A Near-Death Experience In The Baja 1000: Robby’s Racing Chronicles

It was 2005, I was in my first ever Baja 1000 for American Honda, and I was leading the whole freaking thing. Never mind that my radio connection to the spotter in the helicopter wasn’t working—the radio communication that was meant to keep me safe while leading the race, as the helicopter spotter could alert me to livestock or vehicles in the race course. Yeah, never mind that. I knew the fastest rider in Baja at the time, Steve Hengeveld, had started just a few minutes further back, and he’d be coming for me. So, with all the adrenaline of leading the biggest race of my career pumping through my body, I was flirting with that line between controlled speed and reckless abandon as I led the way.

You see, the roads weren’t closed to local traffic, and we’d be racing around blind corners and over blind hills between 40-70mph. So, the conventional wisdom of racing in Baja was to maintain the slightest air of caution when you couldn’t see up ahead. You wanted to have your wits about you in order to have that extra split second of preparedness in case there was a car or a cow in the road that you couldn’t see until the last second. For example, if you’re coming up on a blind rise, the rules of the road take precedent. The smart play would be to hug the right side of the course, and not to be at the limit of your speed. The idea being that if a car is coming the other way, they’ll be on their right side (your left), and if there were a car going the same way on the right side, you’d have more time to react. 

This ‘rule’ should have been all the more important to me without helicopter radio support, as I didn’t have that added layer of protection of the spotter letting me know if the coast up ahead, out of my field of view, was clear. But who has time to think about the rules of the road when they’re leading their first Baja 1000? Definitely not 20-year-old me. 

I was around 20 miles into the race, and as I accelerated through fourth gear on my XR650 toward a blind rise, the only thing on my mind was to set up for the right-handed corner that I knew was at the bottom of the following decent. This meant that as I approached the blind crest, I started heading for the left side of the course to open up the flow for the next turn. 

I was just in the middle of the course, and leaning further left as I started to reach the top of the rise—technically, not a sound decision—and I flew over the crest, catching a little air as I sailed at around 60mph, ready to rail that turn at the bottom of the hill. I was so concentrated that I remember my adrenaline spiking before I even mentally registered that there was a black SUV parked on the right side of the course, blocking nearly half the narrow section of dirt road. It was just down from the peak of the crest, completely out of view as I’d approached (an awful spot to park and I’m not sure what they were doing), and I flew by, missing it by just a few feet. It all happened in the flash of a heartbeat.

In that moment, with my mind solely focused on pushing for speed to maintain my lead of the race, I didn’t let the close call affect me much. I remember just thinking, ‘That was kind of close.’ for a moment and then letting it go (and I railed that following right-hander by the way). It’s really only been in looking back, after my retirement from Baja, that I realize how close of a call that was. Had I been on the right side of the road—technically the smart decision—I would have ended up smashing into the back of that stopped SUV at close to 60mph on my 300-pound XR650. I can’t see anything other than death being the outcome of that impact. Of course, had I been racing ‘smart’ in that moment, I would have also slowed slightly for the blind rise. But remember, 20-years-old, leading the Baja 1000, ‘smart’ part of the brain was switched thoroughly to off.

So, is there a moral to the outcome of making a poor decision and having it work out? Maybe not. Perhaps it was just the bit of luck we all need from time to time. But my belief is that there was a higher power looking over me in that moment. I never left the line of a race in Baja without saying a prayer, and gathering the strength, to make the right decisions to stay safe and make it home after each race. And looking back, I though I had my fair share of crashes south of the border, I count myself very fortunate to have been able to take the risks that I did and come out the other end.

However, back in that moment in 2005, I definitely hadn’t learned my lesson. I continued to push at the edge of my limit, which would ultimately end up biting me pretty hard. But that story will be continued in the next Racing Chronicle in a couple weeks…

Robby Bell