Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

~ z ~ 0 a: lD w ..J « C I > lD en 0 ... 0 ~ :I: G- 00 O") ....-; '" ~ ....-; l-< a.; ..c S a.; ;> 0 Z The "Oanamic Duo" of Dan Smith and Dan Ashcraft suffered a seizure and a collision with a car to finish 14 minutes off the pace. Randy Morales brings'the four-stroke in as the first finisher. Randy Morales (top right). and co-winner Chuck Miller (bottom right). SCORE Off-Road Championship Series: RnalRound Miller/Morales masferBaja 1000 By Dale Brown ENSENDADA, B.C., MEXICO, NOV. 2 A battle raged throughout the hills and valleys of the Baja California peninsula, but it wasn't a revolucion. The Team Honda XR500 of Chuck Miller and Randy Morales and the Team Husqvarna 500XC of Dan Smith and Dan Ashcraft fought for the lead for hundreds of miles. seldom more than a minute apart. In the end it was the Honda taking the SCORE International Baja 1000 victory, covering the 7!S0 miles oE the race in 14 hours, !S4 minutes and !S4.87 seconds. Smith and Ashcraft lost nearly haH an hour late in the race replacing the -lOp end'after a seizure, and they finished second overall with a time of 14:48:56_92~ 6 Third .overalL went to the Team Husky' 51.OTX four-stroke of Larry RoeseIer and Kurt Pfeiffer, a little over an'hour behind the leaders. The .lirsl three' m9lOTCYcles were all P~ss. 22 machines, Open bikes. Hondas rounded out the top five overall, but to everyone's surprise, they were three-wheelers. In a change of starting order, the three-wheelers started right behind the motorcycles. The ATC250Rs of Mark Weixeldorfer/Marty Hart/Mike Coe and Dean Sundahl/Steve Wright/Mike Hallett beat all of the cars, a first in the history of off-road racing. After a short-lived 198!S attempt, the German BMW factory returned to North America with a pair of the ,98Occ flat twins they race in the African desert. There were some changes for the Baja event, including smaller fuel lanks. Their number one machine, in the hands of Paris-to-Dakar win,!e~.~~stp.P)4~i~,a,\q ~W~,':.e~~ and San Felipe. Ashcraft sped through the sandy area, and by the time he hit EI Chinero, check four, he was in the lead on elapsed time. The Honda, still running in front, was a minute off the pace. Roeseler had dropped back by four minutes after he had to use two-stroke pre-mix and the bike started pinging. In Class 21, Dave Chase and Brett Howell had the early advantage and they held it through EI Chinero. But the Pfeiffer brothers, who were down 15 mintues on the leaders at check one, had cut the deficit by five minutes. Their bike had run poorly from the start because of a pinhole leak between the water jacket and the cylinder. As a result the bike was going through lots of spark plugs and coolant. Foland and Clark, on their Cagiva North America/Duralube/KSI-spon. sored mount, had overcome the Class 20 field from their rear startto lead at El Chinero. Nobody would come within an hour of them before the competition dropped out altogether. Honda XR500-mounted Chris Haines and Jim Fishback ran in front of Class !SO to Nuevo Junction, but they ran into trouble between there and El Chinero and dropped !SO minutes off,the pace. The lead then fell to Steve Subith and Bill Harris, with the Rahier/Hau BMW -three minutes behind them at El Chinero. In Class !S8, Richard Jackson had his Husky 500XC in command almost from the start, despite starting second to last. However, Jackson had iron in his blood and planned to solo the 700-plus miles. He had signlld on corider Gary Colbert "just in case." From EI Chinero the course ran along the beach of the Sea of Cortez to San Felipe, then turned north again across Diablo Dry Lake. From there it continued north through San Matais Pass, then zigzagged east, south and northwest again through Mike's Sky Ranch, Valle de Trinidad and back fA;> Nuevo Junction. . And in an event of this duration, teams fell by the wayside. Rod Hamby, who as sharing a Class 21 tide with Larry Fife Duarte and Craig Adams, broke his leg on the initial run over the Summit and was airlifted to a headt~~ .1'~l-lt.h. t9~.\lrd, ~~ CJ:t~.I\e!9, ._ ~ospitl'l il;l..~all, piegq. pJ1jln~,,&ulJl; J eran Eddy Hau, LOolt the Class !SO (riders over !SO) victory for the first such win in Baja by European riders, and for that matter, twin-cylinder machines. After missing out on the overall win, Husqvarnas took Class 21 (25Occ) with Scott and Kent Pfei£[er, and Class !S8 (riders over !S8) with Las Vegans Max Switzer and Casey Folks. The final class, the I25cc Class 20, fell to the Cagiva of Ed Foland and Gordon Clark. The Baja 1000 began and ended in the coastal resort/fishing town of Ensenada. Problems that forced the move of the Baja Internacional this past summer were solved by the Mexican government's purchase of cattle guards for ranchers in the area of the race course. Out of Ensenada the course ran south west to the foothills of the Juarez Mountains. From there the course ran twice around a route that was basically the San Felipe 250 course. Such loops are not favored by' motorcyclists, who must deal with a great deal of car traffic on the second time around. At the completion of the second loop racers retraced their steps back to Ensenada. The 17th runningof this November classic began at 6:!S0 a.m. on a wide Ensenada boulevard. Miller started for the Honda team, the second bike off the line. He blitzed the first section, covering the 59 miles to Tres Hermanos in 5!S minutes. On elapsed time Roeseler and Smith were one and two minutes behind the Honda, respectively, and physically they were running very close. . As they reached Nuevo Junction, the beginning of the loop and gateway to the infamous Summit, the top three were all within a minute of each other. They had already put 15 minutes on their Class 22 compatriots. Morales continued to ,lead, but at the peak Roeseler and Ashcraft were side by side. 'Once the course dropped off the mountains and into a wide sandwash, Ashcraft began to pull away from his thumper-mounted teammate. The riders were in one of Baja'smost desolate regions as they ran north before ,Ioopin,g around and , I

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