Family tradition: Lia, Lucy Block Baja 1000 win an homage to legendary father, husband Ken Block
Editor's Note: AutoRacingDigest.com writer Victoria Beaver accompanied Block House Racing's team -- led by the late Ken Block's wife Lucy and their daughter Lia -- in last month's Baja 1000 endurance race across the Baja, Mexico peninsula.
Beaver saw all of the highs and lows of one of the world's most reknowned races, from start to finish, ending with the team taking the checkered flag in its class, a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
This is her story:
***************************
All photos courtesy Block House Racing
The Baja 1000, as grueling and brutal as it can be, often becomes the landscape and reminder that the sport will always be about family, tradition and passion.
Sponsors, friends and racers came together to ensure that Ken Block's wife Lucy and their daughter Lia Block had a chance to run last month's legendary six-day endurance race. Mother and daughter both got behind the wheel in support of the 43 Institute (43i), a foundation launched to carry on the legendary racer's legacy of “creating paths of opportunity for the exceptionally driven who may lack the proper support system for growth and success”, per the institute's mission statement.
The No. 2943k Can-Am Maverick R was numbered in Ken Block’s honor and Lia and Lucy’s first attempt at the Baja 1000 lived up to his legacy. Sadly, Ken Block was killed earlier this year on January 2 in a freak snowmobile accident in Woodland, Utah.
This race vehicle will be auctioned off on January 13th, just over one year since Block's tragic death, in Kissimmee, Fla. on the Mecum Auctions bloc, with all proceeds going to 43i. Hopefully, this story helps explain the importance that this race vehicle holds.
As Can-Am debuted the Maverick R, the racing prowess and familial legacy that is the Block family were the perfect answer of who got the chance to race the stock UTV in the longest race of the year. Lia, at 17 years old, is already flying to the top of multiple disciplines of motorsports, including Nitrocross, the American Rally Association. (where she became the youngest winner in ARA history this fall), and Extreme E.
The week of the Baja 1000, Lia was also announced as Williams Racing's pick as their representative in the second year of the F1 Academy, the female-only, single-seater racing championship founded by F1.
From there, it was on to Baja for the Block's. Here is their story:
***************************
Tech and Contingency
The week began with Tech and Contingency in La Paz, Baja California Sur, and immediately afterward the full team met for dinner to discuss chase vehicles, the creation of pits and individual responsibilities. Also to get the ever-important “Don’t do anything to get yourself hurt” speech.
After about an hour of planning and background, Rodrigo Ampudia, who would act as both a racer and a navigator for the team after being the one to prepare Block House Racing’s Maverick R along with two others in different classes, would take over. He presented Lucy and Lia with twin leather jackets crafted by Kiko Baez - near-perfect replicas of the one that Ken Block wore for Gymkhana 7.
In the theme of family and legacy, Kiko Baez is a local designer based in Ensenada, Mexico, who crafts his creations, worn by the likes of performing artist Daddy Yankee and boxer Canelo Alvarez, in a warehouse where his grandfather once made jackets for The Lakers and other LA-based sports teams.
When presented with such a sentimental gift, Lucy softly followed the lines of the flames on the sleeves and Lia found herself at a loss for words as she unzipped the garment bag for the first time, thanking Ampudia and inquiring how he got it done.
Route Mile 1- 526
Lucy, an accomplished rally racer in her own right, took the first 527 miles of the Baja 1000 with her co-driver Terry Madden, a repeat Baja 1000 and Mexican 1000 winner. They joined the rest of the crew in the chase vehicles overnight while Ampudia and JC Guevara navigated the desert.
Later, all teams collided around Mile Marker 922 when Ampudia switched into the role of navigator and Lia hopped in to complete the final 400 miles of the trip.
While Lucy and Madden were in the race vehicle, I was placed in a chase truck with Lia acting as navigator, New Zealand-based car builder and mechanic Francis Hewitt, and Ain’t Care Acres Ranch manager and close family friend Stu Soars. As the crew jammed out to Miley Cryus’ "Party in the USA," Lia passed the 1.1 million mark on Instagram, an important metric for the star power she brings to her impressive racing resume.
Lucy and Madden’s time in the vehicle was slowed when mayhem met them in the silt yards. The chase vehicle I was in was once not on target to make it to the pit in time and told to drive through as we were barely crossing the bridge over Arroyo Las Parras in Loreto, before the Maverick R soared underneath it. But cholla and silt would be waiting to turn a 15-mile segment into a two-hour grind.
As the sun set on the Baja desert, UTVs, Buggies and Trophy Trucks got stuck in a large silt yard. At one point a Trophy Truck trying to make up time ran into the back of the stopped No. 3943k, pushing them further into the silt. Once out of that situation, Lucy had the choice to try and power through and risk getting stuck, or run through the Cholla Cacti. Neither choice offered an opportunity to make up time.
As dust and dusk worked to blind the driver and codriver, Madden exited the vehicle to run ahead and navigate on foot. It’s a shame the livestream was down for this portion of the race and one of the many moments that will be lost to the desert.
