BAJA 4000: Port Angeles duo and Pepito conquer Baja

PORT ANGELES — Pepito came. Pepito saw. Pepito conquered.

Pepito, a 2000 Chevy Metro with now more than 240,000 miles on its engine didn’t just survive the Baja 4000. The tiny stripped-down hatchback seemingly thrived on the 3,000-mile-long race, chewing up the Mexican dirt and mud and spitting it right back at the desert.

Pepito and its drivers, Andy Audette and Nason Beckett of Port Angeles, not only finished the race, but actually came in first in the spirit division of the nine-day race Jan. 13 to Jan. 22 from Los Angeles down the entire length of the Baja California Peninsula all the way to Cabo San Lucas and then back up again to Southern California.

“We were winners in the sense that we were the first in our category to cross the finish line. But everyone that made it across the finish line were winners,” said Audette.

Audette and Beckett “competed” in a noncompetitive category in which the whole point was to simply survive the day and make it to the ending of the stage. While several racers are serious professional rally drivers from around the world, only vehicles worth less than $1,000 can compete in the spirit category.

Audette and Beckett came up with the idea to compete in the rally style cross-country race and had such a good time and did so well, they can’t wait to try another rally race either in Africa or India.

In all, from Port Angeles to Cabo San Lucas and back, they drove a total of 5,515 miles.

“The people we met were incredible,” Audette said. “We hung out with a Croatian team, Hungarians. No one spoke each others’ languages.”

They saw amazing scenery, watched stingrays jumping out of the Sea of Cortez and met a lot of amazing locals. The people of Baja consistently offered them places to stay and food, even if they didn’t have that much food for themselves.

“The people in Mexico are the nicest I’ve ever met,” Audette said. “The people were so friendly. You’d see tough-looking guys sitting on their porch and if you smiled at them, they’d smile back.”

Just getting there

Just actually getting to the race was an adventure in itself as they had to drive Pepito from Port Angeles to the starting line in Hollywood. It doesn’t sound like a big deal, except at the time California was being pummeled by ferocious storms that threatened to turn the entire state into a disaster area.

Audette and Beckett had to make it through heavy snow in Southern Oregon, then torrential rain and flooding in various parts of California, including one freeway with lanes closed because of waist-high water on the road, before getting to the starting line.

Once the race got underway on Jan. 13, Audette and Beckett said Pepito did amazingly well, better than they expected. They actually brought the vehicle’s title along in case they had to abandon it or sell it to someone during the race. The only real mechanical issue was an oil leak that was mostly being caused by a loose oil filter. Amazingly, they didn’t even get a single flat tire during the whole race.

Some modifications to the frame came in handy through the flooding. A skid plate on the bottom of the frame, which was designed to keep rocks from cracking the oil pan, actually proved effective in helping Pepito hydroplane across water better than many of the other vehicles. It almost became an amphibious vehicle at times.

Once they got out of the flooding in California, they then had to face the harsh, back roads of the Sonoran Desert in California and then Baja. How were the roads?

Mud, bad roads

In a word? “Terrible,” said Beckett.

“You’d get on the highway and you’d say, ‘what the hell is this? This isn’t any better than being on a dirt road’,” Beckett said.

Beckett also described a half-finished bridge they came across. They stopped and discovered there were huge nails sticking out of the bridge that would have destroyed their tires if they had tried to cross it.

“Something we learned that if something didn’t look right, to get out of the car and look at it,” Audette said.

Baja was getting its share of rain, which caused a lot of problems with mud. Audette said some areas were so muddy, there were vehicle tracks zig-zagging all over the place through the desert as drivers searched for the best routes through the quagmire. Often times, he and Beckett simply followed what appeared to be the most-traveled track, hoping for the best.

They did get stuck once in exceptionally deep mud, but the cooperative spirit of the race came to their aid.

“Two Hungarians came by and pulled us out in the middle of the night,” Audette said.

But everyone was getting stuck or finding certain routes impassable, even for the most experienced pro rally drivers. A giant dry lake bed called Laguna Salada proved especially difficult. Not one vehicle was able to make it across.

“We didn’t make it. No one made it. Not even race vehicles,” said Audette.

One thing they noticed was the lack of rules and regulations in the Baja wilderness. You could drive anywhere and camp anywhere and no one cared as long as you were respectful and cleaned up after yourself. There were no fees nor fences.

“It felt like true freedom,” Audette said.

Being in the spirit category, Audette said there was little pressure to race “against the clock.”

“People just laughed whenever we made it into camp,” he said. He feels like he and Beckett got a foot in the door to possibly doing more rally races in even more exotic locations such as the famous Budapest-to-Bamako (Mali) Race, or a rally race in India called the Rickshaw Run. Beckett said a race from Eastern Europe to Mongolia that takes weeks is also a possibility.

Beckett said he’s amazed at the amount of support the team has received in the community. They’ve been invited to bring Pepito along to the Fourth of July Parade in Port Angeles and the Irrigation Festival in Sequim.

“We have quite the following, it’s overwhelming,” he said.