Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

Cycle News 1995 03 29

Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles

Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/127721

Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 10 of 63

Rain conti nued to pelt the front-ru nne rs as they made th e ir way up the beach. A new section of course de toured the racers around almost half of the infamous whoops th a t norma lly" make up th e beach sec tion, but there was s till plenty to keep them on their toes as they da shed north toward the seco nd highwa y crossin g a t EI Chinero. Ham el a do p ted a s low-b ut -s u re approach during the northerly dash but still averaged 60 mph. But there was no time to relax further backin the pack . Dav e Lapraik, lead-off rider for the Over 40 tea m o f Lapraik and Rich ard Jackson, wa s yelling for clea n goggles when he crossed Highway 5 for the first time at th e 17-mile mark. The KX250 piloted by Gabriel Pad aez, Ju an Ortiz and Serg io Vega needed some work on the front whee l befo re it could continue up the beach, and so me th ing w as up with th e front forks on th e Class 22 (Over 250cc) Kawasaki campaigned by Dave Simpson. Poo r visibility mad e the going trea cherous all the way to the most no rtherly point of the course, 75 miles fro m th e sta rt line in San Felipe. "I crashed in a big sandwash leaving EI Chinero. It was raining and I couldn't pick out the rocks," said John Kawell, who took over the KX250 he shared with Roger H u rd at the second roadcrossing, after Hurd had already suffered a crash of his own. Tim Morton and John Flores, who had swapped their usual Honda CR250 for a Kawasaki of Riverside-backed KX250, had some even more exciting tales. "Flores was having a problem off the start becau se of his we ight. It was pretty windy and the other guys we re pu lling him," said Mo rt o n . "I was trying to make up so me time in the top loop and 1 did a big nac-nac by accide n t. The p roblem is you usually d o them wh en you' re 20 feet it) th e a ir. 1 was probably fou r feet off the gro und going 65 or 70 mph. It wa s really scary." A little fur ther back, Ju an Ortiz was w atching h is sha re of a s pecia l $1000 prize for the first Mexican team to cross the finish slip fu rther and further out of reach. "We had front brake problems all the w a y to El Chin ero. Th e front b r a ke would lock up without you even pulling on the lever," said Ortiz. "I could n't rid e it a nd 1 h ad to get off and bl eed th e brakes six times . They did some grinding on the lever in EI Chi nero to let the caliper free up but by that stage all the Sportsman (racers) had passed us." While the you ngsters suffered, veteran racer Richard Jackson was h aving the t im e of h is life aboard a privateer KX5OO. "That was the most fuTII've ever ha d on a motorcycle. I've never had a piece o f e q u ip me n t lik e thi s . Eve rythi ng worked so we ll," said Jackson. " I've a lways ba nged aroun d on so me thin g that's old." The dark clo uds moved off to the eas t as the race rs tu rned sou th for th e firs t time a nd by 8 a. m. th e sun was shi ning an d a brilliant ra inbow arced over the double pit at Borrego. Ham el ap peared sho rtly after the sun d id , ga llo pi ng throu gh the pit an d off into the min i loop that made a 60-mile circle back to the Borrego pit. "That was t he other part of the co urse th at ha d cha nged ," Hamel exp lained. "They took out some of the whoops on the beach right at the start a nd they made another change righ t a fter the m in i summit. They too k us d ow n onto a s moo th roa d instea d of ISO-mile ma rk for what has traditionally been the easier half of the San Felipe 250 course, b u t the rain had m o re than evened the score" Just down the course was a I3-mile stretch across Laguna Diablo dry lake bed, which was anything but dry after the morning's heavy rain. Tea m Green was so wo rried about the cond ition of the lake that they sent Larry Roeseler ou t to sco ut the course. The Baja vetera n took a carefu l look arou nd and, w hen Smith re ache d th e ed ge of the lake, he waved him on into the mud. "The lake bed was a little scary," said Smith, who wa s soon caked from head to toe with the mud that flew up off the fro nt wh eel. "On a goo d day, this bike will probably do anyt hi ng fro m 115 to 117 (mph) acr oss there. Tod ay, I never went over 65 or 70, and there were times when 1 got down to as