A loney Canadian in Mexico: Trent Burgiss finishes second in Baja!

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Off-Road racing, being our chosen form of dirt biking, has always generated a number of unsung heroes...especially in Canada. While the motocrossers traditionally get the glory, it is our off-road guys, until now quietly smashing themselves to a pulp in races all over the world, who are now making headlines. One of those formerly unsung Canadian dirt bike heroes is Trent Burgiss. A true iron man, Burgiss rode the Baja 1000 solo, finishing second in the Sportsman class after 21 straight hours in the saddle, WFO through the Mexican desert. We’re honored at DMX to have him tell his story, in his own words. Beer yourself and get comfy, because Trent's story is a great and inspirational read! Take it, Trent!

“When I was a kid the Baja1000 was the coolest race ever to me. I would dream about one day riding it, and what an adventure that would be. It seemed a romantic notion to go to a foreign country and try race as fast as possible through the open countryside on public roads and trails, cheered on by enthusiastic locals, dodging booby traps, pitting man and machine against the elements – you can almost hear the commentators voice and the musical theme starting…Fast forward 30 years. There I was, milling around the tech inspection area with my bike, in awe of the big boys and their super cool million dollar trophy trucks and buggies, wondering how I ended up here!

I went into the race with no real ambitions other than to finish, thinking it would take me something over 20 hours, based on average speeds of sportsman class riders from previous years.  I actually knew very little about the race, other than what I could get out of previous racers who tended to get a clouded far-away look in their eyes. The general advice was that for a first effort doing it as part of a team is the way to go. This advice I promptly ignored, figuring that things would be ‘simpler’ as a solo entry.

 

Dale Douglas, my pre-riding partner, pit crew/chief/support vehicle driver and all around good guy, and myself arrived in the Baja ten days ahead of the race. I had a new KTM530XC-W to break in and life was good! We spent four days doing a complete run of the course to check it out, and then figured we would sneak in some fun riding for a few days. The pre-ride was great! We traveled light and stayed at some ranches along the way, taking our time and soaking in the awesome riding and scenery. Once back in San Felipe we geared up for our fun ride. I was promptly shut down after a second gear front wheel washout in loose gravel left me with the side of my radiator torn out and the fuel petcock broken off. Emergency repairs with JB weld and a two-hour sleep under a bush got me back to camp…and a phone to look for a new radiator!

The 2009 race was the 43^rd running of the Baja. There are two types of race, the Northern loop race which is a shorter version, and the point to point, which runs the full length of the peninsular and is the full 1000 miles. This year’s race was the Northern loop, 672 miles long. It is a logistically easier race to do than the long race, and seemed like a good way to ‘try it out’. I signed up thinking I would take it easy, learn something about long distance racing and prepare myself for next years point to point. I was saying that right up to the start line. That’s when my competitive instincts kicked in.

The first bike started at 6:30am, getting off the line in 30-second intervals. I took off at 7:14 at the back of the pack in Sportsman Class. The ride out of town was super dusty (as was most of the course!) and not the place to be putting on a serious push. One previous solo rider’s advice I did follow was, “…the race can’t be won in the first 80 miles, but it sure can be lost.”

Early on I eased my way past as many slow riders as possible in the first 80 miles. Dale Douglas, a new friend I picked up on the way to Baja, was doing my chase truck work, so we did an air filter straight away at the 80-mile mark, then got I on the gas. It seemed the terrain opened up and traffic lightened up at that point, so it was all guns blazing. I caught up to the Pro Quads at 100 miles, as they started in front of the sportsman class. Racing against quads suck! They are dusty, erratic, and slow in the wrong places and pin it as soon as it opens up…difficult passing. I went down for the first time trying to put a pass on one, got silt dusted at the critical moment and crashed. I didn’t crash too hard, but did sprain my left thumb, which is still a bit bruised and swollen. I backed off and put the move on in technical terrain over the mountain pass. I caught another quad in the riverbed at the bottom of the pass. It was the same deal, no passing, and as soon as the trail opened up he dusted the shit outta’ me. I backed off and had to wait about 20 miles for good open terrain to get by him but was still able to pass lots of bikes. Once clear of quads in the ‘All lines legal’ sections, where you can go wide in the desert, the big push started. I had one more crash at around 185 miles in, when a bike I was trying to pass in the whoops swapped out and crossed in front of me, together shoulder to shoulder flying sideways at about 30mph. The result was predictable, but everybody emerged unscathed.

 

I Met Dale at next pit stop, 200 miles in, at 12:30 pm. I’d been running a 40mph average, a good speed. We did the air filter again, got food on board, checked the bike over and jumped into the Southern loop. The main pit area just past there was awesome. It’s the middle of the ‘8’ of the course loops and we passed through there twice, so the big pit setups were all over. Going through the pits at 80mph with people jumping out of the way, trying to catch your number to see where their guys should be, is AWESOME! The Mexicans were just starting to get drunk at that time, so there weren’t too many shenanigans yet.

