INTRODUCTION:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/3f/Class11_EricSolorzano.JPG

When I was 14 years old I came across a movie on Netflix that would change the path of my life forever. This movie was "Dust to Glory", which was a documentary made by Dana Brown, outlining the Baja 1000. From the moment I saw this movie, I was hooked. All I could think was BAJA BAJA BAJA. When I was younger, I always dreamed of racing motocross(for those of you who don't know motocross is a form of off-road motorcycle racing on a closed course or track). Motocross was a dangerous sport, and my parents forbade me to do anything but trail ride on my dirt bike, which was ultimately okay with me, as long as I was out there riding, I was happy. The reason why I was so intrigued by "Dust to Glory" was the fact that anyone and their brother could go out and race it(well if they had deep pockets $$$$, lots of support, and a knowledge for cars). I knew that I would never be able to race the Baja alone, so I decided I would have to look for a partner to race(and fund $$$$) with me. I immediately thought of my older brother Buck. Buck is 9 years older than me, he is an adventurous, strong, smart dude, that'll try anything that he thinks looks cool. Luckily for me, he thought the idea of us racing the Baja was pretty f'n radical. The next few months I spent all of my time learning about desert racing, the classes, the race organizations, and the expenses. I figured at the time that the only class we could possibly afford to race would be class 11(Pictured), a stock volkswagen bug pre-1980. The only upgrades allowed in class 11 were specifically for safety. I showed Buck some class 11 videos and pictures and of course he thought it was awesome, he liked the idea of it being extremely hard to finish the race. We decided early on that we want to race to finish, we really didn't care if we finished last overall as long as we could finish. The next step for us was finding a bug to build and make "Baja ready". In late December we would find the perfect bug, or so we thought....