Crossing the Line Baja 1000

Crossing the Line Baja 1000 Prologue The Switch Out I was standing next to the water pipeline. Two men in leather jackets, armed with machine guns were standing on the far side of the race track watching for other cars. Meanwhile, Poncho and Andres were unbolting the fuel cell exposing the fuel bladder pulling it out and replacing it with the 20 gallon fuel bladder, filling the excess space in the 30 gallon fuel cell in the race car. I could hear Bobby calling out over the racecar radio, “FOXFIRE 921, come in Jay are you all right?” About every ten minutes Bobby kept calling on the radio for me to respond. I walked over to Poncho as he was bolting up the fuel cell after placing the new fuel bladder in with cocaine. “Poncho,” I said, “I’m late. They are going to start looking for me.” He didn’t say anything and just kept working. I walked over to the pump house and started pacing back and forth. Thirty minutes had gone by; I could hear Bobby in the distance over the race car radio checking with SCORE officials to see if I had gone through the checkpoint. Checkpoint 4 radioed back. “He went through here about one hour ago.” I started putting my helmet back on, one of the guards watching the race track came over to me to help and then motioned for me to get in the race car. Poncho had the fuel cell with the cocaine in the racecar. Another guard came over started helping me with the radio plugs on the helmet and the seatbelts. I could see Andres running over to the race car with a 10-gallon can of gas. Poncho popped his head in the window of the racecar, “You ready?” he asked. “Yes,” as I pulled my visor down. Poncho cracked my visor back open, “You have enough fuel to make it to your pit stop,” and then he went to the rear of the race car. Andres ran to the front and pointed at me to start the car. He yelled out, the engine turned over, no fire. “Again,” Andres yelled out. At the same time I could hear Bobby over the radio in my helmet, “FOX FIRE 921 come in.” Now it had been over 45 minutes. I pumped the throttle. I turned the start switch on. The engine turned over and no start. I tried again, “Fire you son of a bitch!” The racecar engine wouldn’t start. It turned over and over but there was no life to the engine. Bobby came over the race car radio again talking, “Let’s go find him.” I lifted my visor on my helmet and yelled out, “They’re coming!” I hit the starter switch again, the motor labored, firing slowly, the battery started getting low from turning the engine over so many times. I could see Poncho in my rear-view mirror squirting fuel in the carburetor. He looked at me, “Try it again.” I hit the starter again; the race car started. I jammed the car in gear and spun the tires in a rage. I was on my way, thirty minutes behind.