“It was insane,” Lucy recounted, “that's why Terry was literally walking in front of the car in my headlines, telling me to go this way or that way, so we could get through the trees and bushes and try to find a pass we could take where there wasn’t a ravine. We had to continue to try to find a way around because if we tried to go back to the course again there would be more groups of people stuck.”
Once the first duo of drivers made it through Baja Pit 7 at Mile Marker 343, trouble continued to find them as Cholla took out two more tires. A bent rim could only be saved through the sacrifice of a jack as Madden beat the metal interior back into as close a circle as possible.
“We had to sacrifice the jack to save the wheel,” Madden explained after cooling down from the grueling 526 miles.
Ingenuity is the name of the game in Baja. Crewmember Hewitt worked on straightening the jack by banging it against the pavement as Ampudia and Guevara relieved Lucy and Madden at Mile Marker 526.
Route Mile 526-922
As Ampudia and Guevara battled both machine and the desert, each chase vehicle entered its own personal struggle through the night. After also switching vehicles, my new chase vehicle headed to the next driver change as the remaining pit vehicles, piloted by crew chiefs JT Taylor and Jarod Birzir, took care of the pits in-between. Soars brought the Blocks and Madden to a roadside hotel for a few hours of rest.
It’s often stated that the most dangerous part of the Baja 1000 is the chase driving, as the narrow roads of the peninsula are overrun with huge chase vehicles, the occasional race vehicle, massive semis and for some unknown reason fearless European cyclists.
This is where people occasionally lose a grasp on reality in the desert as Boojum and Cypress trees create a Dr. Seussesque landscape and lights seem to swirl through the night.
Focus, determination and heart are what pull you through the nighttime journey. Soars drove and Madden navigated as Lucy and Lia slept in the back. Both men took their duty seriously.
"There are all types of different emotions but it’s hard to put into words,” Soars said after battling 20 straight hours of driving. “I feel indebted to Ken and to his family. I’m just trying to make everyone feel good to get their wishes to help his wishes, everything that he wanted to accomplish and that they want to accomplish on behalf of him. I will do anything in my life to help them fulfill. So the car means a lot to me, to them. Whoever ends up with it will have a special piece of all these people's lives.”
Pit 922: The Start of Day Two
At Mile Marker 922, the magic and the importance of the trip completely soaked in. We were a few hours behind schedule because of electrical gremlins that hit during the night, and the driver switch was moved back from daybreak to around 9 a.m. My chase vehicle arrived at around 5 a.m and waited for the other crew truck that had been chasing the Can-Am more closely for the middle of the night pits. The off-duty drivers spent a whopping three hours of sleep at the roadside hotel.
When everyone met up, Madden was through with his racing duties and could now focus on managing the rest of the race, Lucy could see her daughter drive off in the race vehicle for the first time and Lia finally got to race. Ampudia had a mere two minutes out of the vehicle after driving for 500 miles through the night and before sliding over to the navigator’s seat to guide Lia to almost the finish line.
This was the last big pit stop for the crews with two fill-ups and one visual check-in remaining. A lot of the lead was lost overnight. Everyone repeated the mantra that a finish in the Baja 1000 would be a win, due to the nature of those who love and interact with this sport, but we all knew that’s not what we were truly aiming for.
As Lucy strapped her firstborn Lia into the car, crew member Keenan Duran took a Facetime call with one hand while holding the stop cone with his other. Waiting for him on the phone’s screen were the first heartbeats of his first child in utero. It cannot be overstated how many times these moments of wonder lined up during the Baja run for Block House Racing.
And family continued to dominate the storylines of the week.
As Lia took off, she had a large road section in front of her. On the road sections, drivers are required to stay within a maximum speed or be penalized. And while many would see this as a chance to catch their breath and avoid the dangers of the desert, it’s clear that Lia would prefer to never have to deal with a speed limit.
As always, Lia was extremely measured and chill before entering the race vehicle as her mom danced around her to music blaring from a nearby Harley.
Route Mile 922-1309
For this section, I joined Soars, Madden and Lucy for the final 400 miles, giving us the chance to break down the race thus far and what happens next for the vehicle and for Lia. We hit rain for the first time in this segment as we sped up to try to beat Lia to the next pit. This pitstop was not required for our vehicle but it would have been a nice first for Lucy to see Lia in action. Lia was just too fast as we ran up the Mexican highways through coastal fog and rain and ultimately showed up a few moments too late. From here we had time to slow down and make it to our next required pit.
Now that Lucy was out of the race vehicle and had three hours of sleep under her belt, she could transition to planning for Lia’s freshly announced open wheel seat. In order to compete in next year’s F1 Academy, Lia still needed seat time, which means Lucy and Lia would forgo family Thanksgiving in Florida to fly to Spain for more testing: a small but important sacrifice as the mother-daughter duo navigates a litany of opportunities available to the rising teenage star.
Lucy pivoted between seat options. Last-minute tickets to Spain can cost a race team an arm and a leg, but if you can hang onto those lower appendages, legroom is still needed for the rest and rehab of racers who spend 95 percent of their lives away from their Utah home.
