Racing 800 Miles in the Desert—in a VW Bug
Feb. 1, 2016 - The Baja 1000 is among the toughest and most dangerous off-road races in the world. Located on Mexico's Baja California peninsula, the course changes from year to year. In 2015, it was an 828-mile loop with a 33-hour time limit. All kinds of vehicles take on the challenge, from multimillion-dollar trophy trucks to stock1970s VW Beetles. The Desert Dingoes team have tried and failed to complete the course five times in their Bug—and this time was no different.
Transcript
Romy Frederick
Driver
Desert Dingos Racing
The Baja 1000 is one of the toughest off-road races that exist. It’s in Baja California, in Mexico, down the peninsula. It’s pretty much the race you aspire to do in off-road racing.
Roger Norman
Owner & President
SCORE International Off-Road Racing
This year’s event is 828 miles and has a 33 hour time limit.
Jim Graham
Co-Founder
Desert Dingo Racing
When most people think of the Baja 1000 they think about trophy trucks, which are these thousand horsepower million-dollar forces of nature when you see them on the course. We’re kind of on the opposite end of the spectrum with basically stock Volkswagens from the 1970s. Got about 50 to 60 horsepower on them and very little modification.
Jennifer Frederick
Co-Driver
Desert Dingo Racing
Sometimes we’re going down the road sideways almost about to tip over which is interesting, kind of scary at times.
Jim Graham
We really did feel good coming into the event, the car was strong, we had the biggest team we ever had, we had great communications. And unfortunately we had a problem come out of left field with our fuel system that caused multiple failures of different parts of it and it knocked us out of the race 30 miles in.
Cyrus Roohi
Coordinator
Desert Dingo Racing
With everything that we had this year it really stinks, it just stinks.
Jim Graham
This is the 6th time we’ve failed, so that’s kind of a tough thing to face. It is hard, this is one of the hardest things you can do out there, but failing is part of learning and getting better at this stuff. People are exhausted, I want them to sleep, I want them to get hydrated, I want them to get fed. By this afternoon we’re going to be sitting down talking, alright, let’s look at lessons learned, what can we do better next year?
