Every year, the Baja 1000 brings out the most extreme racers to Mexico’s Baja California Peninsula. They drive some of the fastest off road vehicles out there. At first glance, the cars look like life-sized remote control cars, but these get upto 90 miles per hour AROUND corners and the best part… I got to get in the driver’s seat!

After staying in San Diego a few days, we drove south, about 80 miles across the Mexican border through a little town called Ensenada. Way back through villages and two lane roads, we hit Wide Open Baja’s Horsepower Ranch, where my photographer and I, along with representatives from Vitalyte, were all greeted by a phenomenal staff.

Founded by racers, Horsepower Ranch is now a hot spot for tourists, where anyone looking to push it can get behind the wheel of these super fast cars.  On top of that, they truly gave us VIP treatment… amazing food, service and hospitality. They really took care of us over night.

We got a quick walk-though, learned about what it takes to drive these $100,000 dollar cars and then we basically just buckled up and took off…

We got out on small roads through villages in the rolling hills of Mexico.  I had no idea what I was getting myself into, to say the least.

Since I was the only woman on the trip, I even got to drive the official “ladies” car…

My photographer rode with me to start and after a few minutes out on the road, he’d had enough! I thought I was going to drive right off a cliff at one point… driving around blind corners with rocks, mud, water… you name it, I drove through it!

This experience is truly any guy’s dream… what’s better than getting behind the wheel of a real race car and pushing it in excess of 90 miles per hour around corners, over rocks, up hills and through huge mud pits! To top it all off, the moment we drove back into the Ranch, we were awaited by ice cold beers. Awesome!

Thanks again to Vitalyte for making this amazing adventure happen! See all the action Thursday night at 7pm, right here on the Deuce!!

Source: www.2thedeuce.com
Ch2 Denver KWGN ]]> http://www.vitalyte.com/2010/extreme-kellie-baja-race-car-driver/feed/ http://www.vitalyte.com/2010/extremekellie-san-diego/ http://www.vitalyte.com/2010/extremekellie-san-diego/#comments Tue, 09 Feb 2010 23:27:20 +0000 Extreme Kellie http://www.vitalyte.com/?p=800 They are considered some of the smartest animals in the world, so can I really teach them new tricks?

I got to go behind the scenes to take part in Sea World’s Dolphin Interaction Program in San Diego, California.  The program was created for anyone who wants to get in the water and learn all about the beautiful bottlenose dolphin anatomy, training and husbandry. In the first few minutes, I find out what it really takes to get dolphins to jump…

Go for a stroll in the pool…

Wave to the camera…

Even splash on command!!

They are so sweet… I can’t believe how much fun it was to be right there in the tank playing with these 500 pound animals!

I learned quickly, that dolphins (like most animals) respond best to a reward. In fact, they won’t even look your way unless you have a handful of fish… or in this case, squid!

The trainers have been working with these dolphins for years… they say it’s the coolest job in the world, but it takes a lot of time and patience.  Every day they spend hours in this tank, getting the animals ready to peform for a big audience. It’s a tourist hot spot, so they always have to be on their game!

They showed me how they care for the animals when they’re sick, how certain noises work to get the dolphins’ attention, how sharp all those little teeth are, I even learned how to tell the difference between males and females (it’s not what you’d think)!

Catch our full story Thursday night, right here on The Deuce at 7pm.

Cue Vitalyte to the rescue. After downing a couple bottles of Vitalyte, a cup of coffee and a croissant from the hotel bakery, I was ready to begin our trek south of the border. The scheduled departure time was 8:00am and about 8:15 I realized that I wasn’t the only one struggling with the decision to get out of bed and begin the day. After 20 minutes or so, the whole entourage arrives and we begin our trek to Ensenadas, Mexico. But first, people need caffeine and grease.

This is the part of the blog that I recommend you pay attention to as it contains some very valuable lessons about driving to Mexico.

Lesson #1 - Not all McDonald’s are created equally. 2 miles from the Mexican border we pulled into a McDonalds for a much needed coffee and food break. Needless to say my egg McMuffin had the consistency of a racquetball and my coffee could melt steel. Not the best thing for a sour stomach. Luckily I had more Vitalyte.

Lesson #2 - It occured to me as I was crossing the border that I never informed my rental car company of my destination, so in an attempt to be proactive, I called the rental car company as I was crossing the border. There response was simple: You can’t take that car to Mexico. Oh well. Better to beg forgiveness then ask permission I recall someone once saying.

Lesson #3 The 900 plus signs you see in the last 5 miles before you reach the border that say “Get Your Mexican Insurance Here” actually have a purpose. Apparently if an American vehicle gets in a wreck in Mexico, standard insurance doesn’t cover the accident. Without the Mexican insurance, the driver gets a one way ticket to jail. So here I am driving in an uninsured rental vehicle in a country where the vehicle wasn’t suppose to be in the first place. Sometimes things just get interesting. (By the way, I upgraded to a car with  built in GPS so I wouldn’t get lost in Mexico. This, of course stops working about 400 yards past the border.) Oh well.

