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Baja, the ancestral home of desert racing, draws those who seek speed and fortune.

We’re 60 years on from 1962, when Dave Ekins and Bill Robertson Jr. lined up a pair of Honda CL72 Scramblers in Tijuana, kicked over their engines, and aimed the things at La Paz. After some 40 hours and 950 miles off-road, the CL72 was anointed king of the desert. The exercise was invented as the ultimate test of man and machine, proof that a Honda was tough enough for any road on earth.

This story originally appeared in Volume 11 of Road & Track.

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Five years later, Bruce Meyers and his prototype buggy smashed Honda’s bike record by five hours, proving that four wheels could jounce down those thousand miles faster than two. In doing so, Meyers set the template for every “Mexican 1000” race to follow. Road & Track was there. Our editors tailed Meyers to the end of the line, then spread the good news by wire from La Paz.

At our old offices in Ann Arbor, Michigan, I often sat down for lunch with folders from our archives, thumbing through the photos and race reports from Baja in the Sixties. I’d imagine how it must have felt to tag along and watch those names crystallize into legend.

It can be hard to reconcile those black-and-white memories with what the Baja 1000 has become. On the ground, the racing’s still furious and wondrous, the machines evolved and weaponized. However, from 10,000 feet, the race often looks more like a rolling Bro-chella, wealthy gringos spraying dust from jacked-up trucks worth more than most American homes.

Most of the time, you can’t blame these high-­octane cowboys for yeehaw-ing down to La Paz and partying like Rome’s burning. But some years, that hell-for-leather veneer wears thin. Like 2016, when Mark Luhtala died following a head-on collision with another truck in the Baja 1000. That same year, three were killed during the Baja 500, including an eight-year-old boy who was struck by a race truck that swerved to avoid spectators.

The deaths were chalked up as freak accidents. But that’s Baja now, the race and place tangled like vines, grown so close as to be inseparable. The event draws huge crowds of locals and tourists alike, lured to the action like cold hands to a campfire. Looking through our archives, I’ve often wondered whether there’s anything left of that old race, of old Baja. There was just one way to find out.

With the cars and partiers scattered far to the east, blitzing the San Felipe 250, we set out on the old routes heading south from Ensenada, the Baja 1000’s traditional launching pad. We had the whole place to ourselves.

We didn’t bring Sixties machines. Instead, the 21st century has produced its own answer to the Baja question, a blend of Honda Scrambler and Bruce Meyers proto-buggy. This mutant offspring is called a side-by-side, named because they generally seat two, hip to hip. Many side-by-sides, themselves a buggy design of sorts, run motorcycle drivetrains (including our pair of Honda Talon 1000X-4s, which borrow from ­Honda’s 1084-cc Africa Twin), then add enough suspension travel to smooth out tectonic friction. You’ve seen and heard them snorting down gravel back roads, painted up to the roofline in slick, wet mud. Maybe you own one.

Side-by-sides constitute the fastest-growing segment of the powersports market, overshadowing bikes, quads, and buggies in the hearts and wallets of the go-fast public. Down here they’re king. But despite their popularity, for my first hour at the wheel, I couldn’t wrap my mind around enjoying the thing.

The Talon’s drivetrain lags at low speeds, demanding huge throttle inputs to spin up revs and patience while those revs build. Honda’s naturally aspirated parallel-twin huffs with the ­charisma of a bogged woodchipper.

Heading south from Ensenada’s man-made harbor, we set up in a convoy. Up front sat our guide, Rigo Hernandez, wheeling the far tastier-­looking Can-Am Maverick XRS: two seats, 200 turbocharged horses, massive knobby tires, suspension travel tall enough to ride all the scary roller coasters. Riding right seat with Rigo was our fixer, ­Justin Coffey, a laid-back transplant from the Pacific Northwest to Ensenada. Behind him, R&T staffers Aaron Brown and Brian Silvestro rode in the first Talon. I picked up the tail with photographer Dave sitting shotgun.

The Talons couldn’t have stuck out more if they were flying. Clad in dorky fenders, our convoy looked like a line of hunched funky BattleBots, invaders in Ensenada’s local traffic: pickups draped in cracked red paint, old four-stroke dirt bikes, and compact Japanese sedans.

But I didn’t see a single local stick up their nose. Instead, children pointed and tugged at their parents’ shirts, then waved us on: Vamos! Vamos! Men in swaying lifted 4x4s threw the thumbs-up. Even one stern-looking cop, automatic rifle slung over his shoulder, nodded down from the bed of a state-police pickup.

