Joe Bacal had to tackle cancer before he could take on Baja, but his message is to show that there truly is life after cancer. Photo: Art Eugenio/Trackside Photo

Joe Bacal challenged Baja this year and emerged victorious with a class win in the SCORE Baja 500. Before he could defeat Baja, however, Bacal had to beat cancer. It was only a few years ago that Bacal found out he had a rare form of cancer in Hodgkin’s lymphoma (also called Hodgkin’s disease). He was only 37, and the diagnosis left him with a scary, uncertain future.

“Before I was diagnosed in December of 2006, basically I was walking around the SEMA show in November and I just felt really bad,” Bacal says. “I just had no energy, and I’m a pretty energetic guy so something wasn’t right.”

Bacal first went to his regular doctor but wasn’t finding enough answers. He then went to an ear, nose and throat doctor and it was determined he had cancer.

“I had surgery; they pulled five lymph nodes out of my throat which was the size of a golf ball, and then I had another golf-ball-sized tumor in my chest pushing against my lungs, so I was having a hard time breathing,” Bacal says. “They couldn’t do surgery on that, so that’s when I had to have chemotherapy and did that for a little over four months, and then I did radiation every single day for three weeks straight after that.”

Not knowing exactly where to turn for help, Bacal came across an advertisement for The Cancer Treatment Centers of America.

“When people are diagnosed with cancer they typically go to your stand-alone doctors,” Bacal says. “Most people are so scared they’re like, ‘Where do I go, what do I do?’ The Cancer Treatment Centers of America, they specialize in advanced-stage cancers. I saw a commercial and I thought, You know, I’m going to call these guys and see if they can help me. That was the best call I ever made.”

After finishing his treatment and working toward recovery, Bacal actually tried off-road racing for the first time in the Baja 1000 at the end of 2007, three or four months after his treatments were completed. He still wasn’t 100 percent, but he wanted to give it a shot when a friend on the Long Beach Racers team offered him the chance to get behind the wheel in their Class 7 truck.

 

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We ran into Joe Bacal just two days before the start of the Baja 500 this year, and he still hadn't made it on the course for any pre-running. Though not an off-road racer by trade, his experience behind the wheel paid off with a win in Stock Full. Photo: Josh Burns

This year, Bacal challenged the Baja 500 solo in a Lexus LX 570 – not your typical off-road race vehicle. It was his first full race after cancer. Not only did Bacal finish, but he won the Stock Full class in a vehicle that had only been completed a few days before the race. In speaking with Bacal in Ensenada just days before the start of the 500, he still hadn’t pre-run any of the course (he later told us he did get in about the first 60 miles).

“We got a win, so I guess it could’ve gone worse, right?” Bacal says. “It was fun. We had a few things happen here and there, but, you know, for a brand-new truck with two hours of testing and very little pre-running I think we did ok.”

Bacal wasn’t a desert racer before his bout with cancer, but you could hardly call him inexperienced with off-road vehicles. His automotive background working with Toyota and other major manufacturers helped prepare him for the desert, but other than motocross he didn’t have any real four-wheel racing experience until recently.  

“I raced motocross for years growing up in California and all that, but never off-road trucks as much as I wanted to,” Bacal says. “I was testing them all day long, but I never actually got to race them.”

Bacal has worked for a number of major car manufacturers over his career. He started out working for GM in 1988 in LA, which later turned into a move to Arizona in 1993 to work for GM’s Proving Grounds performing vehicle testing. He then went moved over to work with Nissan at its test track as a technician and a development driver doing suspension and brake development. About four years later, he started working with Toyota and was with the company for almost 11 years.

“I got in with Toyota and worked in the ride and handling vehicle dynamics group as a tech there as well as a development driver, and I really kind of honed my skills there – that’s really where the driving ramped up very quickly,” Bacal said. “I got trained all over, from Japan and the racing schools, and I became one of the top instructors over there at Toyota, and basically kind of became their off-road specialist. Ivan Stewart came out to the track a few times and spent time with me. Toyota basically asked him to come out and train me specifically one on one to get my level up as high as possible, so when I’m throwing the cars around doing full-limit, off-road testing I can handle a vehicle and be safe doing it but still push the car to see how it would react so that we could dial in the suspension in, adjust valving and spring rates and work with the engineers on that.”

