San Felipe Trip Pics

[Snapshot]

Some pics from the San Filipe Baja 250 Off Road Race

 

The Beach next to the boardwalk

 

 

Pistol Petes Trophy Truck. Pete is from Phoenix

 

 

Hanging out with the reps from "slime"

 

 

we called this guy "Nacho". He had a few too many Margaritas

 

 

Playing ping pong down at the cantina. The guy in the hat is who took me down to mexico

 

 

"Joe" the Slime rep was quite a character.

 

 

Old man "Snapshot" with a couple of the Tecate girls backstage.

 

 

 

Old man "Snapshot" with the local "Rockstar Girls"

 

 

Old man "Snapshot" with the Tequila Girls. It was a good day!

 

 

Snapshot the flagman. My job on race day was traffic and crowd control at race mile 150. There is a 5 mile stretch of highway that the racers come down before re-entering the track. The race coarse is 232 miles total.

 

 

Ducking the "Roost" The race vehicles had to do the speed limit while on the highway section, but when they entered back onto the dirt coarse they let it rip. Some of the trophy trucks are 800 horsepower and they really fling some rocks and gravel. We spent alot of time ducking

 

 

I came across a fishing boat that I really like! Can't imagine why?

 

 

This is a pic looking down on the boardwalk from the old lighthouse. The board walk is the place to be.

 

 

A pic of the lighthouse. There are some shrimp boats out on the ocean.

 

 

The "Rockodile" club on the boardwalk is the place to be on a Saturday night.

 

 

We climbed up to the old lighthouse where you can see the whole area.

 

[Snapshot]

Well, off to Mexico for 4 days in the morning.

 

Word has it that the Tecate and Monster Energy girls will be there Whoooo Hoooo

 

Will bring back a few pics

 

 

[bonecollector]

Well, off to Mexico for 4 days in the morning.

 

Word has it that the Tecate and Monster Energy girls will be there Whoooo Hoooo

 

Will bring back a few pics

 

Thats worth the trip right there!

[Snapshot]

Pics posted

[Eagle Eye]

not enough girl pics

[Snapshot]

not enough girl pics

 

Some people are never satisfied

 

O.K Here's one more, but since this is a family orientated website I won't post the really good ones

 

[hunterdude]

You could always just pm the really good ones to people! Like me!

[billrquimby]

Snapshot:

 

Your photos brought back memories. The last time I was in San Felipe was with my Boy Scout troop in 1949.

 

It was an adventure just getting there from Yuma.

 

We crossed into Mexico at Algadones -- it was merely a shack on the Mexican side, and a small concrete block building under some tamarisk trees on the U.S. side, nothing else in sight -- and drove in a 4x4 command car for what seemed liked forever on sandy two-track trails.

 

There was no source of water in San Felipe, so we brought our own. There were no permanent houses there, either, just a couple of shacks made from salvaged sheet metal and tar paper. We camped out on a beach and pit-barbecued a huge chunk of beef with mesquite the scoutmaster brought with us.

 

I was only 13 years old, and I got so sunburned that I had to sleep on my stomach on top of my WWII army surplus sleeping bag.

 

My back was covered with blisters the size of quarters, and the only thing the scoutmaster had to treat me with were cans of condensed milk, which he dribbled over my back whenever the pain got more than I could stand.

 

Our troop had gone there two years in a row, but I never returned after that.

 

Seeing all the houses, businesses, and that long wall along the beach with all the boats in your photos was a shock. Everything in sight, including that paved road, sprouted up since I was there 61 years ago.

 

I don't know why I was so surprised, though. I used to go to Bahia Kino and Cholla Bay when there were only a few shacks on the beaches and I fished from Tommy Jamison's boats at Guaymas long before Rafael Caballero ever thought of building a marina at San Carlos.

 

Talk about naiveté. I should have realized the other side of the gulf would be developed, too.

 

Thanks for posting the photos.

 

Bill Quimby

 

 

 

[bonecollector]

It looks like you had a good trip, thanks for sharing all the photos.

[Snapshot]

Bill,

 

San Filipe has seemed to be hit by our economic crunch and decreased tourism. Sunday we took a drive around and saw alot of the nicer vacation type homes sitting empty and for sale. Also a few high rise hotels that never got completed and are just sitting as an empty shell.

 

A year or two ago a couple of the local landowners got greedy and wanted money for allowing the racers to cross thru their land and it turned into a big fight. Score International Offroad racing pulled out and took the race to Ensenada instead. The locals set fire to the landowners house! This race brings 4-5 million dollars to a poor local economy. Needless to say the greedy landowner got the message in a big way.

