Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

(Left) The five-rider team led by Tim Morton took Its KX250 to the Class 21 win and finished fifth overall. (Below) XR628. mounted Johnny Campbell (pictured) leamed up with Jimmy Lewis to take second overall, eight minutes behind the leaclers, c1espite some mysterious engine problems midway through the race that limited top speed. Honda's other XR628, which was piloted off the start by Jeff Capt, and James Ditson's KX500 team was running fourth. Further back in the starting order, the Kawasaki KX250 privateer quintet of Tim Morton, John Flores, Brent Blount, Jason Kawell and Steve Hengeveld was taking Class 21 (126 to 250cc) by storm and had put 11 minutes on their nearest rivals in the first 100 miles. A. tight battle was shaping up between the top running Class 30 entries of Chuck Miller, Paul Ostbo and Greg Bringle on American Honda's megabuck EXP prototype, and Kawasaki-backed Rex Staten, John Rudder, Earl Roberts and Mike Shoemaker. A four-way tussle was going on for the Class 40 lead, among the teams led by James DeGaine, Bob Rutten, Chris Haines and Dave LaPraik, and the 125cc effort led by Marc Burnett had opened up half an hour on its nearest competition despite losing more than half an hour to the larger bikes in the first 100 miles. Out in front, Davis held the numberone spot all the way down the coast to Borrego Junction, past San Felipe and on to El Crucero, where he handed the bike over to Hunnicutt. "That's the long~st race I've ever done. I've never done 450 miles before," said Davis, who finished the opening section with a 15-minute lead. "There were booby traps all over the place and cars coming backwards, so you had to be really careful. But other than th.at, it went really smooth - no problems, bike ran great the whole way. Another boring story." . The opening section of the race was had nobody to take over the ride when he reached tne 350-mile mark at Puertecitos. "I was pre-running a 12-mile section of pavement the morning of the race," said Drey Dircks, who was scheduled to take over from Capt. "A car came up behind me without me seeing it. He went to go around me and, as he was passin.,g, he swerved into me. "I didn't crash but when the car hit me, my leg got caught on the bumper or something and it tweaked my knee." Dircks was unable to ride, so Capt was forced to cOn tinue another 300 miles to San Ignacio, where he handed off to Honda's Team Manager, Bruce Ogilvie, who had signed up as an extra rider just in case any of the Honda teams needed a hand. Up ahead, in second overall and still less than 20 minutes off the lead, Campbell was starting to have problems of a different sort. "I started having some engine problems. The bike nad a.knocking noise on the top end at mgh rpm and it started slowing down. Instead of going 110 down a straight road, I was going maybe 60," said Campbell. "I had to do that for about 15 miles, then I stopped at a pit. We checked the oil, changed the air cleaner, and just hoped for the best." The top-running 250cc team was also starting to run into trouble. ''I'm not sure what happened up in the top half of the course. All I can gather is that the bike wasn't running too good. I think it was carburetion," said Morton. "My partners were complaining that it wasn't runni:itg super well and that we were losing a lot of time." The KX500 team had also developed a brake problem. "There's something wrong with the rear caliper," Morton explained. "It burns one pad all the way down without touching the other one. We changed pads four times trying to figure it out." At the head of the pack, the llumbe.rone Kawasaki continued to run flawlessly, but even that doesn't guarantee a trouble-free run in Baja. "There were all sorts of rumors about the main road getting blocked. We didn't think we could get all of our pit stuff down to the Bay of LA (Bahia de los Angeles) - the lights and the ignition, and we couldn't take a chance, so we put everything on at El Cru.cero," said Hunnictitt. "We didn't want to do that. The lights slowed the bike down and we ended up breaking lights because of that - two sets." anything but boring for the leader in the Mexican-team points race. "Our damper came off in the first 100 miles, which made it harder, and then Ricardo got off on Laguna Salada," said Beto Verber, the leader of the KX250 team that included Ricardo Malo, Brian Schmuckle and Roger Brambilla. "There was a booby trap and he went end over end and hurt his back. A couple of aspirins and he was okay, 'and he just bent himself, not the bike." . Honda's number-two team wished their race were· going half as well. After holding on to third all the way to the end of his section, Jeff Capt found he A demonstration blocked Highway 1 at San Quintin for some time and held up some of the pit crews for the race trucks, which had left the start five hours behind the bikes, bu t most of the motorcycle crews were unaffected. State police had to escort the stranded motorists around the demonstration, which, according to SCORE, was not related to the race. Hunnicutt followed the course through Barna de los Angeles, crossed the north Baja/ south Baja border at EI Arco, just east of Guerrero Negro, and hit the highway just before the oasis-like town of San Ignacio. Kawasaki's hellcoper raced with him all the way. "It's great to know the helicopter's there and we get some warnings from it," Davis explained. "I think it's illegal to tell us what's coming up but Mark (J ohoson) told the SCORE officials he was going to do it anyway. He said, 'They're my riders and I'm not going to let them get hurt.''' "There's very little conversation," said Johnson. "I say things like, 'Booby trap.' 'Car, quarter mile.' It's a safety

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