NORRA 2021 and El Gusano

[GotManx]

It was good to be back down in Mexico racing. After the postponement of the 2020 race, NORRA was back on for 2021. This year the race had to be a loop from Ensenada to San Felipe to Bay of LA and back because of Baja Sur still being closed due to Covid. It was still a five day event and NORRA had a great course for us with some new areas.

Team El Gusano was light on crew for this race. It would be myself driving, Joe Lowery navigating and Jim McKinley for the chase crew with Filmore meeting up with us in San Felipe. We did get a boost though when I was contacted by Chris Collard, an off-road journalist and photographer, wanting to join the team and experience the race in a Manx. Chris brought his own chase rig and a good friend Alex.

Here is the article from Chris that was published in "The Drive", an online magazine:
https://www.thedrive.com/accelerator/40 ... eyers-manx

We had a great race finishing each day in time to get a few NORRA cerveza's, completing every mile, and only having a few issues. We placed first in the Pioneer Buggy class, (only car entered), second for the Pioneer Era, (out of three), but we did finish 47th overall out of around 100 cars entered.

Contingency photos:

[GotManx]

Day 1 Racing; From Ensenada to San Felipe.

[GotManx]

Day 2; San Felipe to Bay of LA.

[GotManx]

Day 3; Bay of LA loop south and then back up to Bay of LA.

[GotManx]

Day 4; Bay of LA to San Felipe.

[GotManx]

And what would racing be in Baja without some silt:

[GotManx]

Day 4 finish line and the the rest of the Gusano Fan Club meeting us in San Felipe:

[GotManx]

Day 5; San Felipe to Ensenada.

[GotManx]

The best chase crew in Mexico, Taco hand-off during the final stage:





And the Finish Line:

[GotManx]

So we did have a couple of little issues with the car on this trip. The first was on Day 2 when we had a alternator pully come apart, luckily we had a spare and only lost a few minutes. The second, a little larger issue, started on Day 3 when we heard a clunking sound in the rear. We stopped to check and noticed the right rear shock tower had cracked and broken off at the base of the torsion housing. We removed the shock and wire tied the mount in place so we would not loose it, but we still had about 100 race miles left for the day. We had to slow a little bit with just the three shocks, the car was a little more squirrely, but we made it to the finish at Bay of LA.

That night we got help from the Fab School guys along Chris and Alex jumping in to weld the tower back in. We made it through Day 4 with no issues, but we could see that the tower was bending again, so that night back in San Felipe, we headed over to Filmore's workshop and did a little more reinforcing.

[GotManx]

We also got some awesome helicopter video footage from Day 2 near Punta Prieta:
[youtube]https://youtu.be/jLXxWma0Z5k[/youtube]

[rzeller]

Day 4; Bay of LA to San Felipe.

I think this is the best picture I've ever seen to describe/demonstrate the beauty of Baja and the remoteness of racing NORRA. Great shot!!!

Bud

[sailtexas186548]

This is, without question, the best Manx thread I have ever seen. How fast do you estimate you were traveling in the helicopter video?

Do you have a build thread somewhere?

[GotManx]

Thanks. We were probably in the 40-50mph range in the helicopter video. I don't think I ever did a build thread for El Gusano, but I am planning some maintenance and upgrades later this summer, so maybe I can post something.