I recall reading PJ O’Rourke’s article on riding shotgun on the Baja 1000. He detailed the exhilaration of the drive as well as the frustration of having to repair a drive shaft in the middle of the night.
One of the things about it is that it is so physically demanding. It’s like sitting in a paint shaker for 6 hours with a 2 pound weight on your head. At the end, you sleep for a couple days because of that combined with a 6 hour non stop adrenneline rush. And you know what pain feels like.
I had to get out of a truck in a San Felipe race to get it off a high-center/rock that jumped out all on it’s own and attacked the truck ;). This was after only 2 hours. Had a hard time just standing up. The guys that do it professionally are beasts.
-— He detailed the exhilaration of the drive as well as the frustration of having to repair a drive shaft in the middle of the night. -—
When I was a kid we took a vacation to Nova Scotia. The Esso map didn’t say that the interstate was under construction. After bouncing on a dirt highway for what seemed like hundreds of miles, the frame broke.
That’s not a typo. The frame broke. We got out of the car and the middle of the car was touching the ground. I was 9 or 10 and wondered if it would take more than an hour to get fixed.
We were in the middle of nowhere. Believe it or not, we broke down within a mile or two of a ship welder. He came out to the car, jacked it up, and welded the frame back together. It was nothing less than a miracle. Of course, I thought nothing of it at the time. A guy just came and fixed it.