Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

Dan As hcraft takes the checkered flag in Ense na da. The A shcraft/Kurt Pfeiffer Yamaha YZ490 tea m scored t he overall victory by three seconds . .Ashcraft/ Pfeiffer nip 'em at Baja 500 By Tom and Anne Van Beveren . Photos by Tom Van Beveren BAJA CALIFORNIA, MEXICO, JUNE 3-5 In one of the closest' finishes ' SCORE International h as ever seen, the Yamaha duo of Dan Ashcraft and Kurt Pfeiffer squeaked th rou gh to steal the win at the Baja Internacion al j u st three seconds ahead of the hard-charging Kawasa ki team 0 f L arry R oe1 seier and Paul KJ:ause. 6 After n~rl y 50~ miles of neck-:mdneck racing WI th KX500 pilots Krause and Roeseler, th e Yamaha/ Kawasaki duel was still too close to ca ll as th e two teams la u n ch ed th eir final sprint across the finish line. Eight hours after the racing began, it was up to SCORE's official timekeepers to decide the winners of th e event. When the starting times were ad justed and official results were an nou nc ed, Ashcraft a nd Pfeiffer took the overall win with a 58.59 mph average and a time of eight hours, 10 m inutes and 30 seconds just three seconds fas ter than the Krause/ Roeseler. " I ca n't believe it's this close. It 's never been too close to work ou t who . won before," Ashcraft told Cycle N ews , as he waited for SCO R E to declare a winner. "But it was really close all day today. They (Roeseler/ Krause) were on .us the whole way . We didn't even have time to stop and change a tire." The racers were up before dawn preparing for the start of the 15th Annual Baja Intemacional, which was sponsored by Presid ente Brandy. A light coa sta l fog reduced visi bility and ch illed the 66 motorcycle racers as they assembled on one of Ensenada's main streets, but it did not dampen the rac ing spirits when the starting flag dropped for the first time at six a.m.. The racers left at 30-second intervals, drag-racing out from under the 30-foot-high , b ra ndy bo tt le that marked the start/finish line, with rear wheels slithering on the damp pavement. After a quick run through the streets of the sleepy city, th e riders p icked up H ighway 3 and went head- to -h.ead with one of the toughest secu ons of th e course, a.s th ey headed south towards the · first off-road section o f the race . "T he highway 's kind of scary in the morning," said Krause. " There's a lo t of two-way traffic and you have to take a few chances or yo u 're n ever going to get p ast every th in g. It's even . worse in the fog because you can' t see what's coming the other w';'y." Ashcraft was also having problems on th e highway. "I had a really bad time in the foggy section because I had tear-offs, not roll-offs, a n d I couldn' t see a thing, " said Ash craft. " I had to keep wiping my goggles every two seconds with my glove and that rea lly slowed me down." Despite the timeout to clear his goggles, the Yamaha pilot passed the five earlier starters and took over the physical lead by the time the pavement ended. Bu t, with each team racing against th e clock and the final results dependi ng on adj usted starting times, the p hysical lea d was no guarantee of a win. Ashcraft set a sizzling pace close to 60 mph, as he headed west towards the Pacific Coast section of the course. He held the lead a ll the way . through checkpoint four a t Camalu and was lookin~ strong as the course went toward Mike's Sky Ra n cho . . . Krause put in an impressive starting run Io r Team Green before handing over to Roeseler at Tres Herrnanos, and the Dan Smith/ Garth Sweetland Husqvama entry was also picking up the pace in th e early running. Further back in the pack, some of the other racers were not doing nearly as well. CR250 pilot Tod McKay left th e .course to tackle "a bunch of bou lders" where the cou rse hit dirt for the firs t time, and KX250 hopefuls Ted Hunnicutt a nd Brett Howell were having trouble keeping the bi ke right side up. Paul Krause (show n) and Larry Roeseler took second overall. The decision to change a t ire co uld 've cost the 500cc Kaw asaki t eam t he victory. " Brett fell in a si lt bed wh en h e first go t o ff the p avement, th en h e gave th e bi ke to me, a nd I dro pped . it on a road o u t by th e coast," sa id H u n n icutt. "The front end washed ou t on me. I rem ember.thinking 'O h no , I' ve broken the bike,' as I went down, b u t it was okay. I just bruised m y h and." Class 38 (riders ov er 38 years) co nten ders Wayne Corn elius and Dave Ja cobus claimed victory in the "shortest-race-of-the-day" division. " We got about three miles