It was always a bit difficult to sell the bosses on offbeat or different stories, mostly because they put an extra hit on the budget.

But, in the fall of 1998, I saw a note in a newspaper about the Baja 1000 being run for the first time in years on the original course, from Ensenada, about 60 miles south of San Diego, to La Paz, on the Gulf of Mexico, a race distance of 1,070 miles.

The idea caught my imagination and I proposed the idea to my sports editor, Terry Taylor, saying I could keep the costs down by embedding with one or more of the teams. The race was being run on a free weekend in my generally very crowded schedule and she reluctantly agreed.

I quickly bought an airline ticket for the trip from Raleigh, NC to San Diego and began making plans.

Terry called me a couple of days later to say she had changed her mind and didn't want me to go. I told her the plane ticket was non-refundable and the costs were going to be minimal _ two nights in motels and a couple of meals.

To my relief she said, "Fine. But it better be worth it."

My best contact was Marty Fiolka, who wrote for off-road magazines and did public relations. Even better, he was part-owner of a team that was entered in the race with Marty co-driving a SCORE Lites car with Indycar driver Mike Groff and veteran off-road racer Ted Smith.

His relatively under-financed team, entered in one of the lower divisions of the race, had a total of 10 people, including the trio of drivers, and his chase vehicle, a very large rented RV on a truck body, was driven at the start by his dad, 63-year-old Sigfried (Ziggy) Fiolka.

Marty said he was delighted to let me hang with his team during the event.

But I wanted to see as much of this event as I could, since I was there to do a feature story and not just write about race results. So I contacted Lynn Arciero, the PR person for the powerful and favored Toyota team.

She agreed to let me and my buddy Lewis Franck, who decided to keep me company on the trip, spend the beginning hours of the race with her multi-tiered team. Unlike Marty's bare bones outfit, the well-funded Toyota team, led by Indycar driver Robby Gordon and off-road racing legend Ivan "Iron Man'' Stewart,  included 120 people, two airplanes, two tractor-trailer trucks and a real luxury, a helicopter.

It was no surprise when Gordon won the overall title. But that was only a small part of the story.

Lewis and I met at the San Diego airport and hitched a ride with one of the Toyota PR people across the border to Ensenada. We arrived the evening before the start of the race and got to be part of what was basically a fiesta in the small but charming Mexican town.

We had dinner with some of the Toyota team members and PR staff and the excitement really began to build.

The race started at 9 o'clock the next morning from the town center. And soon, the entire field was nothing but a cloud of dust on the horizon.

The competitors zigzag across the Baja Peninsula during the race, crossing and recrossing the two-lane Mexico 1 highway that bisects Baja. The idea is for the chase vehicles to speed straight down Mexico 1 _ and I do mean speed _ and get to the designated locations of the pit stops in the desert before the competitors.

The co-drivers ride in the chase vehicles and have to be at the stopping points before the racers in order to take their turns behind the wheel.

Lewis and I were supposed to watch the beginning part of the race from the Toyota helicopter, but strong winds grounded the aircraft and we were assigned to one of the utility vehicles being used as chase cars.

Our car had a professional driver and an experienced navigator who was supposed to get us where we needed to go, safe and on time. The first thing that happened was our driver got lost and the navigator, peering at a spiral bound notebook with printed directions in his lap, got confused by the desert roads. GPS had not been invented, yet.

Lewis and I, sitting in the back seat, both thought we saw where they went wrong, but we figured _ wrongly _ they knew what they were doing. 

Finally, we drove to the top of a very large dune near a water tower and were able to see cars and motorcycles racing by in the distance. That gave the driver a bearing and we got back on track, finally reaching Mexico 1 and getting to the first pit stop just in time.

At that point, we waited for Ziggy and the RV to arrive and switched teams. And this is where the adventure really began.

Ziggy was a nervous driver, especially when the numerous semi-trailer trucks zoomed past in the oncoming lane, shaking and moving the RV sideways. Things went pretty smoothly for a while.

We were flying down the highway with the needle buried below 80 (the top number on the RV speedometer) when a semi whipped past and clipped off the driver side mirror with a little metallic click.

That shook up our intrepid driver even more. But, to his credit, he kept his foot to the floor.

At that point, we were riding with Groff, who was napping and was scheduled to relieve Marty at the wheel of the racer on our next stop, Ted, a young PR gal, Heather Handley, and, of course, Ziggy, who continued to get more antsy as darkness fell.

Lewis, Heather and I decided we needed to make sure somebody sat up front with Ziggy and kept him awake and alert, although that made us more nervous, too. So we took turns in the front passenger seat, making conversation and telling jokes and doing whatever we could to keep Ziggy going.

We got to our first rendezvous point in plenty of time and Marty joined us in the RV and promptly went to sleep in the back.

Ziggy told us that one of the most famous sayings in Baja is "Never pass gas in Mexico," a double-entendre that really meant: If you see an open gas station, stop and fill up because you don't know when you'll get another chance.

We spotted an open station and stopped for a few minutes. That put us a little behind schedule and Ziggy was doing his best to make up time. But losing the side mirror had spooked him and he kept pulling the wheel to the side when the trucks would come by us.

Mexico One is lined by big concrete gutters on the edge of the roadway. After years of being rubbed by passing vehicles, the gutters have turned black and are hard to spot, even in daylight. Finally, Ziggy found one.

