DESERT WARRIOR

“Dust,” warned Darrin Graham in his signature dramatic style, “is the enemy.” I remember his caution now, seconds too late. The wiry Wide Open Baja guide was prepping us for three days of tearing through some of the most remote areas of Baja California in over-powered race buggies, yet I thought he was speaking theoretically. You know, of hypothetical threats like plaque or communism. Illusory tricks pulled by the powers-that-be into getting you to brush your teeth, or vote Republican.

But what was purely theoretical only hours ago is now acutely practical, as a wall of yellow sand swallows me whole and clobbers my goggles, blinding me like a heart attack. I’m following a race-prepped buggy at over 70 mph as it rips through some of the most pristine desert I have ever had the grace of laying