Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

SCORE International San Felipe 250 By Anne Van Beveren Photos by Tom Van Beveren SAN FEUPE, B , MEXICO, FEB 26 .C. . ith a total entry fee of close to $600 - which e q u a ls o u t to n ea rly $2.50 'a mil e - a ba dl y chewed up course and a twa-and-a-half ho ur d rive so ut h int o Baja to rea ch the st art line , SCOR E's San Felip e 250 ha s never been hu gely po pular wi th motorcycle racers . This year's even t was no excep tion. The 25D-mile race drew only 17 mo torcycl e teams a nd foll o w ed th e s a me whooped-out circuit that was used in last yea r's San Felipe race and in th e 1993 Baja 1000. The result was jus t as unexcep tional, a s Ka w a sa ki' s Da nny Ha me l and Ty Davis tu rned in a flawless performance to bring their Kawasaki KX500 home at the head of the pack for the second time in as many SCORE events. "It was jus t ano ther day at the office," qu ipped Hamel, as he watched his team ma te com plete a trouble-free ride to take the checkered flag an impressiv e 14 minutes ahead o f the neares t compe tito rs, w ith a total ela psed time of four hours and 20 minutes and an average speed of 57.5 miles per hour. The motorcycle section of the Tecate Beer-sponsored even t began shortly after dawn under the "arches" at the northern end of the resort town of San Feiipe. The Kawasaki duo of Ted Hunnicutt and Paul Kra use had d rawn the nu mber-on e spot on the one-bike-every-30-seconds grid, and Hunni cutt left the start at 6:15 a.rn. and p owered down th e sho rt ope ni ng stretch of pavem ent , just as the sun was starting to clear the horizon behind him. Hamel left the line in the number- two spot, pleased to find that a gentl e breeze 'was pushing the dust asid e to give him clear visibility. The air was crisp and cool - a welcome change from the opp ressive heat and humidity that plagued the riders before the race was rescheduled from its traditional mid-April date - but just a few minutes into the course, February's chill wasn't looking quite as good. "We went about a mile and a half and the temperatu r e d ropped about 10 degrees. I go t really, really cold to where my hands got numb," said Hamel. "I was hitting the kill button because the air got so cold that it mad e me nervous." The Ne vada racer's fears were well founded. Hunnicutt 's KX500 se ize d when he h it the one-and-a-half mil e ma rk and Kawasaki Team Green's other Class 22 entry, a KX500 piloted by Cra ig Smith and Dave Ondas that left the line in th ird, got less than ha lf a mile past Hunnicutt's KX500 before it, too, seized its way out of the race, leaving Kawasaki with only one team in the hoot for ove rall honors. "The motor was really badly broken and we had no parts right there. The race w as dangerous e nough and rough enough that it just didn't make sense to go for the finish," said Hunnicutt . " It was pretty depressing to be there all week working hard prerunning to only make it that far." Honda's fact ory assau lt was cut to one team before its bikes even reached the start. "Chuck Miller dislocated his thumb at a race a couple of weeks ago and Charles Halcomb fell prerunning on Tu esday," sa id Honda' s r ace manager, Bruce W Ogilvie. "He (Halcomb) d idn't do an ything se rious but he knocked h im self sill y and bruised himself badly, so we went with only one entry. We've got the kids racing instead of the old men." The "kids' " team consisted of Johnny Campbell, 23, and Jeff Capt, 25, w h o powered their XR628-based Honda off the line in fifth overall. With Hunnicutt and Smith o u t of the running, the thumper team made short work of the fourth-place starter, a Honda CR500 shared by John Flores, Brian Schrnuckle, Brent Blount and Steve Phillips, and burst through in to cl ear air b ehind Hamel. The five Open class entries were followed by three 250cc (Class 21) entries, tw o Class 30 teams (riders over 30 years of age), a lone Class 40 en try and two Class 50 entries. The final four motorcycle teams had entered in the Spo rts man's d iv is ion - a new trop h y-only class designed to attract racers with a low $200 entry fee. The Sp o rts m an' s field d ropped to thr ee when the transmission stuck on the CR500 piloted by Mik e Barnhill and Brian Free jus t 10 feet from the start line, an d Te x Mit chell 's le a d -off r id e for Danny Anderson and Fred Willert was almost as short . The rid er of record for the Yamaha YZ250 team had broken his collarbone tw o weeks before the event and handed over to his teammates just 20 feet off the start . The only racer who wasn't caught up in the action at the start was Kawasaki ace Larry Roesel er who, a day after his 37th birthday, was voluntarily sitting ou t his first SCORE race since 1972. " N orma lly it would 've taken an injury to keep me out, but I'm tapering off my sched ule a little bit this year," said Roeseler, who has won each of the races in the SCORE series more than eight times. "It isn 't too hard to miss this race it's typically whoops and rocks, and it's short. It's no t hard to be just helping our teams out." Roeseler's description of the course was righ t on the money. The track had beenbea ten in by hea vy use at last year's San Felipe 250 and th ere had been no rain to fla tt en the w ashes since last No vember's Baja 1000. To make it eve n worse, SCORE's new Trophy Truck class had raced the course on Friday morning. "It's amazing that 11 tru cks can move so m uch ea rth and throw up so many rocks. The course had changed substantially from prerunning," said Hamel. Hard- to-see rocks wrecked ha voc on th e mot orcyclists. John Flores crashed hard and reportedly broke his collarbone on the northerly run from San Felipe to Checkpoint 1 at EI Chinero. Flores lost 20 minutes but managed to complete the 43mile run to hand the CRSOO over to his te a m mates . Sam Bass crashed in th e beach section of the northerly run' and lost the lead in the Over 50 di vision, and . Ted Hunn icutt (2x) had a short ride, The HunnlcuttJPaul Krause bike seized only a few miles Into th e race, but their Kawasaki teammate Danny Hamel (1x), along with partner Ty Davis, had a nawiess ride . The duo wo n the 250-mil e race with eigh t minutes to spare. Jessie Ellice wadded his Class 30 KX500 in the same section. "He crashed really hard. The back rim was tacoed and the front would hardly go through the caliper," said Ellice's corider Ken Tapert, "He came in about half an hour late and then we had to replace both wheels, so we were well back." Hamel stayed out of trouble on the run to EI Chinero and had a comfortable lead as he headed into the northerly loop tha t circled through Checkpoin t 2 at Ejido Saldana to the central pit at Borrego, but the 21-year-old hotshot admitted that he was riding cautiously. "I was a little hesitant to come here and race becauseI crashed at the (Baja) 1000, and when I was prerunning on my first day, I almost did the same thing at exactly the same place," said Hamel. "I rode really conservatively - I just wanted to ride about 80 percent. I knew that if I was scared, everyone else had to be scared, too, so I knew they wouldn't be going any faster." In second p lace, Johnny Campbell was also riding carefully. "I took it really cautious for my sec-

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