2018 Baja 1000 Trip Report

bob91yj

Adventurist
Founding Member
The year of 2018 continues to bite me in the a$$...

We live 50 miles or so from the border. We got up this morning, took care of a few last minute details and headed for the border. About half way to the border the "low coolant" warning lamp comes on in my truck...that can't be a good thing. I pull out at the next exit, take a look around under the hood...the level in the coolant reservoir is just below normal, just enough to trip the warning lamp. I take a look at my upper radiator hose and it is tight as a drum, can't squeeze it at all. In my head I have an idea of what is causing both issues, but I don't want to believe it. I decide to top off the coolant and push on to the border town of Tecate, my preferred border crossing. We get to Tecate and all seems pretty normal with the truck, it's a windy, two lane mountain road to get to Tecate, and I pushed it a little hard a time or two just to see what would happen.

We stop in Tecate to exchange money, while Machelle is getting that done, I take a look under the hood again, radiator hose is possibly a little more swollen. I text one of my old Duramax techs and he confirms my worst fears...blown head gasket.

I texted our crew chief with BFG to tell them we weren't going to make it, within minutes Machelle's phone rings. Machelle is the only one that knows the ins/outs of running the refueling crews and getting the paper work done correctly, and they are almost begging us to find another way to make the trip.

We had a couple of alternate plans brewing, but AAV to the rescue...I got in touch with @Garrett, he and his buddy Andy are going to swing by our place on their way south, spend the night here tonight and haul us to Baja with them in the morning.

We've been to the Baja 1000 15 years in a row, almost broke that string. This trip is shaping up to be memorable!
 
It's been a while since we have tent camped. I went down to our storage trailer, grabbed some sleeping bags and a two man tent. I've only used this tent a couple of times, I recalled that the set up was a little bit different so I took the time to set it up. I didn't want to be the guy that can't set up his own tent, and I wanted to make sure all of the pieces were there...check on both accounts.

I haven't had the need for an ice based cooler in a while...apparently I got rid of all of them that I had, surprisingly, none of my neighbors have camping sized coolers.
 
1,083 miles of driving. 23.08 hours of behind the wheel elapsed time. 66 gallons of fuel consumed. I'll sift through some photos and post soon! It was a great trip! Fast trucks, the smell of race gas in the morning, good eats and good times!
 
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