Hundreds of miles of goat paths and tractor trails line the dusty scrub brush of Baja, Mexico, and every fall since 1967, those rutted, unkempt roads have been overtaken by a swarm of hell-bent adventurers racing in the Tecate SCORE Baja 1000. Two hundred seventy vehicles enter, among them motorcycles, 800-horsepower trophy trucks, open-wheel dune buggies, and vintage, unmodified Volkswagen Beetles. The race is just shy of 1,000 miles, and the 1,200 drivers entered have 40 hours to complete the course. It’s a team effort. No one can drive 1,000 miles on their own – almost no one, anyway.

One of the main narrative streams in the documentary “Dust to Glory” concerns Mike “Mouse” McCoy, who entered the Baja 1000 to race it alone on a motorcycle. Mr. McCoy was given a motorcycle for his first birthday, and he was racing by the time he was four. He was racing professionally by 14. Despite astonishing success, he quit at 17, hurt, burned out, and exhausted. He says in the movie that if he hadn’t quit racing motorcycles, he wouldn’t be able to do what he loves, which is race motorcycles. This is the kind of lunatic logic that can only come from the raised-by-wolves upbringing survived by piano prodigies and Bulgarian gymnasts.

Mr. McCoy’s attempt to complete the race on his own is full-throttle insanity. These are torturous miles. He must race through silt – deep, loose dust that threatens to swallow his bike. Racers say that you just pin it and pray. Whatever you do, you don’t slow down. He must race across terrain you wouldn’t want to hike. He must battle heat and the night. The route goes through little towns, down highways (often patrolled by police, who in one hilarious scene pull over every big truck in the race). When the cameras roll at Mr. McCoy’s checkpoints, his tires are changed, his water bag filled, and he rambles incoherently about how he can’t feel his hands, or how he was third for a while. He rode 40 miles on a flat tire. He rides, at one point, deep in the night without headlights, in the wake of another motorcyclist who was willing to help. They are driving 100 miles per hour.

Even then, a man with a camera mounted on his helmet trails them. In this movie, you are right in the race.

Mr. McCoy’s journey is one of the most compelling of the movie, but hardly is it alone. To make the documentary, director Dana Brown brought a crew of 90. Fifty cameras were rolling on the dashboards of trucks, in helmets, and on helicopters. The cameras were everywhere, and the shots they got of this orgy of dust and gasoline are thrilling.

As is the sound. The sound men deserve an award for capturing the full throttle roar of an 800-horsepower engine in a huge truck ripping through a small Mexican village, and taking a left onto Main Street on two wheels.

It strikes me as very lucky for the movie that this race takes place in Mexico, where it would appear the authorities have less concern for the protection of spectators than they would here. When the cars rip into town, little children and puppies scurry out of the way, just missing getting run over by big knobby tires. There is more separation of spectator and participant at the Halloween Parade or the NYC Marathon than is evident in the Baja 1000. One spectator, in fact, dies during the course of this race – hit by another spectator who was driving the wrong way up the course.

There is something repulsive about a truck that cost more than the collective building materials of the town and guzzling probably a gallon of gas for every mile it makes driving loudly, garishly through the center of a peaceful Mexican Coastal village, but this is not the time to think about that.

This is the time to think about Andy Grider, chucked from the Honda A-team just before the race. The Honda B-team welcomed him. His goal was not just to ride his segment faster than the A-team, but to actually finish in front of them. The motorcyclists are staggered; Grider would have to make up something like 40 miles to get in front. This competition culminates in an incredible scene shot from a helicopter. One rider is running along the moist sand of a Pacific Beach, the waves crashing just to his right, while up above him, on the dusty path, you see the rooster tail of dust kicked up by the other biker. Both of them are driving upwards of 100 miles an hour. The crazy melodramatic classical score is surging. You’re so excited you want to stand on your seat. You want to pack your bags and go.

One racer recounts: “I’ve bounced off of the front ends of cars, bounced off of fences, bounced off of cattle, it’s like Russian roulette.” But all of them seem to agree that the second it’s over – or at least as soon as the dust is cleared from their eyes – they are ready to go again.

Dana Brown says that for him, “Dust to Glory” proves the validity of dreams.” People with little in common yet bonded by their pursuit of happiness. … The Baja 1000 is about freedom. About the value of happiness, and the proof that fun is good.”