7 Years from Start to Finish

Ride with the author, Rod Koch, and share his adventures as he struggles to win the epic Baja 1000. Seven Years from Start to Finish covers the early years of the Baja races from 1968-1975, up to the moment when the author becomes “Numero Uno,” a winner in the incredible endurance race down and around the Baja California peninsula. It’s a personal look into the vast wilderness of Baja at a time when it was the last true frontier in North America (that’s not covered by ice and snow 6 months of the year). Here an average guy takes on the Baja, the corporate-backed teams, and the stiff competition including famous personalities like Steve McQueen, James Garner, Pat Wayne, Parnelli Jones, Roger Ward, and a host of others, to finally realize what it means to be a winner of that legendary Baja 1000.

At each race, the drivers, including the author, find the Baja races to be a great social equalizer. Then, there is Baja. A land of immense contrast and beauty, which like the racers and winds that pass over it, cannot keep it from the creeping pressures of civilization. It tells of a time and a place not so very long ago, where a person could feel free to compete and travel just as fast and as far down a primitive road as their individuality could take them.