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XLADV Races BAJA RALLY


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So like I mentioned here, the BAJA RALLY™ is now on the schedule for me to race!

I've wanted to do it for nearly three years now but didn't have the budget.  I'd missed a recent nav class and decided to let it go another year.  But I spoke with Señor Scotty last night and he wants to make it happen.  So I will still pit for @NavyNuke in our XLADV effort to tame Vegas to Reno and then our pit crew will also have the opportunity to crew for my efforts at the BAJA RALLY™.

I was going to go to the Baja Rally anyways to cover it for XLADV.  I figure why not race it if I can?

So why not do both?  Well budget mostly but also there's a decent chance I'd need significant repairs after V2R and would have to do that in time.  Plus, I need to train for just one.  I don't have the deep well of racing experience it would take to do both essentially back to back.

So I have a lot of work to do.  I need to register.  I need to attend a nav class in Baja in July.  Bike prep, etc...

This year the rally is October 9-14 and typically goes five days from Ensenada south to Cataviña and back but the course always changes and this may not be the same way as in years past.  It's rally raid meaning there's navigation, roll chart, etc... and none of the racers know the course.

Our t shirts we're selling will have the BAJA RALLY™ added and those will be used to raise money for both these races.  The pit crew shirts won't change.

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That's cool.  I don't expect quid pro quo.  If you can make it, great.  Last year Casey Hilliard had his buddy Robbie and then I went down with Dennis Godwin and Hing Yung to help out.  I was mostly out taking photos, videos and on the radios with the airplanes, helicopters and medics.  If I get even one person there I'll be happy.

For trailering down, I may want to unload at the border and maybe just ride down to Ensenada myself.  I've been to Baja over 30 times and it's been fine but a trailer without a bike is less likely to be stopped ;)

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Pit crew typically camps unless you want to reserve rooms.  Many just slept in pickup beds or had tents in the parking lot.  I did that for two nights I think and had a hotel room the other nights.  I think the pits last year were Ensenada (San Nicolas), MD Vinos, Mision Santa Maria (San Vicente), Mision Cataviña, Rancho El Coyote y Meling.

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1 hour ago, brian.havoc1 said:

In for a  shirt! Where do we sign up?

 

Bummed I'm gonna be out of the country and miss the shenanigans. Are you all set on nav gear yet?

 

Also, did you say something about a squid pro quo with NavyNuke? :D

@NavyNuke isn't sure he can get the time to come down to Baja but that's okay.

Shirts and stickers available soon from @ADV Addicts site here.  He's doing the pit crew shirts too.  He's done pit crew shirts for a few Dakar teams as well, so we're honored.

Scotty says I can salvage the nav tower Hing used at the last nav class.  Not sure if Hing has it now or if it's back at Scotty's house.  I need to reach out to Keith and see how he attached it to his 990 last year and get that going for the July nav class.

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I just found out that my buddy @MapTacsRay will be shooting photos again down at Baja Rally.  We made a great team last year scouting some great photo spots and tag-teaming the action; Ray on stills and me on video.  That's kind of how this latest decision was made; we were talking about me working with Ray again and then I casually mentioned "oh hey you know I'm doing Vegas to Reno right?"

Ray put together this really amazing video for a tv show up in British Columbia

 

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I was over at Rottweiler Performance talking with Chris Parker about the weight I had taken off the 990.  He said that it's roughly a gain of 1 hp to 7lbs of weight loss.

So if I lost 52 lbs off the bike, it would translate to an increase of 7.4 hp.  I dyno'd the bike pre-mods two years ago to 94 hp at the back wheel and the mods I made are known to deliver about 10 hp, so let's say I'm at 104 hp.  That means I'd be at roughly 111.4 hp now.

So then I googled it and found this tuning page that talks about weight loss to power gains and used their formula and came up with a new hp of 117.2 hp.

Formula is basically new weight (461-52=409 lbs) divided by current hp (104)=3.93 lbs/hp

Then the old weight (461 lbs) divided by the new hp/weight ratio (3.93)=117.2

Lots of caveats though:

  • Rally Raid is much less about horsepower than it is concentration, navigation and getting past obstacles without delay
  • Maybe the Vegas to Reno would have hp being more important for top speed in straight flat sections
  • Anything over 100hp off road is essentially useless anyways
  • Need to get the bike weighed to get a definitive answer anyways as I'm guessing it's at 409 lbs now
  • Need to consider my own weight as well since I've lost 10lbs
  • The main benefit of less weight really isn't hp but handling.  I can get over stuff easier and the suspension will work much better.
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@Steve_Kamrad put this great video together on the Rally Nav class BAJA RALLY™ puts on.  He's Hollywood now so doesn't have much time anymore so I figured I'd post it up ;)

Immabout to do this in a just a few short weeks so it helps me get an idea for what's in store.

 

 

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