Fifty years ago last week, Bruce Meyers and Ted Mangels pointed the nose of \u201cOld Red,\u201d Meyers\u2019 very first Manx off-road buggy, southward out of Tijuana and set off on an adventure that would create an industry. Their destination was La Paz, well down the Baja coastline, their mission an informal feasibility study into the possibility of staging a race along the length of the peninsula.<\/p>\n
Their \u201cdown\u201d trip was not particularly quick as routes were explored and discovered, their pitfalls noted, but when they turned the little red Manx back toward home the bit was between their teeth. Thirty-four hours and 45 minutes later they rolled back into Tijuana riding a new elapsed time record for the journey. That fall, on Halloween weekend, the very first Baja 1000, then called the Mexican 1000, took its first steps into history from the parking lot of Tijuana\u2019s Bullring by the Sea.<\/p>\n