere you can, carry at least one spare tire and possibly think about using tire blocks in all of your tires, map out the course and research it and know where every single fuel station is, and hotel is everywhere near your route. know how far your machine will run on a tank of fuel and know when you need to stop, where you need to stop, research and know what time all of those stations close, go down and pre-run for the first year and then go watch the race the first year. use a course map, pretend you are a chase team and are following the course. try and make it to the pits to be able to watch the leaders come thru and pit. then jump back in the vehicle and chase down further to the next pits and watch again. learn how hard it is, see how much the logistics matter, you gotta be thinking about fuel and food and chasing your leaders teams which in recent years are getting so fast and setting blistering paces that its hard to keep up with them. wear yourself out chasing the race for the first year to give yourself a better idea of what your chase team will also be doing while you are in the car. you can appreciate the necessity of chase teams and understand what they have to do in order to make your race go flawlessly. and by seeing first hand what the chase teams go thru and how fast paced they must be to stay in front of the racer pit after pit, you can more accurately plan and figure out the logistics on the next race having an understanding of what you must plan and strategize for in order to help make your race go as you plan.

and always plan for and prepare a backup for everything. trucks breaking down, flats, wrecks, road blocks, chase teams getting stranded. you getting stranded on course and not being able to reach your teams thru communications. cell phones that work, satellite phones that work, strong radios in the chase vehicles. spare parts. fuel and food so that you can be self sustaining for a week while you pre-run to learn the logistics. the allure of the baja 1000 is amazing, mesmerizing, but dont think you are gonna pull off a Johnny Angal and win it your first year. baja is rough and you better have your stuff together or you are in for a LONG and painful race.

 

[///Airdam Clutches]

on another note. we took a bone stock maverick X3 out of the crate on a tuesday. wired it with comms and GPS and extra battery and light bars and roof on wednesday. took it to plaster city to shake it down and let fox work the shocks and i did the clutch work on thursday. put 100 HARD HARD miles on it to see what was going to break before we took it to baja. it ran flawlessly. we loaded it up and took it to baja the next week with 120 miles on it and pre-ran the entire course this year and spent 3 solid days driving it, up and down, on highway to hotels to stay the night and back on course the next morning. then pre-ran the beginning of the course again. some of this time was having a blast at race pace. in a big group we had multiple drivers using the X3 to get to drive and have fun and check it out. after the whole week it had nearly 1200 miles on it and the vast majority of it was hard and fast. other than two flat tires from one of the drivers driving off course and into a cactus, the X3 never had a single wrench turned on it. this machine now has almost 2000, its been beat on for a few days in glamis while the Doonies movie was being filmed, been running hard and testing different things in the desert at race pace to see what will fail and this machine hasnt been touched its literally not broken a single thing and its been absolutely been hammered.

down side, it has no storage, it has no bed, its not very great for utility and handling the needs of being a pre-runner since you have nowhere to store extra parts untill can-am comes out with some sort of cargo box for the rear. but luckily it has been beat on and so far hasnt needed to have a single wrench turned on it.



i do however like the NA RZR 1000. they are pretty dang tough, in stock form with a little shock tweaks to handle baja and the storage boxes in place of the rear seat you can really carry a lot of stuff and be relatively self sufficient.

 

[george.felix]

I assume the hesitation to buying a used rig would be the motor, and trans.....it's pretty easy to evaluate the fundamental build. Seats, harness, cab etc is to your liking or not. Condition is straight forward. Suspension is as well even if you had to pay to service shocks worst case. Pull suspension off and see if the chassis is sound...worst case you do a weld repair to a tab or whatever. Cooling system is already relocated and don't wear out. Maybe u replace a hose. Cage is a no brainer. Electronics....worst case you replace a radio or intercom at some point. Steering racks are cheap and last long time. Lighting same thing maybe you replace a cube if it goes out. Pumper same thing easy fix. Skid plate another no brainer. Fire extinguishers and saftey nets no brainer. Anything on any of the 4 corners is a cheap fix.

