Idiot Racing Take On The SCORE Baja 500 In A Home Built Class 11 VW Beetle And Live To Tell The (Amazing) Tale

Slow Baja

"Some of the world's greatest feats were accomplished by people not smart enough to know they were impossible."

— Doug Larson

In today's podcast, we meet Mike Steel from Idiot Racing. His dream was to race the Baja 1000 in a Class 11 VW Bug built with his own hands. He documented the build on his Instagram page and won many fans and followers.

His first race was the SCORE Baja 500 on June 13, 2021. The team of rookies took the green flag and made it to the first dirt section. Then, at mile 35, the trouble began. They snapped a balljoint and were stuck on a steep hillside. A group of locals formed an ad-hoc pit crew. They held the car on the hill, fixed the balljoint, and towed them to the top. At race mile 50, trouble returned. They did a field rebuild of the carburetor and jury-rigged the failing alternator. A few miles later, down on power, another hill climb finally ended their race.

The chase team arrived and, given the location, decided to drive back to Ensenada and grab the trailer rather than tow the broken car with only a strap. They removed all the valuables from the VW and went to get the trailer. When they returned, it was gone. Was it stolen or towed by some good samaritans? They searched for the car vainly. Mike's wife Cynthia made an Instagram post alerting the world to their situation. The offroad racing community sprung into action. By the middle of the following day, a local Baja citizen had located the vehicle -stripped and abandoned but reportedly in pretty good shape.

Since recovering the car, Steel has been fixing the damage and making the rounds to the So Cal VW community. He's stocking up on parts and plans to be back for the SCORE Baja 1000 in November 2021

Follow his progress at Idiotracing.com and Idiot.racing on Instagram.