The San Felipe Incident
In June of 2019 the team and I embarked on a journey to San Felipe, Mexico. For the first annual King of Baja race with Ultra 4.
To prepare for this race I had purchased a new enclosed trailer for the trip south, I had always wanted to get an enclosed trailer for the race Jeep but until now didn’t have a good enough reason to get one. Traveling to Mexico I knew I would feel more comfortable knowing that all of my spare parts and the race Jeep would be safe in an enclosed trailer. I had heard and read about too many horror stories when it came to traveling south of the border, so I wanted to make sure that I took every precaution.
Having bought the trailer new from a dealer I used to work for, I should have known that I needed to double check every nut and bolt on the entire trailer. My excuse for not doing this is that the logistics it took to get the race team to San Felipe was so intense for me that the trailer nut and bolt check got overlooked. I traveled to San Felipe with no issues, Competed and pulled off a second place finish. On my way home I lost a tire on the trailer going through Needles, AZ due to a mistake I had made, I made it all the way to Cedar City, UT before losing the second tire one the same side. Unfortunately, I only had one spare tire so I had to wait for a mobile tire repair service to come from St. George, Ut. I believe it took about an hour for the repair guy to get to me.
Once I got the tire repaired and was back on the road, I got to Beaver, UT before the lug nuts rattled loose and the lug studs finally let go and I lost both driver side trailer tires at the same time at 11 o’clock at night on a Sunday night. I knew right away that the trailer wasn’t going any farther behind my truck, it would need to be left on the side of the highway or I would need a tow truck. Since I had already spent my emergency funds on the mobile tire repair service, I was left with no choice but to lock the trailer up and finish the journey home to get some sleep, and return in the morning with parts to fix the trailer and take it home.
I stopped at the trailer dealership that I bought the trailer from to pick up the parts I would need to repair the trailer. I got back down to the trailer and began repairs when I realized that I had bought the wrong lug studs for the type of brake drum I had on the trailer. I had to go into Beaver, UT to get the correct studs, on my way back from Beaver it began to snow on me and the team as we were working on the trailer. This made a miserable situation incredibly worse, but we pushed through and got the trailer fixed and returned home after a long day and long weekend. After all this, It amazes me that I look forward to returning to San Felipe, UT.
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