Thursday November 20, 2008
I woke at 3:30 AM to the roar of a SCORE Trophy Truck just outside my 1st floor hotel room at The Villa Marina in central Ensanada. At street level the earliest team had just pulled into the Contingency staging area. I got dressed and bolted to the scene to capture the very first photos of the day. When I arrived was rewarded to know I was the first media person to arrive. I found the # 39 Trophy Truck belonging to Ron Whitton first in line. I hung out for about an hour as additional Trophy Trucks, and Class 1 Cars arrived. Truck # 4 of Gus Vildosola Jr, a highly favored team in Mexico, was next to show up.
As more and more vehicles arrived to the line up my Cameras memory card started to fill up with awesome race vehicle tech and fabrication examples. This is the place to be if you're looking for ideas on building a rig of your own. The Ford Raptor Class 8 truck showed up and everyone swarmed to see the new vehicle, many for the first time.
As the day went on my excitement only grew as more and more race fans and teams arrived to Contingency. I shadowed Pete Sohren for a few hours to see exactly what a Rockstar of the sport would encounter at. What I observed was pretty cool. "Pistola" as the locals call him is a living legend down here. We didn't walk ten footsteps without a group of fans asking for his autograph or to take a picture with him.
After signing over 100 t-shirts, 20 backpacks, 3 shoes and a Chewawa puppy wearing a sweater, Pete was ready to get Breakfast. The local resturants were slammed with an influx of people, so it took nearly an hour for us to get food. I enjoyed talking with Pete about the politics of desert racing and his views of the other guys in the SCORE Trophy Truck class.
After breakfast we went back to the hotel to check the team's progress on readying the Trophy Truck for battle. At 11:30 SCORE held a press confrence where a few of the drivers were able to address concerns and show confidence to the Media. I was impressed to see the entire General Tire Baja Assult team in one place at one time. Pete was even asked to get up and address the Medai about his effort. In true Rockstar style he thanked the people of Baja and the hard working people of SCORE International for making the event happen.
I took a whole bunch of photos and videos. A small sample of the still shots are below. The Videos will likely be up in our Multimedia section next week.