I'm not trying to sway u one way or another but I think the knee jerk reaction to used is I don't want to buy a lemon. But if you break it down I think you can see it seems like the risk of gremlins is reasonably low in a proven car.

Anyone agree or disagree? Also possible to rent a car for a race before you dive in.

 

[PickupTrucker]

Great thread

 

[cocojoe]

Starting with some smaller races first is the best advise, the MORE series, is your best bet to get your feet wet. For decades the MORE series has been a place where so many of the biggest names in the sport have learned there craft. There is a reason why all the top trophy truck teams test and tune there trucks in Barstow and Lucerne. The Pure series is a little cheaper, but wont even come close to giving you the true experience that the MORE series will give you, plus you have all of the history and lore that comes from racing MORE!

http://moreracing.net/

 

[kornfed]

This is a great thread and why UTV racing is such a great class. I was where you are 2 years ago. I started with a Noob post and guys like Wayne, Sims, Nikal and Felix put down some serious advice. Take the advise, these guys know what it takes. This board has garage bands all the way to the factory guys. Learn everything you can about this sport and your vehicle. I will warn you, your next phase is where you will be made fun of because you run into issues that everyone has faced, but at the end of the day, set a goal and race. It is good fun, but have thick skin.

For us, the plan was to race SCORE all the way. We set a plan for the 2016 SF 250 NA, got a serious driver in Kent Pfeiffer to help with the driving and started a build. Like a lot of people, our first build never got done. We went into panic mode, bought another 2 seat RZR, did a 3 week build with Penhall and the guys from Wolfpack and we made it to the race. Car was leaking fuel the night before the race, our shocks were completely wrong and I had never raced a day off-road. My suit didn't fit and the radios did not work. I crashed with 30 miles to go, giving my co-driver a concussion and shell shocked myself. If we had come into the Baja 1000 like this, we would have been is serious trouble.

Start small. If your goal is to race the Baja 1000, at least start with the SF 250. You will learn a lot about yourself, your team (very important) and understand exactly how dangerous Baja can be. We ended up winning the SF 250, in part to a lot of luck, the creation of the Turbo class and then we got a 4th at the Baja 500. Going from the SF 250 to the Baja 500 is a huge jump. You realize again how freaking crazy racing in Baja can be. The Racing is crazy, but the Chasing is insanity. You have 250 teams full of the most aggressive people in the world trying to get to the same points on a map. It is crazinesss. Unfortunately I was injured before the 1000 and we had to pull out. This year we are singularly focused on BITD with our New Unlimited build and focused on the Baja 1000 for SCORE.

Key pieces of advice, if Baja is your goal, start with San Felipe 250. Get someone on your team that has raced Baja before. You need someone that has been there. Finally, test test and more testing. You cannot test too much. No matter what, you will be off somewhere, find that issue in the US, not in Baja...

Good luck and look forward to seeing you out there...

 

[///Airdam Clutches]

i forgot to tell you. if you want to race in BAJA you need to hire someone who speaks fluent spanish and you trust. if you have multiple trucks you need someone in each vehicle that can speak fluent spanish. without them you are sitting ducks just waiting for something to go wrong and not be able to communicate with anyone down there. taing 2 years of spanish in school 15-20 years ago i thought i remembered enough to get me by down there. NOPE i cant even speak it good enough to tell the guys at the taco shops what i want on a taco. much less be able to walk in an auto parts store and ask for a 7/8" fine thread bolt for a heim or something along those lines. you will need someone that speaks spanish at some point and its best to have them before you need them rather than need them and not have them.

 

[kornfed]

Oh one other thing, buy a proven car, don't build your own to start. Unless you have insane cash, a Baja 1000 car is no joke. You can buy one for 50% of the cost of building one. Wish I had done that to start. Again, I should have taken someones advice...

 

[george.felix]

Kornfed with that name I can understand your suit didn't fit if you bought more than 30 days before the race...lol but your right Baja is hard to explain. I've done 5 or 6 have yet to finish one. This year I believe I will but who knows when it comes to Baja.

 

[tatum]

I have been racing and chasing Baja since 2005 and we have never had anyone on the team that spoke spanish. It certainly doesn't hurt, but not imperative.