When we first arrived at Gonzaga bay, a happy sight greeted us:

A giant dump truck builds up the jump on the Baja 1,000 course near Gonzaga Bay.

Richard and I were anticipating the race, even though it was still a week off.  While we spent our time floating in the Sea of Cortez, swimming with whale sharks, and drinking cerveza, both of us were counting down to race day.

Honestly, I don’t know much about this race in particular or racing in general.  What I do know is that the Baja 1,000 covers 1,000 miles of roads in Baja–the majority is all off road.  What’s interesting is that some of the roads are shared with normal traffic.  This year, the race started and ended in Ensenada.  Locals notoriously change the track, add booby traps, and generally make things more dangerous for the racers.  Race day is a good day to be off the road and on the sidelines, enjoying it.

The racers began arriving in Gonzaga Bay at about 5:30 am.  Gonzaga bay is about 1/4 way through the race, which takes around 20 to 30 hours for each team to complete.  The road was lined with spectators eating, drinking and generally having a good time.

Those on motorcycles finish the race the fastest, and they showed up first.

Quads followed the motorcycles.

The race started a bit slow.  Motorcyles and quads slowly came throughout the day.  When things were sleepiest, one of the pre-runner trucks parked in the area decided to give the crowd something to cheer about:

Everyone cheered as this pre-runner truck demonstrated the jump.

Things quickly became really exciting as the trophy trucks showed up around 3:00pm.  This was pretty incredible, made even crazier by an afternoon sand storm.  I was able to get right up next to the jump to take these pictures.  There really weren’t any rules besides common sense and Erica telling me to back up.  Even the local police were on the side line with us cheering and taking pictures.  Here are some shots of the trophy trucks, hitting the jump at about 100 miles per hour:

This was shot with my wide angle lens, so I’m a bit closer than it may appear in the picture.

See that guy nearest the jump on the left? That’s the local policia!

This guy flew by, I was barely able to snap this shot.

The race continued into the afternoon and into the evening.  As we slept that night on Gonzaga Bay, we could hear the racers continuing throughout the night.

The next day, our Baja 1,000 experience was complete with a visit to Coco’s corner:

Coco cleans up his place after staying awake for nearly 72 hours during the race.

Coco is famous for his warmth, hospitality, and generosity.

Side note, we’ve been traveling in Baja with Desk to Glory which was inspired by a film about the Baja 1,000, Dust to Glory:

So who won?  Head over to the official results page to find out.

Want to see more pictures and videos??  Then check out Desk to Glory’s post on the race.