After an hour-long transit down Carrera Trans­peninsular, a federal highway that starts in Tijuana and terminates at Baja’s southern tip, we stopped for lunch at Acambaro, a convenience store with a burrito joint attached. The restaurant’s walls were draped floor to ceiling with flags, gear, stickers, jerseys, and helmets, detritus left by the comings and goings of Baja’s wheeled zealots.

At our next stop, I sat next to Rigo in the shade of the Pemex station’s outbuilding, a low stone wall for a bench. Rigo scratched at the ears of a stray dog. I asked him why the locals bother to wave at strange gringos in Honda Talons. Shouldn’t they scowl?

“No, because they love racing,” he said, grinning. “Everyone does here.”

Rigo weighs in from a unique position. He’s led tours of Baja for 36 years, first on motorcycles and now entirely in side-by-sides. Everywhere we stopped, I understood Rigo to be something of a Baja celebrity, slapping the backs of locals and flashing his incandescent smile. Rigo’s in his sixties now, but with the carefree swagger of a younger man. He raced Baja decades ago, by motorcycle. So did his son, Salvador, who won his class at the Baja 1000 in 2005, riding a 250-cc Honda. Then Salvador gave up racing, a concession to age, marriage, and a son on the way.

“So will Salvador’s boy race too?” I asked.

“Yes, probably.” Rigo grinned wider. “Racing is a passion that nobody forgets. It’s a passion for the life here.”

It’s a mistake to frame the Baja 1000 as a gringo’s playground. For every white boy in a flat-brimmed cap, there’s his Mexican brother racing alongside, grinding his own mettle against the Baja’s brutality. And because the race is in their backyard, Mexican entries flood the 1000’s multitudinous classes, even if the top-tier trophy trucks are driven mostly by off-road racing’s moneyed—often American—elite.

The locals claim the race as part of their culture, rather than an incursion, and with good reason: You can’t throw a rock down here without hitting a Baja winner.

After our gas stop, we hit the dirt with no intention of leaving it for more than a day, with the opportunity to see the Baja 1000’s roads up close. Hallelujah.

Immediately the Talons snorted to life. On cement, they may as well be golf carts. Out here, across Baja’s steep shale washes, long straight dirt flats, and rutted rolling hills, the side-by-side hunkers down and slingshots over every obstacle. Mechanical sympathy is unnecessary. At the ­Talon’s indicated top speed, somewhere around 60 mph, you can hit almost any obstacle flat-out. If you can have more four-wheeled fun on dirt for less money (without a trip to the hospital), let me know, because I’m buying in.

Fifteen minutes down the road, we stopped again at a junction. Two sandy paths forked at a cattle guard. Justin’s voice crackled over the radio.

“You guys wanna see something cool?”

We rolled down slowly to a postcard beach called La Calavera. Its fine gray sand is arrayed in a half-moon, encircled by rising cliffs that hold the beach’s perfection like a nestled egg. We parked at the north end, then shed our helmets, goggles, and jackets. The sun danced off the cobalt Pacific, and in that moment the universe seemed to let down its hair.

We appraised the surf in silence and watched pelicans hover inches above the crashing break. Then we got bored. A Honda roared to life over my shoulder, Aaron at the wheel. I followed suit. Dave grabbed his camera and said, “Get out there and have fun. Do some cool shit.”

We painted that untouched shoreline in wide, long brushstrokes, circles and swirls and dig marks where the Talon reared back on its haunches and shot off at full bore. No scolding tourist appeared with sunburn and complaints. Not a single soul for miles to tear us from our joy. After a particularly hairy slide for the camera, Rigo bolted upright from his lounging post on a slab of sandstone. He waved me down and calmly explained, “No more oversteer. You’ll flip the side-by-side”—a reminder that while fun is always within arm’s reach here, so is destruction.

Cast against our overbearing world, I felt drunk on Baja’s intoxicating freedom. Even without ­trophy trucks bombing by, this is a place where one can court danger and flirt with its consequences.

I joked with Justin, “This is exactly what California wishes it could be, huh?”

“No, this is California 150 years ago,” he said. “All the beauty, none of the bullshit.”

Fly into San Diego, rent a car, then drive across the San Ysidro border. You’ll sail through in minutes. When headed back north, allow (at least) two hours for the miles-long line at the border. Or consider crossing at Tecate, farther east. You’ll need a passport or enhanced ID for entry back into the States.

There’s passable (sometimes even great) cell service on the peninsula. Google Maps worked as normal for us, but keep your eyes peeled for local detours. It’s a couple of hours down to Ensenada from Tijuana, mainly on Highway 3. Enjoy the views.

