Engines running, sand and dirt flying in your face, the feeling of weightlessness as you are on a jump, this is Baja racing. However, Baja racing is not for just collegial teams like the ONU Baja racing team, but it’s also a professional sport. However, Baja racing is also different at the professional level than the collegiate level.
The history of Baja racing all started with two brothers and their sixth sense for racing ingenuity.
The Amazingly Difficult Race
The professional race is a nearly a thousand-mile race over the harsh Baja California desert. Most of the race is off-road and the car has to be prepared for the massive jumps, turns, and obstacles in the way.
The cars also have to be able to withstand the desert heat and run for almost 24 hours straight. At the professional level, it pushes engineers and car manufacturers to their limits to even complete the race.
According to Toyota, one of the competitors each year, “the course for the Baja 1000 changes every year!” This makes it harder as each team has no idea what the next race will bring to the table and makes it hard for racers to get used to the same track.
The Race’s Familial Origins.
How was the first track made though? Throughout the 1960s people were fascinated with racing their cars and motorbikes both on and offroad. However, there was no big offroad desert race. Most offroad races were European touring car races that would use the same track and the main obstacle was mud.
It wasn’t until 1967 did the dream of a desert-based off-road race become reality. The beginnings of the race started with two brothers, Bud and Dave Ekins. In 1962, they searched to create the harshest off-road race at the time. They decided to take two Triumph motorcycles from their motorcycle dealership and ride around the Baja, California desert, according to Score Journal.
Before the two would venture out on this perilous journey they decided to fly over the track they were going to drive in a small Cessna 180 airplane. In an interview with the brothers by SCORE International, Dave Ekins talked about how they were able to use the plane for scouting the route. “Doctors Without Borders…(would) fly down to these different ranchos (who) had a couple 55-gallon drums of high test fuel…, but transferring fuel required siphoning via an old garden hose.”
Saturday, March 17, 1962, was the first run for the men on their motorcycles and it took them around the thousand-mile track in almost forty hours. It wasn’t until five years later in 1967 that the first actual race was held. The race was won on November 1, 1967, by a dune buggy in a little less than twenty-eight hours, according to a news archive on Toyota’s website.
Notable Cars throughout the years.
Collegial vs. Professional
Although the professional race has changed slightly over the years it is still very close to the original idea that the Ekins brothers came up with over fifty-five years ago. Because of this the development requirements and challenges are very different from the professional level, as described by Matthew Milo in the development of the ONU team’s kart. Races are still fundamentally similar with the jumps, off-roading, and endurance tests on the vehicle. In the end, the history of Baja racing has evolved into a much bigger idea than what the Ekins brothers started all those years ago.
