BY THERESA HOGUE
Gazette-Times reporter | Posted: Tuesday, November 13, 2007 12:00 am
As the sun rises this morning and begins to warm the sands of Baja, Mexico, John Maine will wake up to a day he's long dreamed of.
The 1985 graduate of Crescent Valley High School has been off-road racing for most of his life, but the Baja 1000 off-road race always has dangled before him like an elusive treasure that he's never quite been able to catch - that is, until now.
Maine turned 40 this year, and it just so happens that the Baja 1000 is celebrating its 40th anniversary. The world-famous 1,300 mile race winds through the rocky, hot terrain of Baja. It starts in Ensenada and it ends in La Paz, Mexico.
Maine's friend, Rod Stauber, also turned 40 this year. As a birthday gift Stauber received a custom-built Jeep from his father-in-law, a motorsports manager for Yokohama, to run the Baja 1000.
The Jeep is about 13 years old, and needed a lot of work. Stauber wasn't sure how to go about restoring it, but Maine was ready to jump in and help.
"I had 30 years of concentration on how to do it," he joked. So the Jeep ended up in Maine's Corvallis garage, and eventually was restored, with the help of a lot of friends, into a race-worthy vehicle, complete with spare parts for almost every inch of the Jeep.
"You have to be completely prepared for anything," Maine said.
Racing is in Maine's blood. His father had off-road vehicles when John was growing up, and they spent a lot of time driving through the sand dunes on the Oregon Coast.
"I've always been infatuated with racing," Maine said.
Maine graduated from Crescent Valley in 1985. In 1994, he started his own business, which has become Pace Heating and Air in Corvallis and Albany. As his business expanded, Maine always kept off-road racing in his life, from bumping over the high desert east of Bend to racing in Canada.
Maine wanted to participate in the Baja 1000 - not just for the experience, but as a real racer. His friends were more interested in just completing the course in one piece.
"We come at it from two completely different points of view," he said. Eventually, since everyone wanted to take a turn during the 1,250 mile race, they arranged it so that a number of different pairs would switch off during today's event. The other drivers include Rod and Nikki Stauber, Tony Ullian and Dave Jolliff, all of Corvallis.
Maine and his wife, Nancy, will drive the second to last leg of the race. As for their chances as first timers, Maine isn't sure.
"We now have a vehicle that could win, but that's quite a statement for a bunch of novices," Maine said. But considering he's driven the course in his imagination since he was a boy, just being there will be magic enough.
"It's a dream come true."
Childhood diabetes
Corvallis man John Maine and his racing partners from JTR Racing are hoping to raise money and awareness for childhood diabetes and the Gales Creek Camp, an Oregon camp for kids with diabetes. To find out more, go to http://www.jtrracing.com