Washougal, WA (6/24/2010)
- We have made our way back up North from the
2010 Tecate SCORE Baja 500! Our week in Mexico
went rather well, we managed to get our pre-running
and finale race bike shake down done early in
the week and every thing seemed to be working
quite well. This left us pre-running the start
on Thursday, contingency & sign up on Friday.
All went well we had our pre-race riders meeting
on Friday evening and we were set.
The race started off well, with Nick Nelson
making his way physically to the front of our
class and right on the heals of class 25 which
starts in front of our Class 24 by the time
we made our first rider Change @ Race mile 37
in Ojos Negros. From there it was time for our
bike builder Kenny Sanford of S&S Motorsports
to get on the bike. This was Kenny's first time
on the bike during a race down there since he
first started supporting our team in 2008. So
with this he would be playing double duty by
both riding as part of the team as well as taking
care of the bike as lead mechanic. Kenny had
a few pre-race jitters but I felt that he would
do well regardless, once he got on the bike.
|
|
| Team
MotoX Nutrition's Honda TRX 450R Race
ATV that was run in the Baja 500 for 2nd
in the ATV Class 24. After overcoming
adversity with fuel issues & the dust,
they still retain their points lead in
the class |
The
Team stops to refuel during the SCORE
San Felipe 250. Pit stops just like this
one set the MXN Team apart from others
during the Baja 500 & helped to get
them 2nd overall |
The pit and rider swap went well and he was
off and making dust as well as eating a fair
amount too. This early in the race all the competition
is fairly tight so there is a tremendous amount
of dust to deal with. Kenny got out and started
charging immediately and quickly caught a couple
of dirt bike's that had went by during our short
pit. A hard right hander snuck up on him while
doing 60 plus and eating dust. He then found
him self and the bike wrapped up in what has
since been labeled the "Barbed-Wire Straight
Jacket". This guy works wonders of magic
with building our race bike's and his talent
doesn't stop there, as he pulled off his best
Houdini maneuver to get him self freed up from
a seemingly hopeless situation. He then untangled
the quad and fortunately both he and our race
machine weren't any worse for ware other than
a few scratches and wounded pride.
Kenny then remounted the quad and showed the
same amount of heart and determination that
he showed in building the machine. He charged
hard never giving up a single position during
the remainder of his ride to Race Mile 96 and
passed one of the Class 25 bikes on his way
too boot.
When we put Jorie Williams on the bike at RM96
we had roughly 6 minutes on the rest of our
class and were keeping Class 25 honest. Jorie
made great time over the summit, however as
he was heading into the rough stuff he noticed
that the dry break on top of the gas tank was
leaking terribly. He stopped several times and
either was able to make it stop or he had lost
enough fuel that it wasn't coming out any more.
I tend to believe it was the latter, as he was
on the lake bed a mile and a half from the pit
physically passing into 4th overall quad position
and ran out of gas. He tried raising our pit
by radio with no luck. Fortunately for us this
kid has no quit in him and he immediately started
pushing the quad with every thing he had. The
pit eventually saw him a came to his aide.
They got the machine fueled up, made a quick
duct tape fix to the cap on the dry break that
we would have to replace at each pit for the
remainder of the race.
Micheal Kelley got on the bike and went to
work. We lost an hour and change during this
mishap and slipped back to 15th overall and
10th in class, so at this point every rider
would be required to ride their hearts out the
remainder of the day to try and salvage a decent
finish and as many points as possible for the
championship standings. Micheal had a good run
to Borrego and I got on and took a bath in the
fuel leaking out of the dry break till San Matias
where we had to change out a tire and up-grade
our duct tape dry break cap. From this point
Micheal got back on and road his butt off to
the Valley De Trinidad pit. An extremely fired
up Jorrie Williams got back on the bike at this
point and hung it out over the cross to the
Pacific side at San Vicente where we were finally
starting to see that we were making our way
up in the standings Nick Nelson waded his way
through several more riders on the coast section
in route to Santo Thomas.
I would then get on for the final leg of the
race and make my way back over to Ojos Negros
then into Ensenada for the finish. When I got
on the bike Kenny let me know on the radio that
I was physically 10 min behind 2nd place which
on corrected time made it 17 minutes so I new
all I could do was charge hard and see how the
cards fell. We lucked out due to attrition as
the team that was leading broke an axle on their
way from Uruapan to Ojos so that put us in 2nd.
We had a quick and flawless pit in Ojos for
our final pit stop and I made my way to the
finish line from there. We ended up 2nd in class
for the day just 12 minutes and 45 seconds behind
1st and 6th over all quad. This keeps us in
a solid 1st place in the point standings for
the Class 24 Championship.
I am genuinely proud of my team and pit support
crews for their never give up approach under
the adversity that we experienced during this
race. It is this kind of perseverance that wins
championships and I am confident that we will
be duking it out for the overall near future.
Riders: Brandon Brown, Jorie
Williams, Kenny Sanford, Mike Kelley III, Nick
Nelson.
Sponsors: MotoX Nutrition,
S&S Motorsports, Quad75.com,
Fox Racing Shox, Maxxis, Klim, Hiper Technology,
Texiera Tech, SCR Graphics, Rekluse, Flex Handlebars,
Bling Star, Precision Stabilizer, MotoSport
Hillsboro, LRD, UPP, Crower Power, Spider Grips,
PWR, Maxima, IMS, PowerMadd, Trail Tech, TCS,
Galfer Brakes, Wiseco, Scott, Fulbore, Water
Well Developing & Kelley Blocks.
Pit Support: Paulina Nelson,
Michelle (The Cookie Lady), Kelly Sanford, Mike
Kelley II, Bill Nelson, Brad Aboltin, Chino
& Kenny Sanford!
