Epic desert race draws Kiwis to the home of offroad racing
Fuel wars? What fuel wars? The world could be ending, and Kiwi racers would still be somewhere in the world bolting bits on and off race cars.
Specifically, in this case, at a bucket-list event in North America, the NORRA BAJA, a 1,400 mile desert race. That’s miles, not km. This is an epic desert race organised by the National Offroad Racing Association (NORRA). It’s big. The Herbst brothers were there, Robbie Gordon was there, Max Gordon (Robbie’s son) was there, Ryan Arciero was there.
It’s a six-day rally-raid style event, starting in Ensenada Mexico, hammering across the Mexican baja desert. Known as "The Happiest Race on Earth," the event took vintage and modern vehicles from Ensenada to San Jose del Cabo, stopping in a new town each night.
Competing at the event were Aucklander Paul Hackett and the Crabb clan of Silverdale, headed by good bloke Richard and including his sons Arron and Fergus along with Tania Delahunty.
Paul and Richard have been a handy partnership in recent years, Paul swap-driving Richard’s car in Australia and Richard driving Paul’s mighty Toyota Trophy Truck here in New Zealand.
At Baja, Paul was racing in the Vintage 4-cylinder Buggy class (Car #1548, 2005 Crumco Class 5 Baja Bug). His team had a phenomenal event, taking home first overall in their class.
The Crabbs took Big Trouble, their 1989 Nissan V6-engined Chenowth. They were racing in the Vintage 6-cylinder Buggy class. This is a car with massive race history in New Zealand including victory in our own Taupo 1000. It’s a two-seater Chenowth frame that raced with a big flat four engine for years. When Richard bought it, the car was showing its age, and he set about restoring it to as-new condition.
Today, it has a super-reliable Nissan quad-cam 3.5-litre VQ35de V6 in the engine bay and has proven capable of taking on newer and more powerful machinery in the home of offroad racing.
The team struck repeated mechanical trouble including broken drive shafts and then smashed their gearbox, but successfully completed the first couple of days of the grueling six-day rally.
So, to the race in a bit more detail.
Day one went okay for both teams. Richard drove the first day for Crabb Racing and the team worked hard to keep the car in the running, battling issues with the clutch, navigation system, flat tires and more to make it to the finish line.
“We ended up sitting second in class.”
Richard said at the start of day two the car was “running great”. Arron Crabb was driver for day two and had picked up more than 20 positions in the first 30km before a car racing the wrong way down the track collided with Big Trouble.
“Weirdly - and thankfully - only causing a snapped axle. Twenty minutes later the team had the axle repaired and we were back in the race.”
At the end of the second day, after 326 miles – 524km – of racing, Paul was sitting 105th, the Crabb Big Trouble team 144th. That’s out of a total of 238 entries (car/truck and motorbike).
The next day, it all came undone for Crabb Racing with another half-shaft breakage leaving Big Trouble trackside and in big trouble. Once recovered and clear of the course, they set about finding a replacement. An eight-hour overnight drive got the fresh axle back, they missed the third day’s first two competitive stages and then returned to the course at stage three only to make it 15 minutes up the road and blow the gearbox.
Paul Hackett meanwhile won the vintage class and finished 11th overall on the final day.