Bacal spent years testing Toyota's trucks in the Arizona desert to help fine-tune Toyota's TRD packages. He event took one of two prototype FJ Cruisers through the Rubicon before the production units were built. Photo: Art Eugenio/Trackside Photo

Bacal actually worked on helping design the North American Toyota Racing Development (TRD) packages for the company.

“I spent a lot of time working on the TRD packages, so every TRD package you see on the road – the Tacomas, the Tundras, the FJ Cruisers, the FJ Cruiser Special Editions – I was responsible for working with the engineers on developing and tuning the packages, doing rollover testing and severe lane change work, tire development and all that.”

 

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Bacal looks to be an inspiration as cancer survivor while also promoting the place he turned to in his time of need, the Cancer Treatment Centers of America. Photo: Art Eugenio/Trackside Photo

After his bout with cancer, Bacal approached the Cancer Treatment Centers of America about working on a partnership through racing. Having never done anything of the sort, the organization was hesitant to get involved at first, but they signed on to work with Bacal for a short-course effort he planned to run in CORR with Chet Huffman Motorsports. But when CORR went away at the end of 2008, he had to start over.

“Originally the plan was, Jerry Whelchel was going to run Pro 2, and I was going to run a Pro Lite with the Cancer Treatment Centers of America as a sponsor,” Bacal says. “That was the plan until CORR fell apart. At that point, Chet wasn’t sure what they were going to do. So I proposed to the Cancer Treatment Centers of America, if I run a Lexus, which I think I can, if they bite would you still be interested?”

After working with Toyota for so many years, Bacal was able to get in touch with the right people at Lexus to ask them about racing one of their vehicles in the desert. They, too, were hesitant with the idea since they don’t promote their products as off-road vehicles. But Bacal was able to convince them of the benefit of showing what these vehicles are capable of, and they got on board.

Bacal may have had the backing of Lexus and Cancer Treatment Centers of America, but a major challenge still lay ahead, as he would be competing in a Lexus SUV that is far from your typical race vehicle. He and his vehicle received a few strange looks even just before the Baja 500, but Bacal wasn’t worried.

“I’m used to six or seven inches of travel, that’s what I’ve been working with for years,” he said. “It’s funny ‘cause during contingency I think some of the Stock Full guys were looking at the truck, and it’s not even close to what these guys are running. My shocks don’t even go through the bed of the truck. I had a 2.5-inch bypass in the rear, that was it, and a coil-over bolt-in up front. The reason is because I’m running Best in the Desert in the 4100 class you can’t go through the bed, so that’s the reason why it is how it is.”

Bacal was able to beat the odds in more ways than one, as he was able to take an unproven chassis through the Mexican desert for a class win. He says there’s still some work to do on the vehicle to get it dialed in, but he’s happy with the results. Racing aside, Bacal is just happy to share to message with the world – that he beat cancer and he still lives a normal life.

“I want to show people I have the endurance; after beating cancer, after the 16 hours in the truck in Baja, I still had some left,” Bacal says. “I could’ve kept going. That just shows that, hey, you know what, people that go through this it doesn’t mean you don’t have the energy or the will to get through to the end. I just think that it’s important, that it gives people hope that are going through different types of cancer.”

If nothing else, Bacal’s racing adventures serves as an example of what is possible post-cancer.

“Here’s a guy that beat it and look what he’s doing, and he’s better than he probably ever has been,” Bacal says. “It’s just a message, and we want people to be aware. If you do have cancer, or you have friends with cancer, just never give up. You have no choice. It’s easy to give up, but you’ve got to have the will and the desire to live.”

Bacal plans to race the Best in the Desert Vegas to Reno race, and he hopes to race the Baja 1000 this year as well. For more information regarding Cancer Treatment Centers of America, visit www.cancercenter.com. For more information about Joe Bacal, visit www.jtgrey.com, and be sure to look for him in one of the new national commercials airing on TV for Cancer Treatment Centers of America.