Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

the highway less than a minute behind th e Mexican entry to tak e over fourth on tim e, and the KX250 entries of Beto . Verber / Arturo Salas and John Kawell/ Roger Hurd followed in quick succession. "Ka w ell rode fr om th e sta rt to EI A lamo Road and he sai d he got stuck behind th e H onda tea m and couldn't get aroun d th em, so we lost some time in th e early stages," said Hurd. The second Open class entry to clear EI Alamo - a Kawasaki KLX650 pilo ted by Roy Bu el na, Vito Hale and D ad o Buelna - appeared in eighth overall, but when starting times were adjusted, the Open class en try was behind both the top running class 30 entry (a KX500 rid den by Rex Staten, Derrick Pai ement and John Rudder) and the top running Class 40 duo of David Lapraik and Richard Jackson, aboard a KX5oo. For Staten , the lead -off run from Ensenada to EI Alamo on the Cla ss 30 bike was the beginning of a very long day. "1 started on the Class 30 bike and I' m going to finish on a Class 40 bike that I'm riding with Bill Maxim," said Staten, whose s ho t at a double win would put him in the saddle for a total of almost 400 miles. "I wanted to see if I could do it. It's something game. You've got to try something different every once in a while." Further back in the pack, the day was getting long for Beto Verber an d Arturo Salas after an early crash forced them to replace a tweaked front end, an d Jason Truby and Dewey Belew were biding their time waiting for Dal Truby, Jr. to complete the opening section. "He hurt his leg at a creek crossing just off the start. He stuck his foot in it and it screwed up his leg pretty bad, so he just cruised and we were a long way back," said Jason Truby. The order at the fr ont of the pack was unchanged as the racers hit the Valle de Trinidad pit and started a 45mile loop through Mike's Sky Ranch that they had to complete twice . Smith had stretched the front-runner's lead by 10 seconds an d was now one minute and 12 seconds ahead of the pack. The Mo rton /Hengeveld/Flores 10<250 was still in second overall and less than a minute separated the three KX250 teams led by Stabb, Karasawa and Pelaez. The gloomy, overcast skies that ha d .greeted the racers at 6 a.m. had given way to bright sunshine and 75-degree tempera tu res by the halfway point near Mike's Sky Ran ch and most of the top teams were re porting a trouble-free journey. The wo rs t p ro ble ms in th e 250cc ra nks were suffered by the Staab team, which reported some bad sputtering in the o pening se ction and a soft front mo usse in th e seco nd half of the race , and Open bike problems were so ra re near th e front of the pack tha t tire wear on the Lap r ai k lJa ck son Kawasaki , which was six minutes ahea d of its only Class 40 rival at the halfway point, was wo rth a m e nti on o r two . And the La p raik / Tackson mo unt was about to increase its lead by leaps and bounds. "We had problems from the minute I got on the Class 40 bike," said Staten, who took over the Class 40 mount from Maxim at Valle de Trinidad . "I br oke a chain and had to fix that , then I ha d a fr o n t flat, then I had a back fla t, and w hen I stop ped to get tires, the Kawasaki pit didn't have any wheels fo r m e because I ha ve big axles. I had to go to the nex t pit." Jason Ingersoll would've been happy ki Team Green, Bel-Ray, Dunlop , Tsubaki, Pro-Circuit, Trick, NGK, Renthal and Acerbis, and team mechanic "Firehose" Dave, w ho prepped the bike. "We had a flawles s rid e. The bike ran a bit rich in the morning becau se we had a stocking over the air filter to keep th e dust ou t but once we took that off it was great." But th en SCORE officials broke th e news of H amel' s d eath and any hint of a celebra tion at the finish was over. The news spread quickly and, as each rider w ho fin ish ed was told, th e smile th a t signified the end of a race well run disappeare d . There were tears an d hugs, and the racers who had known Hamel as a close frie nd load ed their bikes in silence and left the finish area . "I can't believe it," said Ondas, who was teamed with Hamel on an earlier Baja 1000 team, and was visibly shaken . by th e news. "He is just a tremendous gu y. He would do anything for you. He would help anyone from a factory guy to a young guy just starting out. He is ju st an in credible gu y . That' s all you can say ." (Lett) Rex Staten, here giv ing last -ml nute words to teammate John Rudde r, was a member of both the winning Class 30 team and second-pl ace finishing Class 40 team . (Below ) David Lapra lk and Richard Jackson combined efforts to score the Class 40 win. just to find his pit at the end of his secon d trip around the Valle de Trinidad loop. "The pit messed up. They pitted me once then left," said Ingersoll, shaking his head . "I couldn't find them on my second time through so I had to bum gas from another pi t." . As the race progres sed, more and more of th e racers reported problems with traffic on the course and many of them described the on-course traffic as the worst they had ever seen in a Baja event. Jackson narrowly missed an oncoming ca r in the switchbacks between Valle de Trinidad and Mike's Sky Ranch. . "1 just about nailed four cars in the final sectio n from the beach to the finish but the one near Mike 's was the worst," said Jackson. "It was a little Honda Prelude that was just cooking - roosting the outside of the tum. If I had been tucked in tighter it would've been bad. I can 't believe they go backwards on the course like that." For KX250 racer Jason Truby, the near-miss occurred on the final dirt section, which followed a popular road from the beach in to the finish at San to Tomas an d put the riders head -to-head with one oncoming car after another. "I ended u p und er the fron t of one car in the dirt, probab ly 10 miles from the finish ," said Truby. "I had to lay the . bike down - there was nothing else I could do. I scraped my side up a bit but I was really lucky." Ondas took over the number one bike for the fina l stretch from Valle de Trinida d ou t to the coast nea r Colo net and north to the finish li ne at Sa nto Tomas. He had a six-minute lead when he threw his leg over the KX500 an d his plan for the last segment of the race was to con tinue th e "no mist ak es" stra tegy that had kept th e team in first pl ace for so long. "We just wanted to ride smoo th and make su re th e bike ran smooth all the way," said Ondas, whose previous Baja 500 attempts were cut short by mechanical problems. "I'd never finished one of these before so I was being careful with this one." Morton knew he had a slim cha nce of catching the leader as the course began the northerly run up the beach. "The las t 135 miles is p retty much wide open and every time I got to a pit, I would hear that Ondas had pulled a little bit of tim e on me ," said Morton. "H e was p utting some thing like eight minutes on me every 50 miles." The miles flashed by as Ondas powered through the coast section an d he remai ned unchallen ged all th e way to the checkered flag. . "My sectio n was a lot of fun, except for the spectators. There we re a lot of ca rs co m i ng h ead o n at you," said Ondas, who thanked sponso rs Kawasa- Morton crossed the line in second to take the Class 22 (250cc) honors with a total elapsed time of seven hou rs and 25 minutes. "I think this is our third 250cc win at the Baja 500," said Morton. "I liked the course much better when they had more rough stuff in it but they've taken all that ou t for the car guys. And I liked it better without all the traffic on th e cou rse. There were more th an 20 cars going the op posite way on the course between Erendira (about 30 miles from the finish) and here. I've never seen so many cars on the course.' The race-long battl e for second in the 250cc d ivision en ded w hen Tim Staab br ou gh t th e Staa b/ Loh/ Blou n t CR250 hom e in third overall wi th an avera ge If) 0\ 0\ ,...... 29

• Cover