I looked back at the Talons, vehicles with none of the beauty and none of the bullshit, feeling thankful they’d carried us this far and at speeds that would shatter the control arms of any Jeep.

In that way, the side-by-side amplifies the best qualities of bikes and buggies. Its vast talents are accessible to any driver but offer the sensory rewards of a motorcycle, like how the hairs on your arm stand up when you crest a hill and the air goes cold, the Pacific crawling just back into view. Or the way you smell Baja’s briny oyster farms before you see them.

After hours sprinting down some of the Baja 1000’s most intense and picturesque pay dirt, we rolled into Coyote Cal’s for the night, totally spent, dust clogging our nostrils. Cal’s is a Baja fixture, a hostel catering to off-roaders and the only proper pit stop for miles, at the heart of a remote coastal town called Eréndira.

After a quick wash and a beer, we met Coyote Cal’s proprietors, Rick and Ta, plus their small white dog, Kapow. Fresh-caught langosta showed up on the dinner table, laid on steaming white rice and vegetables, all swimming in a sweet red curry prepared by Ta.

After dinner we fell into low chairs by a wood fire, beer cans slicked with condensation in our hands. It felt like summer camp. Rick and I sat for maybe an hour as he told the Cal’s origin story.

Coyote Cal’s was a consequence of trippy serendipity, he said. On a transcontinental motorcycle trip in 1997, riding through an ancient Australian forest, Rick was gripped by visions that compelled him to open a hostel in Baja, one just like the places he’d stayed Down Under.

Rick obeyed, and Coyote Cal’s opened that same year. First came the backpackers from the world over, young and wild, filling every room. Cal’s was one never-ending party in those days.

But 25 years later, the clientele has shifted. While 9/11 and the 2008 financial crisis killed off backpacking down the peninsula, he said, the Baja racers and adventurers picked up right where they left off. Rick pointed to a photo of Cal’s courtyard that was stuck to the main building’s bar window. It shows the hostel stuffed past brimming with dusty motorcycles.

“Most people we’ve crammed in here is about 210,” he said with a chuckle. “Space was a bit tight.”

And so the Baja adventure types with their bikes and side-by-sides keep Rick and Ta busy. When they’re not busy, Rick likes to take a moment to reflect. It’s easy to do here. From the hostel’s dining table, you can watch the ocean break into great columns of spray against the shore. With a cup of coffee in hand, you feel like watching forever. Rick, an American, heads up to the States only occasionally—major birthdays, doctor visits, catching up with old friends, help with his taxes. Otherwise, he’s happy as an almeja in Baja. It’s his home.

“I don’t want material things,” he said. “I don’t want anything anymore. I used to want to go see the world, and believe me, I traveled. But now the world comes to me. Or maybe I’m getting old.”

We sat and thought about that in silence. Rick turned toward the fire.

“You see that? There are five people around the fire,” Rick said. “Not one of them is on their phone. They’re all just talking, like how it used to be. That happens a lot down here.”

The next morning, we retraced our steps. Back in Ensenada, we were invited into the garage of Jorge Souto, another serial Baja champion (once in a Datsun pickup, once in a Nissan pickup, and—rather mystifyingly—once in a Nissan Sentra). Souto’s a stocky man with a kindly face that frames a spectacular mustache, a fantastic woolly creature with the density of a horsehair shoe brush.

He ventured north from Argentina at 25, splitting his time between Baja and Los Angeles to chase his childhood dream of off-road racing. When he retired, Ensenada just felt right.

“When I came to the U.S., I had $48 in my pocket,” he said. “I only knew five words of English when I moved to the States. Two of them were ‘Coca-Cola’ and ‘sandwich.’”

From that first foothold, he built his name in Baja. Souto showed us around his office and pulled out trophies, framed photos, and memorabilia. Most stories involved those crystallized legends from the old days—Parnelli, Ekins, even Fangio. All had pitched in free advice, and often free parts, to snowball Souto’s success.

When I asked him how he got so lucky, why Baja racers treated him so kindly, asking nothing in return, Souto almost couldn’t understand the question. I repeated it four or five different ways, but the sentiment was lost on him. “Doesn’t life unfurl like a storybook for everyone?” his furrowed brow begged to know.

I got that a lot down south. Most everyone we met in Baja seemed infected by an unflappable rosy contentment. They were in on some secret that curled the corners of their lips into a tiny grin. It’s all still here in Baja—the beauty, the isolation, the adrenaline—same as it ever was, but only if you’re willing to chase it.

“I can’t explain why I came to Baja,” Souto said. He paused a beat, considered again, then swigged deeply from a cold beer. “It’s just in the blood.”