Please say a prayer for a speedy recovery for a good friend of mine's son Justin. He was injured while racing his Lorreto section during the 1000. I don't want to speculate or start any inaccuracies about his injuries or condition right now other than he & his family needs our support at this time. Also a big thanks to all who showed the true spirit of Baja by stopping their race to help.

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He went down hard. Get well Justin!
Get well soon, Justin
Get well soon Justin !
get well and god bless
Justin is 17 years old and as a parent of kids that race I can tell you its more frightening and worrisome than exciting to watch them.
Get well and thoughts and prayers for Justin and family...
Get well bro!
get well justin god speed
From Justins' dad on another forum. Thoughts and prayers are what Justin really needs right now.

Well obviously this is not the message i hoped to write at the end of our trip, but life, especially life as a racer, sometimes throws curves at you. I will try not to ramble on but i wanted to update you all a little.

First off, we had an awesome week of pre running and hanging out together, which as any dad will tell you, is the greatest part of being a dad. Justin ran his section many times (mostly with morgan cuz i cant go fast enough!) and felt really comfortable. He never even mentioned the area that he crashed as a concern. He got to meet and compare course notes with Ricky Johnson (strange coincedence) who is absolutely the most outstanding man i think i have ever met.

Come race day we had a long wait at the hotel. Justin and i talked a lot (not just that day) about riding in baja, and how you just cant crash, there is ho help for you etc etc. He told me he was a little concerned about cows on the course cuz he had seen several while night pre running but no big deal. By the time he got on the bike, we knew he was in second, no real chance for first, and nobody to worry about behind him. Timmy had light probs and flats and told J to just bring it home for the championship.

I doubt we will ever know what happened after that, he only went about 15 miles. I ended up getting to the crash site to get him. It was a really rocky (loose and buried) road where the edges of the road were lined with rock from being graded over time. I later asked Morgan how fast they were going over that section cuz i knew i would have just picked my way through it and he said "pretty fast, just let the bike dance a little" so im sure J was going at a decent clip, maybe even pushing it too hard to impress his new team and team boss, even though Johnny told him a hundred times he didn't need to impress anyone, he is a 17 yr old kid after all, and his life was about racing.

I won't bore you with the unbelievable trek it took to get him to La Paz (my bro's customer, Drew Belk, class 5 racer removed seats from his turbo prop and flew us to la paz for a better hospital) Johnny was working like crazy to get a flight but the life flight could not leave ensenada due to fog so stabilizing him was the best option. la paz was a good hospital, did lots of test said he looked ok, but he would not wake up, and i knew he was not right. we spent the next several hours waiting for the flight, and things just dont go as quickly down there until i could finally get him back. the flight crew put him out and ventilated him and now he is at ucsd hospital.

Not much else to report right now, they are trying to figure out why he won't respond, no brain swelling, no obvious signs of damage, possibly a lack of oxygen when he first crashed but who knows, i know that is a great hospital and he is a tough kid so we'll just go with that for now. i talked to Ricky and he was real upset about the whole deal, he said he saw J ride pre running and how talented he was. I am so thankful for him and Pinnard (sp?) stopping and helping him.

Thanks for all the. calls and texts, sorry i cant respond to very many, but the support of this racing community is unbelievable. You can visit if you want, but can't guarantee you can get in to see him, but he's not alert anyways so maybe later is better. ill update in a few days maybe, thanks all
__________________
Doug Imhof
Mechanic of #1x, 2010
A candle has been lit in your family's honor at my church hope all turns out well soon . And since its almost Thanksgiving give thanks that your son is still with us and we'll continue praying .
Sending prayers from Montana. Get well Justin.
Thanks for all your prayers- please keep Justin & his family in your thoughts during this tough time.

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