"Bang!!" One of the RV's tires burst and began to thump. The tires on the RV were in sets of two, so, thankfully, Ziggy kept control. But we definitely had to pull over as soon as we got to a safe place. That took a while because both sides of the road at that point were lined with huge rocks.

Finally, after a few minutes, Ziggy saw a place to pull over into the desert.

We had a two-way radio for emergencies, but there was no guarantee of reaching anyone in the middle of the desert. Fortunately, the Toyota helicopter was in the air and was being used to bounce radio signals during the night.

Even more fortunately, Marty's crew truck was behind us on the highway and showed up minutes after we pulled off. While they changed the tire, I decided to take my life in my hands and walk out of the pool of light from the RV and into the pitch dark of the desert in order to look up at the stars.

It was a little scary to step into the dark, but it was worth it. I've never seen so many stars. It was magnificent and something I hope to show Judy some day.

The crew truck finished the job and took Mike ahead so he could be waiting to relieve Ted at the next pit stop. And, at that point, Marty took over driving the RV, much to the relief of his dad.

Minutes later, we came to the border between Baja North and Baja South, which was manned by what looked like little kids in ill-fitting khaki uniforms. But there was nothing little about the rifles they carried, nor the machine gun being manned at the side of the road.

There was also a chain across the road with nails sticking out just in case somebody tried to run the barrier before being checked out.

We stopped and one of the young soldiers got on. He immediately began eyeing Heather, a pretty, young woman. I worried about her being kidnapped or worse.

Holding the rifle recklessly, with the barrel swinging around aimlessly, he looked around and asked in halting English, "What is your business here?" Lewis replied, "Baja Mil!" The kid heard the name of the race in Spanish and smiled.

There was a nervous pause, but Heather knew just how to handle the situation. She smiled back at him and gestured toward his head, "You want hats?" He smiled back and nodded.

Two hats with the sponsor's name and a few other race trinkets later, he walked happily out of the RV and the barrier was raised for us to drive through. What a relief.

At that point we were all getting hungry, having eaten most of the snacks that had been packed on board. As we drove through a small town with one paved street at 2 o'clock in the morning, there was one building with its lights on.

It was a Tacqueria, apparently taking advantage of the traffic from chase vehicles. We stopped and picked up a bag of hot fish tacos that were about as good as I've ever eaten. They didn't last long.

Meanwhile, Marty and his co-drivers had overcome getting stuck in the sand early in the race, a broken clutch and losing third gear in the five-gear transmission, and were still racing when we got to the final pit stop. Marty got back behind the wheel for the finish and Ziggy, refreshed after a couple of hours of sleep, got back behind the wheel of the RV.

As the sun came up, I pulled out my computer and began to write my feature story. I was wired from coffee and exhausted after being awake and on edge for more than 20 hours, but the words just flowed onto the screen.

By the time we reached La Paz and watched the finishers parade across the line _ fewer than half of the 142 entries made it to the end _ my story was done except for a few final results.

Marty, Mike and Ted finished second to Ivan Stewart in their division, although a long way back. Still, it was a triumph for the small team.

Now came the hard part. Sending my story to New York Sports by telephone from our hotel.

It was a nice, modern Crown Plaza overlooking the waters of the Gulf and the phone worked fine for talking. But, sending a story, that was different.

Finally, on my fourth try with the acoustic cups, the story got all the way to the end. I called the office and the editor there said, "I got it, but it's way too long for an off-road story. I'll cut it down."

I said, "NO WAY!"

I explained that it was a special assignment and not just a race results story. He said there was no record of it and he'd have to call Terry to get permission to send the whole thing.

I waited nervously until he called back and said, "It's on the wire. Sorry for the misunderstanding."

The next morning, Lewis and I had breakfast with Lynn on the terrace overlooking the water. There were two young men sitting near us who kept eyeing Lynn, another of those young, pretty PR women.

Finally, one of them got up and came over to our table and asked if she would like to join them. Before the startled Lynn could answer, I looked at him angrily and said, "Are you propositioning my wife?"

He looked stricken until we all started to laugh. Lynn, blushing mightily, thanked him for the compliment and remained at our table.

Lewis and I then left for the local airport to fly home by way of San Diego.

When we checked in, we were asked for our entry visas. Since we had been driven into the country, we had not stopped for any paperwork, so we were sent down a long hallway to a room with the sign "Immigration" in Spanish.

Inside the almost bare room was a man in a sergeant's uniform sitting at a desk. He looked up and, in a serious tone, reached out his hand and said, "Where are your papers?"

We handed him our plane tickets and he said, "You must also have a visa."

When we explained why we didn't have the proper papers, he scowled and said, "This is very serious. You may not be able to leave. Were you here on business?"

Lewis again said, "Baja Mil!"

Suddenly, the policemen broke into a smile and began to chuckle, saying, "What team were you with?"

When we both replied, "Journalists," he said, "I hope you enjoyed your visit to our country." He then stamped our plane tickets, shook our hands and we were on our way, relieved and happy.

After getting back to the States, I called the office to see if anyone needed me for anything and the supervisor said, "Terry wants to talk to you."

"What now?" I thought.

It turns out she wanted to congratulate me for a good job. The first edition of the Sunday New York Times had used my by-lined Baja story in a full-page layout.

Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good. Or maybe both.