So now we are running late, we have no insurance, are in a car that isn’t suppose to be in Mexico and the GPS isn’t working. All of this on the heels of one of one of the deadliest border shootouts in recent memory. Border patrol, which apparently is usually fairly tame, now consisted of M-16’s, tanks with really big guns mounted to the tops and a lot of soldiers. Not a good day to be hungover.

Luckily the directions to our destination were on my laptop and only 2 hours late, we finally arrive at the Horsepower Ranch to begin our Baja tour with Wide Open Baja.

There have been few moments in my life where I have been truly excited and surprised and this was one of them. After driving through some rougher areas of Ensenadas (more because I was lost) I was beginning to think that this was a bad idea. But then we found our exit, thanks to James who led us off the main road to one of the most beautiful ranches I have ever seen. Tucked back in the mountains and hills of Mexico is Horsepower Ranch, the hub of Wide Open Baja. And parked in front of the ranch were 4 of the coolest machines ever made. This is the reason we are here. Extreme Kellie runs the Baja.

Now this is where you the reader would do well to tune into the live broadcast (or watch online) of the show, for I lack the words to describe the collection of cars they had out for us or how the next 30 minutes went. I will do my best and say that within those short 30 minutes, we were introduced to the amazing staff at the ranch, given a introductory walk through of the cars, fitted with helmets and led off to begin the adventure.

“I can’t believe they are letting us drive these things,” was the collective spoken idea said amongst us we took off. With little or no training, James put us behind the wheel of these machines and led us out on the off road adventure of a lifetime.

With Kellie and Noah in the lead car behind James, and Brian and me following, we set out to conquer terrain that was, needless to say, quite intimidating. At first I think we are all a little skiddish but once you get behind the wheel of one of these cars, understand what they can do, we were all having the time of our lives. Hitting jumps at 80 miles an hour, taking 90 degree turns almost as fast, watching the beautiful hills of Mexico blaze by as these cars handled the most aggressive terrain like it was simply a long stretch of highway is an experience I’ll never forget. After a couple hours of driving and shooting, James takes us to a beautiful meadow where the crew at Wide Open prepared the mos amazing meal.

After fueling up, taking some pictures for future blogging, we were ready to get at again.

For the next couple hours we all took turns driving, slowly but surely get more comfortable with these incredible vehicles. Eventually the sun began to set and the night air let us know it was time to head back. We pulled into the ranch and even before we were all fully out of the cars, one of the ranch guys was there with a beer. After a quick shower we were all once again treated to an amazing meal and after, we sat around with drinks in hand reliving the events of the day. From Kellie’s mud facial (you have to see the show to catch this, one of the funniest things I have ever seen) to the high flying jumps and everything in between, it was truly a day to be relived over drinks in front of a fire, and certainly a day that I will not soon forget.

From weekend warriors to the nitro charged metal heads, this a vacation I would recommend everyone take at least once in a lifetime. Go to www.wideopenbaja.com for more info, and thanks to the entire staff at Wide Open for putting this together and showing us an amazing time.

For those who live outside of Colorado, Kellie MacMullan is a name you probably have not heard outside of the Vitalyte website, but it’s a name I’m confident you’ll be hearing in the future across the globe. Kellie is a news anchor on the CW’s Denver station and was introduced to Vitalyte through he segment “Extreme Kellie.” Check out all of the previous segments at www.vitalyte.com or www.2thedeuce.comunder the video section. You’ll notice that they are filmed in Colorado so as part of the partnership between Vitalyte and Extreme Kellie, we invited her out to the corporate office in San Diego to take advantage of some of the Extreme possibilities that Southern California has to offer.

Day 1

Kellie and her camera guy Noah get into San Diego at around 7. Was it mean for me to book them on a flight that left Denver at 6:00 am? I don’t think so. It gave me an opportunity to take them out to the beach for a cup of coffee.

Kellie MacMullan and Evan DeMarco overlooking the ocean

After the coastal tour of San Diego it was off to our first shoot of the day at SeaWorld for the Dolphin Experience.  This was an amazing thing to watch as Kellie got in the dolphin tank to test her dolphin training skills.

The dolphin experience, which is open to anyone, allows you to get up close and personal with these amazing animals. From initial introductions like the one above, to getting the dolphins to perform their amazing aerial feets, the dolphin tank is fantastic experience.

This is how the dolphin responded to Kellie's pirate joke.

For those who live outside of Colorado, Vitalyte will have the video of these “Extreme Kellie” segments available on our website.

Check back over the next couple weeks to learn about the rest of the trip. The Extreme level goes into maximum overdrive as we get to run the Baja in the most amazing machines I have ever seen, fly World War II  fighter planes and surf some monster waves(Ok, they wern’t that big but you have to start somewhere right). In addition I’ll explain why you should never eat McDonalds in a border town, take a rental car to Mexico or drive a Baja car with a hangover.