off the start and seized the bi ke," said the team. "T h is isn't th e Baja 500 - it was the Baja three for us! " Class 30 (riders over 30 years) hopefu ls Casey Folks and Pete Sheehan, on a new ' LC600 fo urstroke KTM, nearly didn 't get o ff the starting line a t all. "We were a ll ready to go and the bike quit. We think we got bad fuel with wa ter in it," exp lained . Sheeha n. " We co u ld n ' t get it going when it was our turn to start, and by t h e time (SCORE officials) finally let us go we were back behind th e 125s. I t cost us a t least five minutes.': As the racers cleared the 200-mile mark near Mike's Sky Ran ch o and headed ea st towards Highway 3, Ash craft was sti ll out in front of the pack, but some of the later starters were catching upfast, Husky 's Dan Smith ch arged into th e Highway 3 pit less th an a minute behind Ashcra ft, with Team Green's Roeseler just 18 seconds further back creating a three-way tie for the ti me-adjusted lead. , The fourth bike out o f the 220-mile Pacific Coast loop was the H unn icu tt/Howell Kawasaki , which had a time-adj us ted lead of three minutes over Class 21 (motorcycles 126-250cc) rivals Scott Morris and Daryl Fo lks ' Cagiva , in fifth overall. A surprisingly high ninth in the overall sta ndings at Highway 3 were Class 30 entries Kenny Parry and Scott Forward, who had elbowed their way up from way back in the starting line-up , and a close race was shaping up in Class 20, as John R u tter and Brya n Fo lks , Cagiva, and Bruce Taylor and Alfredo Montiano, Kawasaki , pushed the ir 125cc mounts to the limi t, try ing to overtake early class leaders John Braasch and Ron J en n in gs, who were working on an almost-comfortable win. ning margin u ntil their pace was slowed by a fla t tire more tha n 30 miles from the nearest pit. Ashcraft co ntinued to head u p th e pack as he completed his marathon 233-mile lead -o ff ride down to El Diablo and h an ded the bike over to teammate P feiffer , b u t the timeadj usted m argi n s were closer than ever. " We were going to change a tir e a t EI Diablo , but I looked back a nd saw dust so we just kept going, " .sa id Ash craft. "The tir e wa s already bald but we didn 't have time to chan ge it. The o the rs were so close to us we decided that one tir e just had to go all th e wa y." . T h e racing continued fast and furious as the teams h eaded into th e l20-mi le loo p through San Felipe. T emperatures soared to "somewhere around 300 degrees - or that 's what it felt like, anyway " in the southern section of the course and the infamous San Felipe whoops were as difficult as ever. " I' ve never seen whoops like that in my life," said South African Alfie Cox, who was tackling Baja for the first time. "We ha ve a motocross course like that back home, but not for 30 m iles." The whoops were no picnic for. seasoned Baja racers, ei ther. "The whoops just get worse and worse," said Pfeiffer, who was still holding the Husky and Kawasaki tea ms at bay wh en he reached ,the whoopedout section of the course. "If it's 25 miles long, you figure you'll .be through it in 30 minutes so you concentrate on holding on for tha t long, but it seems like you're in it forev er. They go on and on." The whoops provided some excitin g moments for O ver 30 leaders Parry and Forward. " Sco tt rode most of th e San Felipe loop bu t I was supposed to ride a spare bike down to meet h im so I co u ld ride the beach whoops," said Parry. "The bike I was usin g to ge t there broke and left me si tting on the side of the road." Parr y was picked up by anoth er team's p it crew about five minutes la ter. " We. gambled that we could beat Scott. We raced all the way down there, I ju m p ed o ut of the car and the bi ke got there a coup le of minutes la ter." Parry and Forward made it all the • way up to fourth overall before gearbox prob lems forced them to drop o ut of the race 50 miles from the fin ish. Not far behind the Over 30 class leaders were Folks and Sheehan . T he late starters were pouring on the pace and gaining ground fast, but ran out of luck for a seco nd time when their organized team effort co llapsed completely at the San Feli pe pit. "We got both o ur chase tru cks stuck in the sand down there, so I h ad to go on by myself, " sa id Sheehan. " Casey (Fo lks) couldn't Catch up again to ge t back on the b ike, so I had to ride all the way to the finish without a brea k. I had to stop .a n d bum gas all the way back too, but there was . nothing else we co ul d do." Even the frontrunners were not

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