As we continued through the Baja scenery, Lucy and I had a chance to talk about life, family and recipes. We covered the importance of what is passed down and the moments we had with loved ones. If you never watch your grandmother cook, you’ll never learn her recipes. We looped through this conversation several times before Stu pointed out that the radio got stuck on "Family Tradition" by Hank Williams, Jr., which played four times without us realizing it. From recipes to country music to racing, this is all passed down. It’s why legacy matters.
It’s fitting that Williams sings a song about rebelling not against but in the name of tradition, a sentiment echoed in the Block household.
Pit 1125 And The Flying Dutchman
Since daybreak, the team started to hear rumors of a Baja racing legend in the making. A Dutch-born rider from New Zealand was attempting to Ironman the race. To Ironman is to run the full 1,310 miles alone. Each year multiple riders try to accomplish the feat, but they do it with a crew and usually a lot more planning than Wouter-jan Van Dijk had.
Van Dijk flew from New Zealand to San Diego where he purchased a used KTM and rode it down the peninsula to La Paz for the start. He initially failed tech and then fellow racers came together to help make the bike race-legal and Van Dijk started his journey towards Baja notoriety.
When we arrived at the pit to await Lia’s and Ampudia’s arrival, other teams informed us that the famed "Flying Dutchman" would be passing through shortly. Other pit crews also stayed behind for the chance to see him come by and provide any assistance he needed, checking tires, filling up his tank and making sure water and nutrients were offered.
Just a few hours earlier, Lucy told me a story from early in her rally car days when she was still running a subpar vehicle. She got to reflect on the grassroots nature of American Rally.
“Every week I was in the back of the pack with a bunch of shoestring budgets and there you helped each other,” Lucy said before diving into a story. “You’re all in service together and I remember this kid was almost going to win the championship and he totaled his car and damaged it. The rule was you had to have a front windshield so we took off his rear windshield. It was a turnaround stage. They very rarely have them, you run it and then you wait until everyone is done and you then run the opposite direction. We were trying to figure it out and even his competitors were helping him, the ones he was fighting with for the championship. We took off the rear windshield, took off the front windshield and taped the rear windshield to the front so he could race.”
A man who entered the most grueling expedition of the year without a team ended the race with a roving crew of hundreds. And we all cheered him on.
Grizzled members of crews agreed it was one of the coolest things to see. Birzir reminded me of a conversation we had one pit stop earlier about what it takes to be a celebrity in Baja.
“The pit crew and the race crew are the same, " Birzir explained. “For lack of a better term, there's no Hollywood down here. Everybody's a team player. Everybody's willing to get in the car. Everybody's willing to wrench on the car. So it's a little bit of everything.”
Lia and Ampudia came through a few minutes later in the lead with a small buffer on second place. A quick pit was necessary to protect the small bubble and the Maverick R was indeed quickly back on the track.
The other chase vehicles stayed close to the race vehicle as Madden, Lucy, Soars and I headed to an underpass within viewing distance of the finish line. There would be one final navigator change here as Ampudia climbed out to be replaced with Lucy. The mother-daughter duo would finish the race together.
Lucy and Lia Cross the Finish Line
After waiting for about 15 minutes, the green light of the No. 2943k appeared on the highway skirting Ensenda. This was as close to nervousness that I had seen from Lucy all week. She waited with bated breath to join her daughter and hopefully secure the UTV Stock Class win. The vehicle slowed and barely stopped. Ampudia hopped out and Lucy joined Lia.
Soars, Madden and I raced to the finish line. Madden was able to wave the flag as Lia and Lucy passed through. As we pulled onto the stage in downtown Ensenada and the team regrouped, we were told we were first in the class and just needed to wait to see if any penalties were assessed before getting the official win.
We passed inspection and history was written. Lia raced 388 miles in her first Baja, Lucy raced 526 miles and navigated for a half-mile. Both joined the small but growing list of females to not only complete but to win a class in the Baja 1000.
Champagne was popped and sprayed as the five-member driving crew stood atop the race vehicle. The majority of the bottle was poured over the roof in honor of Ken.
Lia will shift in 2024 to focus on open wheels as her career continues to grow. But the Baja 1000 gets added to a list of accomplishments that few 17-year-olds hold and will continue to shape how the young racer deals with the trials and tribulations of motorsports.
No one on the Block House Racing team will forget this run.
***************************
Authors Notes:
Id like to say "Thank you" to Block Family Racing and Can-Am for allowing me to join them on this extremely exhilarating and personal journey. Baja is a once-in-a-lifetime experience and Baja with the Blocks is legendary.
Thank you to the crew -- JT Taylor, Jarod Birzir, Keenan Duran, Zac Mertens, Francis Jewitt, David Robson, Oscar Rico and Michelle Potiska -- for laughs, background and "There Are No Dumb Questions".
Thank you to Mauricio Lizarzaburu and Kevin Rod Johnson for the photos and videos that you captured.
Thank you to Stu Soars, Terry Madden, and Rodrigo Ampudia for helping me navigate my first Baja and the embedding experience.
Thank you Lia, Lucy, Kira, and Mika Block for allowing me to see you in your natural element. You are all an inspiration in this space and I’ll carry the 56th running of the Baja 1000 in my heart forever.