The Southern loop worked well for me. The dry lakebed Laguna Diablo was a 95mph section for me, only because it just didn’t feel right to hold it at 100! Then we got onto a road at 80mph with sandy surface, the kind where you have to sit on the back wheel and keep suggesting the direction to the front. Just wicked. This led to a section of mixed whoops for 25miles followed by a deep sand river bed for another 25. The course then turned North to run a hard rocky section, then into the big whoops proper. I was still passing lots of bikes at this point! The next section was 60 miles of straight whoops (Ed. Note: Take that, you 10-minute motoheads!) and it took a lot out of me. There is a fine balance between speed and energy exertion, but the light was beginning to fade and it was worth getting as many miles done while I could still see. I met Dale again at 375 miles for my night changeover pit right at 5pm, when night arrived with a clang. We changed the back wheel, as half the knobs were gone off the Maxxis Desert IT tire I was using. We also installed the 8” spotlight up front, plus lights on my head, food in my stomach, a new shirt, gloves and goggles and I was ready to go. That was about a 20-minute pit stop, but it was necessary and Dale rocked it for me. I was still running the 40mph average up to this point.

 

The next section went back through the centre of the giant figure 8. It was nighttime now, which meant LOTS of drunk people. An otherworldly experience, lots of smoke, moisture and dust in the air made visibility medium poor. It looked like Armageddon out there, with people blowing up bombs as you passed, tires rolled out, people running everywhere drunk outta' their minds. It was a HUGE pit area, what a trip! It was scary, but one of the highlights at the same time. People were really into pumping up the riders, which made me smile. I felt like the number 1x bike was right behind me and they were actually cheering for him, but no, it was only me out there! I was running up in the top 20 by now and still going reasonably strong. At 420 miles we turned into the mountains. It had been warm up to that point, but up higher the temperature plummeted close to zero. The road opened up, so I was running about 80mph wearing only my jersey, not wanting to stop and waste time gearing up as my gas pit was only 10 miles away. It might have been a mistake because by time I arrived I was frozen and starting to feel the real fatigue, with a long technical section was just ahead. Food was becoming an issue by now, and the gas pit guys weren’t doing a very good job helping me out, the food selection being pretty thin.

Into the technical stuff, and my pace dropped considerably but I was still riding ok. Apparently this section provided a lot of carnage for people behind me, and there were some wrecks for sure. The first trophy truck caught me at 7:45pm. They started at 10:30, a full three hours behind the last bike. The rule with trucks is just get out of the way and slow down, as dust is now a huge issue clinging to moisture in the air and making vision difficult. The next trucks got me at 8:45. The second one almost took me out, despite me giving him lots of room. He literally brushed me with his back end in a full power slide still coming across my side of the road! This was probably my closest call of the race, and from then on I was on a ‘get off the road’ program with them. I rolled into 500 mile and met Dale for the last time around 9pm. I was just starting to get loopy at this point, and not really taking care of myself. Dale or myself didn’t really pick up on it, so away I went while mentally spiraling in. I saw a couple of people I knew at 530 miles, so I stopped and they lifted my spirits a bit which carried me for another 20 miles, but my pace was really dropping off. I have no real recollection of that section, and was being passed by a few people now, but not too many as everybody was riding slowly in the challenging visual conditions.

I stopped at a gas pit and got next to a fire for a while to warm up before getting on to the highway for a few miles and quickly freezing again. I missed the turn (no idea how…) off the highway, so a 15-minute side trip ensued. I backtracked and got on course and into the last kick in the pants section. This 40mile section is a rough and silty, badly rutted from the trucks. My average speed dropped to about 20mph, just crawling along. I had absolutely no style left and was building frustration at my lack of co-ordination and riding ability. It became a survival run, knowing that at about 640 the course opened up again onto easier terrain back into town. My final gas pit was at 640 miles, and was a relief for sure as the riding got easier and the end was mentally in sight. Just to keep it interesting though, the last 30miles was a minefield of booby traps, tires, wire, broken glass, and missing course arrows. I got lost at least once in a housing tract until I was pointed in the right direction by some ancient guy running out of his house in his housecoat and slippers at 4am. He wanted me out of the neighborhood so he could keep sleeping, no doubt.

The final run down the roads and into the canal back to town and the finish line was a huge feeling of relief! Great reception there, and you can see the attached photos for how bad I looked. It was nice to have celebrity status when word got around that I was third solo finisher (adjusted results put me into second…) so good hype! 4:19am, 21:05hrs of riding, 672miles, average speed 32mph.

Dale was a bit of a worried mother hen at this point, as it had taken me 7 ½ hrs to run the last 160miles from when he had last seen me, so after a few photos it was off to eat/shower and get to bed. I woke up in reasonable shape the following day but was still a little out of it as I wandered around.  

 

All in all, the Baja 1000 was a WICKED and AWESOME experience! My official results were 61^st overall out of 350-odd starters, 25^th motorcycle finished (78 finishers of 154 starts), 2^nd solo rider (10 finishers of 34 starts), and 2^nd in sportsman over 250cc class. Probably the greatest part of the experience was the sense of camaraderie. Lots of good people do this race and are willing to help a fellow racer do whatever it takes to finish. The crowds are unreal, and even at three or four am, out there cheering us on as though each of us was the race leader.

The reality of the Baja 1000 is that it is truly a special event. I thank Aaron, Kevin, the crew at MAINJET MOTORSPORTS in Nelson BC and KTM Canada for getting me set up with my dream Baja bike. The KTM530XC-W was pretty much the perfect ride for me!”

So DMX readers, how’s that for an adventure story? Thank you Trent Burgiss for writing such a descriptive account of that your ride! You guys know what else is cool? So many Canadian off-road racers, from Baja to Europe, are kicking ass these days! Canada is quickly becoming a real world power in off-road racing. Most of all, raise a toast to Burgiss to celebrate his awesome ride in Baja!