Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

eOFF-ROAD e SCORE Desert Championship_Se_rie_s:_Ro_UD_d_2 ,I/IIIIt.. (Left to right> Team Green technician David Pyle and riders Larry Roeseler and Danny Hamel celebrated after notching the victory. HameURoeseler ace San Felipe 250 By Anne and Tom Van Beveren' SAN FELIPE, B.C., MEXICO, APR 17 he fastest race of the series turned into a Mexican cruise for two, as Kawasaki teammates Danny Hamel and Larry Roeseler ran away from the competition in the wide-open terrain of northwest Baja. After a few worrying moments early in the race when a flat tire coupled with a strong challenge from the factory Honda team put them 20 seconds back on adjusted time, the Kawasaki KX5OOmounted duo never missed a beat. They retook the number-one position 50 miles into the course and kept increasing their lead all the way to the finish. When the checkered flag dropped after four-and-a-half hours of racing, Hamel and Roeseler were a full 15 minutes ahead of their nearest rivals and their average speed of 58.65 miles per hour had established a new SCORE record for the event. The win was Hamel's second San Felipe 250 victory and number "I don't know what; I've lost count" for Baja veteran Roeseler, who was called in at the last minute when Hamel's original teammate, Ted Hunnicutt, burned his left arm and leg in a camp fire mishap at a desert race near Victorville, California. "Everything went pretty good. We had no problems, no close calls - nothing," said Roeseler. "It was just a great day for racing." The Kawasaki hotshots weren't quite as confident when.they lined up for the T 32 start of the race under the arches on Highway 5, just north of San Felipe. Hamel had a sore right wrist due to tendinitis that developed while he was prerunning the course, and Roeseler had sore' ribs after he aggravated an old injury from the Baja 1000. The well-bandaged duo was on the front-line of the starting grid when the motorcycles assembled for the 6:15 a.m. start. The sky was cloudless and just beginning to change from dawn gray to blue as the starting flag dropped for the first time and Roeseler gunned the Kawasaki KX500 up Highway 5 towards the team's first rider change 47 miles north of EI Chinero. The second bike off the line, and easily the most impressive, was the XR628based factory Honda piloted by Dan Ashcraft, Dave Donatoni and Chuck Miller. Ashcraft left a long streak of rubber as he powered off the start and the four-stroke's roar could be heard long after the bike had disappeared over the horizon. The rest of the 26-strong motorcycle field followed in a less spectacular fashion, one bike at a time every .30 seconds. "Ride hard but smart" was Roeseler's motto, as he flew through the opening section of the course. "Even though you're first off, you still have to watch for traffic. The Mexicans are everywhere," said Roeseler, who set a blistering pace, as he sprinted north, beginning on the west of Highway 5 and then crossing to the east of the highway to parallel the beach. With the other Class 22 (Over 251cc) fa vorite only 30-seconds behind, the Kawasaki pilot wanted to make the most of the dust-free lead and he ran wide open until near-disaster struck just 20 miles into the race. "I got a rear flat about half through the section," Roeseler said. "When I had the flat, I hit a big G-out and bottomed. With the combination of the run being hard and me sitting down at the time, I just sort of sprung my ribs a little bit.~' Roeseler needed an ace bandage and an extra kidney belt for his second stint on the bike but he managed to hold onto the physical lead all the way to El Chinero where, after a quick wheel change, it was Hamel's turn to take the helm. "After I left, the pit radioed to me that we had a 2o-second physical lead (over Ashcraft's Honda), so we were 10 seconds behind at that point," said Hamel, who poured on the pace trying to make up the deficit, unaware that the Honda was starting to slow. "In the first section the motor got hot and started to seize," said Chuck Miller, who was scheduled to take over the Honda at Borrego, near the halfway point. "Ashcraft and Donatoni backed off in their sections but it got worse and worse." _ Hamel's determIned pace put him into the Oasis Road pit at the 78-mile mark two-and-a-half minutes ahead of the Honda. He continued to stretch the lead, as he turned the corner a t the northernmost point of the course and began the 50-mile sprint south of the main pit area at Borrego. The 250cc (Class 21) race began with a back-and-forth tussle between Craig Smith, who left off for SCORE's 1992 overall Motorcycle Champion Scott Morris on a Kawasaki KX5OO, and John Flores, who took the point for Tim Morton on a Honda CR250. Smith was the first 250cc pilot off the grid but pumped up arms had him running behind Flores when the bikes slid into the rider change at EI Chinero. Further back in the starting order, Darren Sanford had organized a twopronged attack on the 250cc title. "We had two bikes entered between four of us - me, Danny Anderson, Fred Willert and Jeff Martinez," Sanford said. "At one point or another each rider was going to ride on both bikes." The Suzuki RMX250 team's strategy began to payoff less that 80 miles into the race. "Willert crashed really hard and hurt his back, so I caught up to him," said Sanford. "My bike had already lost the silencer and the front brake so I jumped on Willert's bike and he kind of nursed mine into the pit" Class 30 (riders over 30 years of age) hopeful Brian Schmuckle pleased the El Chinero spectators when he clipped a rock and nose wheelied the Kawasaki KX500 he shared with Tod McKay through the check, but the Vet class lead was in the hands of the Craig Adams/Jeff Kaplan/Jim Eveland Kawasaki KX5OO. Rex Staten, who had hoped to catapult teammates Earl Rob'erts and Dan Worley to the head of the class early in the running, was fighting a losing battle with the team's KX500, which had seized the day before the race and was running on a hastily installed new cylinder. "Our bike just wasn't running 100% all day, so we were down from the start," said Worley. "Staten lost a couple of places. He kept us in there but I think maybe one of the reeds broke or something." Joey Lane, who had swapped his usual 250cc mount for a Kawasaki KXl25, rode a cautious opening section, trying to get a feel for Baja after being out of SCORE competition since last May's Baja 500, but still managed to catch the only other Class 20 entry in the field - a Yamaha YZl25 under the command of Esteban Cruz and Erick Ornelas. "I passed the 125 that started ahead of us, then I crashed and he got back by me," said Lane. "I got him again and we never saw him after that." Chris Haines and Bill Tanner took the early lead in Class 40 (riders over 40), another class with only two entries, and there were no starters in Class 50. As the race neared Borrego, close to halfway through the 257-mile dash, Hamel was almost seven minutes ahead of the Honda on adjusted time. "I just rode really, really hard all the way to the Oasis pit," said Hamel. "Once I found out we had a pretty good lead I backed off to take it easy on my wrist and cruised in from there. I was still able to pull three more minutes," said Hamel, who put ice on his wrist once Roeseler had cleared the Kawasaki pit at Borrego. "It's my throttle wrist. Every time I would twist the throttle, I would feel pain. The way it felt best was wide open, so that's where I held it all day." As Roeseler headed into the 6O-mile

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