low as 25." After 13 of th e longest mil es in h is (Above) Arturo Salas makes a rider sw itch with Jorge Garc ia wh ile competing in Class 22. The duo fi nished second. (Right) Armondo Bravo leaps over a paved Baja road while rac ing in Class 21. making us go through all the whoops like they did in the Baja 1000." Hamel reported a trouble-free ride as he flashed through Borrego for the first time and an IS-minute gap back to the second motorcycle confi r med that things were goi ng well. The second bike to pass throu gh the Bo r re go p it was the Class 30 KX500 entry of Rex Staten an d "first-time Baja racer Fred Co nover, who had worked their way up fro m 13th on the starting " grid . Conover, a motocross /Grand Prix racer fro m Riversid e, Califo rnia, bit the dust in a big way sho rtly after he headed int o the mini loop. "I don't know if 1 hit a g-ou t or what, but the back end go t in front of me and it sp it me off," said Conover. "I probab ly lost a bo ut two m inute s be fore I foun d out wh ere I was and wh at d irection I need ed to head in." The crash cost some mor e time wh en th e b ike returned for its secon d pit at Borrego. Th ere was nothin g th e team could d o about the missing rear fender, but a few minutes of hard wo rk stra igh tened the ba r s and replaced a brok en footpeg. "The cras h tore my clock off the handl ebars, so 1 couldn't tim e myself an y more," Stat en complained, "b u t everythi ng went okay after that so it wasn't the end of the world." The Mo rt on / Flores KX250, which had headed into the mini loop five minut es behind Sta ten an d Con over, took over th e n u mbe r-tw o spot w hile the repairs were being made, and the KX250 entries of Dewey Belew IJason Corfma n a n d Ka w e ll / H u rd were dangerously close, ma king the dash for Class 21 honors way too close to call. The first non-green bike in the field the last-mi n u te Over-3D Hond a XR600 entry of Victor Lujan and Dave Donatoni, thu nd ered th rou gh the Borreg o pit in sixth, just ahead of Beto Verber 1Rogelio Brambila on a KX250 and the Lapraik / ackson Over 40 entry. KX500 racers Arturo Salas andJorge Garcia were the next racers through, and the only remaining en tra nts in the 125cc P ro class Ho nda CRl25 racers Tim Staab and Mike Hinrichsen - cleared the pit 45 min utes behind Hamel and Smith in 10th. T here were a lmost as m an y co mplaints as there were miles left to the finishIine. Lujan and Donatoni d escribed their 1990 XR600 as "desperately in need of a sponsor." "The suspension - I th ink Donatoni moved the suspension to his little size. ( bo ttome d in a ll th e w hoo p-de-docs . And ( stalled get ting gas and cou ld n' t start it," said Lujan, throwing his han ds in the ai r. "I had to p ush it d own the paveme nt to get it going. Eight o f my friends were standing the re just looking at me - nobod y helped." Staa b rep orted that hi s 125cc Pro entry ra n "like crap" for the who le minis ummi t loop an d Belew's KX250 was making his ears ring . "We were having a problem with ou r silencer. It's either cracked or it lost the packing," sai d Belew . "The bike seems to run all righ t bu t it was awfully loud . It gave me a head ache." There we re even more headaches to come as th e second half of th e race began. Hamel hande d over to Smith at the racing ca reer, Smi th hi t dry ground at the end of the lake and started into the fin al sec tion tha t led throug h Morelia Junction and down the infamous was h toward the outskirts of San Felipe. Beh ind him, Staten was pulling ou t all the stops trying to repass Mo rton, who stopped to ask di rections before he tackled the Diablo lake mud. "There were some guys out there so ( s to p pe d to ask if ( should go across," sa id Mo rton . "They said Craig Smith did, so 1 went for it. A couple of times 1 was a lit tl e nervous, but then Rex pa ssed me. 1 was doing great compared to h im . He was completely si de ways, . totally ou t of con trol all the way across there." Staten, who es timated his speed on th e la ke at "somewhere up near 100 m p h, 1 h op e," agreed with Morton ' s out-of-co nt rol description. "It was terrible out there. II was all wa ter and in a couple of place s it was a good foot deep," said Sta ten, with a grin. "Parts where the course had fo rmed a di p, they were filled with

Articles in this issue

Archives of this issue

view archives of Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's - Cycle News 1995 03 29