Joe Hauler Motorcycle Carriers and Accessories

So far, rewards outweigh risks for motorcycle racer Joe Desrosiers as he gears up for Baja 500
By Bill Center
STAFF WRITER June 3, 2004

Almost everyone who races motorcycles across the desert knows someone who has been seriously injured or killed in a crash.
"It's a dangerous sport," Joe Desrosiers acknowledged earlier this week.
"My wife (Kathy) would like to see me get out. She worries. We have two daughters. She would rather see me race a buggy. But . . . "
Here, the 34-year-old Desrosiers offers a litany of reasons why he should ride on.
"You could get hit crossing the street," he said. "I broke my leg skiing and twice broke my back sledding, but on motorcycles, I've had only one fractured ankle. Yes, I guess you could kill yourself. But I guess that's what makes us what we are."

Last year, Desrosiers experienced the extremes of desert racing.
He led a team that won both the 250cc class title in the Baja 1000 and the SCORE season championships. But as Desrosiers prepared for the Baja 1000, a member of his team, Andy Specht, was killed in a riding accident.
Two weeks later, the team decided to ride on.
"The show must go on," reasoned Desrosiers.
But it was in the middle of his 280-mile stage that he finally realized why.

"I was out in the middle of nowhere – out near Punta Canoas – in a very remote section. And there's these two guys holding this banner with Andy's name on it," he said. "Just a couple of enthusiasts. It was something that sticks with you."
Later that November night, when Desrosiers and his team had finished to win the race and the season championship, the events of the past several weeks finally struck them.
"It was pretty tough that night," he recalled. "Almost surreal. Almost like it was supposed to happen that we won. So much has to come together to win a desert race. There was always this dark cloud with Andy's loss. It seemed to spread across the Baja peninsula. Then it was like we were all sharing what we had done."
Saturday, the Desrosiers team will ride again in the 36th SCORE Tecate Baja 500. Desrosiers is again atop the season standings. But the team has again been reshuffled. Mark Daniels was injured two weeks ago when he hit a cow in Mexico while on a practice run.
This time, the quartet will be Desrosiers, San Diego's Jesse Sharpe and Larry Gross and Goleta's Julian Guerra.
"It's almost like you lose someone from the mix every race," said Desrosiers. "It's a tough business. There are so many variables. The terrain ahead of you, the trucks and buggies coming up behind you."
Desrosiers, who owns Joe Hauler Motorcycle Carriers in San Marcos, began riding motorcycles in Connecticut at the age of 10.
"Not a great place to ride," he says. "You couldn't ride for 10 minutes without hitting a fence or having someone threatening you."
So he relocated to Southern California to be near the wide-open range of Baja California.
"I tell my friends all the time and they just don't understand," said Desrosiers. "The Baja 1000 . . . a thousand miles is like them riding to the tip of Florida. And they have no concept of the nothingness."
Desrosiers does. He rides 5,000 to 6,000 miles a year in Baja California, much of the time without a map in this day of GPS. It's part of the challenge.
Desrosiers is one of five San Diegans leading their SCORE class in points going into the Baja 500.

Carlsbad's Adam Pfankuch and Acton's Brian Jeffrey lead the overall four-wheel points standings as well as the 1600cc buggy class. El Cajon's John Marking tops the open-buggy rankings, and is fourth overall. The son-father team of Andy and Scott McMillin of Poway are fifth overall in the four-wheel division and second in open buggies.
The patriarch of the McMillin racing organization, 74-year-old Corky, will miss the Baja 500 for medical reasons.