MAG 7

Hi all you racers and off roaders alike. Well, another year is finished. Mag 7 carried itself into the beginning of our fourth decade of existence this past July.

It is hard to believe that the team was started back in July of 1970. Where has time flown? Back before there were any real roads in Baja. Back when the Half Way House really meant half way to Ensenada. Instead of now being just another stop on the old road to town. When San Felipe was all dirt roads and you felt like you were really exploring a strange and foreign country. Mag 7 didn't have to claim back then that it pitted in far off locations. Everywhere was a far off location back then.

Now, every year brings more progress to Baja. More pavement to towns that are little more than a speck on the map. More street lamps in a once quiet and peaceful landscape. Much like it is when we drive back from the desert on Sunday nights. What used to be darkness for miles is now dotted with night lights of houses scattered here and there. Progress they call it

Mag 7 as you may know ran 22 pits for this year's Baja 2000. Well, we really didn't run 22 pits, we just lent our name and banners to 22 pits. Truth be known, Mag 7 ran 11 of those pits ourselves. Three other teams joined together with us to run the other 11 pits. Pro Pits of Baja ran Pits 12, 15, 16, 19 and 21. FAIR ran Pits 7 and 18. Wide Open Baja Adventures ran Pits 6, 8 and 17. And Mickey Quaid, once of Team Husqvarna in the 70's and now living in San Jose Del Cabo ran Pit 22.

It was Mickey Quaid, Steve Sterner, Adam Padilla and his son, and a couple others that I will probably remember later on today, that all rode Huskies and won weekly out in the desert in D-38 back in the early and mid 70's. Back when racing to the smoking desert bomb was still allowed. And Huskies reined as King of the desert. Whew, my feet are starting to sweat just thinking of all the fun it was to race back then. When 6" of front travel and 4" of rear was considered a lot of travel for a bike.

For this year, Mag 7 had 53 finishers of the 75 entered on our team. In Class 1 we had Gus Vildosola in 5th. In Class 1-2 1600, we had Lorenzo Rodriguez in 3rd, Sammy Ehrenberg in 5th and Chuck Guy of Boulevard in 11th. In Class 5-1600, we had Arturo Cervantes in 3rd. In Class 7S Pro we had Marco Novelo in 2nd. In Class 8 Pro we had Tom Bradley Sr. of Las Vegas in 4th and Eric Heiden/Kevin Adler of 4 Wheel Parts Wholesaler in 7th. Kevin had a long race and needed Mag 7's help twice to continue racing. Once they had to weld up their front end at the 300 mile mark. So as the pit was closing down, they asked to borrow the pit's welder for the remainder of the race. The other time at Pit 13, Kevin had to be pulled from the silt where he had rested for 3 hours at race mile 965. Silt can be tough even for those of us that have experience with it. In Class 9 we had Joe Sheble take 1st place. In Class 10 we had Dennis Hunter take 4th and our own Ron Brookshire of Alpine take 5th.

In Class Pro Trucks we had Scott Steinberger of PCI fame take 1st, followed by Rick Johnson of Barstow taking 2nd. Steve Scaroni took 3rd, Ryan Herzog of El Cajon took 4th, Glenn Harris took 6th and Tony Licitra took 7th. In Baja Challenge Class Jay Culbertson took 1st place, followed by Kevin Doyle in 2nd, Bruce Cheroff in 3rd and Matt Autterson in 4th. And In the International Class 3, Hiroshi Masuoka took 1st place in his rally car.

For the motorcycles in Class 22 it was Alejandro Vizcaino in 4th, Yoship Ikemachi in 5th and Eddie Deanes in 8th. In Class 25 Pro it was our own Greg Row of San Diego taking 1st place. Greg's team signed up with us just days before the race began. John Gregory from Chula Vista took 3rd and Wes Miller took 6th. In Class 30, Keith Allen of Colorado took 10th and Gilberto Velasco took 13th. In Class 40, it was Gary Tepner from San Diego with Ross Gregory, also of San Diego taking 3rd. Gary was this year's Class 40 Champion in Score.

