Playas de Tijuana, 1968. Photo by Vern Jaques. The corner where you see the TR is at the top of an incline up from the half-mile-long beach straight. That road, a wide "esplanade," was claimed by the ocean during a strong storm in the 70s or 80s. Today's beach is actually somewhere near 20 feet below the location of these cars and is pretty close to the alignment of that old straightaway. Click here to see the course diagram.

I had been involved in Tijuana Auto Sport Club racing events as organizer, and the rainy one previous to this as a racer. The TR in the photo was a legitimate E Production racer that had seen better days. I managed to stay ahead of him and win the class. The Porsche was entered as an EP contender, but I saw that it was a Carrera (C Prod) scammer, and volunteered to help the guy change the class designation. He said I could go ahead, and I taped a big black "D" on the side of his car. I don't remember noticing if he corrected it.

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Another Vern Jaques photo, this one from Gridlines. Ron Moore overhauls the MG B roadster at the right turn before the Start/Finish straight. Out of the picture at left is Re-entry.

San Diego Region's SCCA monthly magazine, Gridlines was published in a format very readable in first generation, but difficult to scan effectively.

The rainy event was, as were all these Playas events, a one-day affair. Grid positioning was on the honor system, with crew members turning in lap times. It rained steadily throughout qualifying, and really started to come down at the pre-race break. The organizers correctly decided against trying to run wheel-to-wheel races in the rain, and awarded trophies on the basis of grid places. There was only one challenge: a Porsche (Are we beginning to see a pattern here?) driver claimed a lap 15 seconds faster than anyone else, and the organizers disqualified him.

Playas de Tijuana, November or so, 1967. Photos by Vern Jaques. Not easily discerned, there is an MGB GT in the left picture. It is just above the left headlight of Don Moss' Sprite, coming up the hill behind the MGA of Carlos Oviedo (I think). Click a picture for the larger version. That is the stormy Pacific Ocean in the background.

Second picture shows the left turn at the end of the beach straight. Jim Serniuk is looking for a way past Eddie Codianne, while Eddie's dad, Harry, checks the action in his mirror.

I was driving the showroom stock MG BGT. It had new Pirellis, pretty good wipers and defroster, and a radio that was better than nothing. Most of the other cars were serious racers, and they accelerated amongst gobs of fishtail and steam. In the next turn, there they'd be, sliding or spinning to a stop as I motored by. Harry Codianne is one fellow I passed two or three times on one lap. In the dry his Elva Courier Mk. IV would have been out of sight in two turns. As it was, I was able to stay on the road and mostly pointed in the right direction, and took home the class trophy.

Ah, memories... or "memory." It may not have failed entirely, but it has certainly scrambled some of what I "knew." Vern Jaques' race report helps me confirm the impression I had that there were two races in the rain. It was correct: there was a rainout on the first Sunday, and a rainout on the rain date. The report also revealed that Joe Catron, Jr. drove a Porsche and we "tied" for the class win.

I found the program for the March, 1968, Playas race. It seems to have been a revival of the November Rain-out Race, overprinted with a new date and with a new insert. See it HERE.

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