78jotadave
Hero member
Remembering the March 1988 'La Carrera Classic' a point-to-point road race for motorcycles that was held in Mexico in the state of Northern Baja California, Mexico.
The race was run on public streets and Highway 3 across 120 + miles of mostly (haha) closed-to-public roads, between the towns of San Felipe on the Gulf of California and Ensenada on the Pacific coast, "watch out for the goat herds in the canyons" was just one of the cautionary warnings. Highway 3 crosses the Baja Peninsula Mountains with a road elevation rising to 2000 meters and crosses salt plains at near sea level with straights as long as 10 miles, WOT territory.
The event was held 5 times between 1985 and 89 each year the direction was reversed, east-west, west-east, I ran my 78 Laverda Jota twice.
For my second running of the event, East-West I nailed it and took second place in the March 88 event, second only to Duanne Summers on the North America Team Ducati F1 Montjuic racer entry, I had ridden my bike to work the day before the race, I'm not kidding.
120 miles of pure adrenaline-pumping fun, an average speed of 109.889mph for the race distance across the salt flats, through the corn fields up the canyons, and over the mountains to the Pacific coast.. 47 riders finished, and 24 were DNF.
I was not the only Laverda rider taking on the challenge of La Carrera, Kosmic Kelly ran his SFC 750, and PK Davies won the 500cc class on a nicely prepped Formula 500.
The race was run on public streets and Highway 3 across 120 + miles of mostly (haha) closed-to-public roads, between the towns of San Felipe on the Gulf of California and Ensenada on the Pacific coast, "watch out for the goat herds in the canyons" was just one of the cautionary warnings. Highway 3 crosses the Baja Peninsula Mountains with a road elevation rising to 2000 meters and crosses salt plains at near sea level with straights as long as 10 miles, WOT territory.
The event was held 5 times between 1985 and 89 each year the direction was reversed, east-west, west-east, I ran my 78 Laverda Jota twice.
For my second running of the event, East-West I nailed it and took second place in the March 88 event, second only to Duanne Summers on the North America Team Ducati F1 Montjuic racer entry, I had ridden my bike to work the day before the race, I'm not kidding.
120 miles of pure adrenaline-pumping fun, an average speed of 109.889mph for the race distance across the salt flats, through the corn fields up the canyons, and over the mountains to the Pacific coast.. 47 riders finished, and 24 were DNF.
I was not the only Laverda rider taking on the challenge of La Carrera, Kosmic Kelly ran his SFC 750, and PK Davies won the 500cc class on a nicely prepped Formula 500.
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