In Class MU for bikes under 250cc we had Hiroyuki Wantabe on a Yamaha YZ 125, taking 1st place. Hiroyuki won Class 21 back in the '92 Baja 1000 to La Paz on a Honda CR 125 riding Ironman, becoming the first foreign entry to win that class in the Baja 1000's long history. He rode Ironman for this race as well. That is a long way to go on a 125!

In Class MO which is for bikes over 250cc we had Mitsuaki Kanazawa take 2nd, Jerome Law who rode Ironman take 3rd, Tadao Ikeda take 6th, Mitch Sanchez of Campo take 8th, Tomoki Hayashi take 10th, Al Perret of Canada take 13th, Dennis Law (Jerome's Dad) who also was Ironman take 16th, Checker Mike Childress take 17th, Phil Yeager take 19th, Hiroto Umekawa take 20th, Takayo Kawamoto take 23rd, Paul Kay Jr. of Menifee take 24th (Paul Kay Sr. raced a Class 7 Toyota but broke before Checkpoint 1), Harunobu Koga take 27th, Akihiko Sunami of Phoenix, AZ. take 28th on a Harley Sportster. That is right, it was a real, live Harley Sportster, complete with knobby tires and stock fenders and peanut tank.

Continuing on, Yasushi Hattori took 29th, Kenichira Seki took 30th and Katsuhisa Mikami took 31st. In Sportsman ATV, Mike Penland of Georgia took 2nd. Mike is sponsored by Kawasaki in the GNCC series and rides a Yamaha in Baja as a privateer. Drives out here in a step van with his spares and races the Baja 1000. Then drives home. He owns a Yamaha/Kawasaki shop in Georgia and writes a monthly column in an ATV magazine.

I wish to give our thanks to two individuals here and to our sponsors. First I wish to thank Baja Pits for helping out our Pit # 5 Captain, John Venters, when his trailer broke delivering fuel to his pit in the hills. The BP Captain, Ray Lunak of San Diego, helped him fuel our vehicles at their pit on the highway and was a saving grace in what would have been an otherwise terrible day for Pit 5. The other guys helping out were Carlos Steinhauer, Mitch Steinhauer, Damien Steinhauer and Poncho. Thanks guys from the bottom of our hearts!

Second, I wish to thank Todd Clements of Wide Open Baja Adventures. At his Pit 8, the fuel was misdropped by several miles inland and then stolen by both bandits and another well known race team that will go unmentioned here. Todd drove down 500 gallons of his own chase fuel from Pit 6, to make sure as many racers as possible had fuel there. Many racers had to fend for themselves and yet we only had one DNF at that pit out of 75 racers. When you have a race that is over 1500 miles long and has 22 pits with 4 different race teams, there is bound to be a few problems along the way. Having our fuel (14 barrels) stolen wasn't one of them we expected. For those racers that had problems, I apologize if it was due to fuel. Mag 7 was running three brands of fuel with 7 different octanes. Problems did arise and were handled, either by the pit captain or the racer themselves. Our new Dry brake Dump cans worked great for the bike/quad racers and will be used this next year as well.

I also want to thank our many sponsors who make racing a possibility for us. They are in no certain order SKS Valvoline, Williams Tel-Data, DeWalt Tools, Red-D-Arc Welding Supplies, Harbor Freight of Chula Vista, IMS Products, Juice Designs, Off Road Warehouse and Koala Arts in San Diego for our great T-shirts. Mag 7 will be running the whole Score Desert series with the exception of the Laughlin 250. Our first race of the year will be the San Felipe 250 in March. Following that race we will race at the Baja 500, the Primm 300 and the Baja 1000. I have been told that the Barstow 250 was canceled for 2001.

See you out in the desert for the new year! Our next campout will be the weekend of January 6-7th. The location will be on the Lake Superstition lakebed.

Until next month, Adios from Team Baja
www.mag7race.com

28 December 2000