 

This race is like a big holiday for the locals. The boardwalk on Saturday night was elbow to elbow. Monday morning when we left it felt like a ghost town.

 

I can sypmathize with the sunburn you had. When I was 18, me, my Dad, and another guy who was a pilot rented a Cessna airplane and flew down to Bahia De Los Angeles whcih is south of San Felipe. The second day there I spent all day in the sun, and body surfing, and I got cooked. That night was the most miserable experience I have ever known as far as sunburn pain.

 

[Kilimanjaro]

Dude, that Tecate girl on your left in the pic is SMOKIN HOT!!!

 

I've never been on that side of the Sea.. Looks cool.

[Snapshot]

Dude, that Tecate girl on your left in the pic is SMOKIN HOT!!!

 

I've never been on that side of the Sea.. Looks cool.

 

You should see the other two that were shakin it on stage at the time that picture was being taken. I have a pic, but decorum prohibits me from posting it here.

 

No really, the pics with the girls was all in good fun. They were very freindly and receptive of taking pics. I don't have any others except the Tecate girls dancing on stage.

 

Tecate is a big sponsor of the Baja races.

[billrquimby]

Snapshot:

 

I've been to Bahia de los Angeles. It's best known in the hunting world as the place where the Mexican government launches all of its desert sheep hunts in Baja California.

 

Back in the late 1960s, when Baja Norte and Sur were still territories, I fished from just about every spot that had a name on both sides of the gulf and along the Pacific Coast with a friend who owned a Cessna 182.

 

My favorite spot was on the Pacific side of the peninsula, a place called Abreojos, about fifteen minutes by air south of Scammon's Lagoon.

 

Abreojos had a huge estuary that hosted at least 1,000 grey whales each January. A California-based black brant shooting club had built a long runway and hired a Mexican couple to live there in the middle of nowhere and watch its shacks and the fuel they stored there.

 

Every black brant in North America, it seemed to us, spent the winter in the estuary. They were so many they would rise up like a 200-foot-tall black curtain as we moved toward them.

 

For $2 per person per day, the couple fed us three meals of beans, homemade flour tortillas and all the longostinas we could eat each day. They let us sleep in the shacks at no charge but we had to sweep out our own scorpions.

 

We would walk along the water's edge and cast silver spoons, not knowing what type of fish we'd catch next. My strangest catch was what we called a "needlefish." It may not be the correct name, but it was about 30 inches long and not much bigger around than a hammer handle.

 

I remember the year when my pilot friend looked down and saw that the road south from Tijuana had been bladed to about half way down the peninsula and announced that it would be the last time we would fly to Baja. He wanted to remember it as we had seen it, before the motorhomes arrived and fancy hotels sprouted up.

 

We were returning from Cabo San Lucas. If I remember correctly, it had only two hotels then.

 

Later, we heard that Mexico's then-president, a guy named Eschevaria, was riding on one of the bulldozers cutting the road when we flew over it that day.

 

Bill Quimby

[Snapshot]

Bill,

 

Sounds like you have had some great adventures in the Baja Penninsula. Cabo sure has changed over the years. But once the rich and famous are attracted to a location, change is certain, along with ridiculous real estate prices.

 

The Baja 500 race is being held out of Ensanada June 4-6, I was hoping to make it over for that race, but don't know if I will or not. I have never been on the Pacific side of Baja.

 

The Baja Penninsula does have a great deal of charm.

 

It took us over 2 hours to get back across the border at Mexicali. The line of cars in front of us was over 2 miles long when we got there.

[billrquimby]

Bill,

 

Sounds like you have had some great adventures in the Baja Penninsula. Cabo sure has changed over the years. But once the rich and famous are attracted to a location, change is certain, along with ridiculous real estate prices.

 

The Baja 500 race is being held out of Ensanada June 4-6, I was hoping to make it over for that race, but don't know if I will or not. I have never been on the Pacific side of Baja.

 

The Baja Penninsula does have a great deal of charm.

 

It took us over 2 hours to get back across the border at Mexicali. The line of cars in front of us was over 2 miles long when we got there.

 

If you ever get to Abreojos, I'd appreciate it if you let me know how it's changed. Forty years ago, there were only three 8x8-foot plywood shacks and the ramada under which the Mexican couple lived. The closest other humans, I'm sure, were at the Scammon's Lagoon saltworks a long way away.

 

Bill Quimby