Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

OFF-ROAD BEST IN THED S E ERT SILVER STATE SERIES 'l1und3: Vegas-fa-Reno was teamed wit h his brothe r Russ on a Team Green 's Donnie Boo k blasts across the open desert en route to the overall Victory In the Vegas-toReno Best in the Desert event Boo k and tea mmate Dave Ondas averaged. just ov er 57.5 mph to win , the eve nt by fo ur minutes ove r the Ty DavislPau l Krause team. '. By Anne Van Beve re n Photos by Tom Van Be ve re n '0, NY, SEPT. 19 • • r-, CJ'\ CJ'\ ,..... 00 .... CJ ..0 o ..... u o 42 t 535 miles , Vegas-to-Ren o is the longest off-road race in the United States but, after a back-andforth battle that had Kawasaki's top tw o desert teams handlebar to handlebar almos t all the way from one gam bling m ecca to th e o the r, th is ye a r 's Ne vada d a s h seemed m ore li ke the longest race in the world to. The KX5(J()..mounted duo of Donnie Book and Da ve Ondas went hea d to head wi th pre-race favo rites Ty Da vis and Paul Krause right from the word go, passing andrepassi ng thei r Team Green ri va ls in a no-hol d s- barred cha lle nge that la st ed 9 1/2 hours . Th e battle looked set to go all the wa y to the check ered flag until a broken pipe kept Davis and Krause in the pits for five crucial minutes just 70 miles from the finish. "We w ere kind of th e u nder dogs goi ng into the race, bu t [ kn ew we had a chance," Book said . "We've bee n riding well la tely a nd we we re able to hang and stay close, an d when they had pro blems, we took advantage of it." Book and O ndas sto rmed home with an average speed of 57.37 mph to take the win just four minutes ahead of racelong ri va ls Davis a nd Kra use. They grabbed the $1300 Open Pro purse and majo r bragging rig hts wi th th eir th ird overall v icto r y in the th ree-race-o ld series . "It feels go od to win this," Ondas said. "We rode hard all day, and it paid off. We didn't have any real problems just one flat. It was a good day for us." Veg as -to-Re no , which is o rganized by Casey Folks' Best in the Desert Racing Association and is now in its second yea r, pi ts mo to rcycles a nd four-wheel vehicles that ran ge. from ATVs to factory- backed off-roa d trucks agai nst the two-track road s, rocky trails a nd sa nd washes of Neva da's high d es er t. T he co u rse begin s o n th e o uts kir ts of La s Ve gas and runs northwest throu gh Pahrump, Beatty, Goldfield , Tonopah a n d Fall on o n it s w a y ·t o th e fi nis h southeas t of Reno . "The course was about th e same as last year, but the ra in they had in the past few weeks has reall y made a difference: Davis said. "It's washed some of th e road s awa y a nd made the cou rse really rocky - there are rocks and boulder s everywhere. Tha t definitely slowed the pace d own, but J think it's still too Fas t. It ' s d a n gerous going at th ese speeds when you don't know what's coming up." T he 150 m ot o rcycle entr ies beg an leaving the start shortly afte r daybreak, th ankful that their 6;15 a .m. post time gave them a four-ho ur head start on the first of the four-w hee l contenders. The Honda factory ·team of brothers Johnn y Ca mpbell and Jami e Campbell wo n the toss in the Open Pro class, which made th eir XR628 th e first bike off the line. The rest of the field followed, one bike at a time every 20 seco nds . As the Book / Ond as KX500 left the line in the nu mber-five spot, three positio ns a head of Davis and Krause, the riders knew they had to finish more than a minu te ahead of the rival KXSOO to take the win on adju sted time . "It's an advantage to start last in class like we did, because you kn ow exactly how yo u're doing all day," said Daryl Folks, wh o was teamed with John Rudder o n a KTM300 in the Over 30 Pro division. "You' re not wondering where everyone el se is; you actuall y know where they are. We didn't get the lastplace start on purpose - we just got that spot in the drawing· but I was.conternplating trying for it when it happened." The only disadvantage to starti ng last in class is having to contend with all of th e dust kicked up by the earli er starters . "I rode the firs t section and it was reall y d usty," sai d Nick Pea rson, who KTM250 thatlcft the start o n the hee ls of the Open Pro en tries. "I just had to chill out and wait until I coul d see before I could do anything." Bu t even being first off the line did no t guarantee a fast pace. "We had a few probl em s i n th e m orn ing becau se th e bi ke .w a s reall y flat," Ja m ie Ca m p bell said . " It jus t wo uld n' t pull and it didn't have enough top end. 1 th ink maybe it jus t didn't have enou gh break-in time." The Book/Onda s and Davi s /Krause tea ms soon es tablished the m selves a s the ones to bea I. "Book passed me abo ut 20 miles ou t. He was just go ing fast, so I let him go, a nd Da vis ca u g h t me a t a bo u t 100 miles," said Johnny Campbell. Boo k led th e w a y as th e r a cers d ash ed through p it o ne and hit wa rp speed o n the lo ng pol e-l in e road tha t paralleled the highway on their way to pit two. Book and On das pulled almost two minutes on the Ca m pbell H on d a between pits one and tw o, and the dust helped to keep them m ore than tw o m in utes ahead of th e Dav is /Krau se entry on adj usted time. 'There's a lot of fun stuff in this race , but a lot of fast sections that are rea lly scary. too," Davi s sa id . "It' s really dangerous because it' s such high speed. Not being able to prerun it, you're pinning it down these roads wide open, then suddenly there' s a ditch . The ra in had washed a lot of stu ff ou t, and you 'd be o n the brakes hard and ju st couldn't slow do w n fast enoug h . But (race organizer Casey Folks) can' t really make it any tighter or we wo uld n' t get to the finish before dar k." The hig h-speed run was even more intere sting fo r five-t im e ISD E gold medalist Ch ris Smit h, who w as taking his first look at the Nevada desert from the seat of a .Ho nd a XR600 en tered in the Open Exper t class, 'T d never ridden in the desert and there was a lot of buildu p," Smith said . "A lot of guys said it was danger ous, dan gerou s, dan gerou s. Sure, it wou ld be if yo u were tr yin g too hard a nd had yo ur ad renaline pumping, but I just had a good time , and whe n I felt comfortable goi ng fast, [ we nt fast." Bv the t im e the fron t- run ners reached pit fo u r, 170 m il es in to the race, the pace and the terra in were starting to take toll on some of the later starters . Tim Red fern a nd Kenny Perkins, who had traveled from Colorado Springs for the event, were call ing for plastic weld to fix a cracked crankcase less than two hours from the start. Gary Dircks and Bry an Folks had lost the electric star ter on their Husaberg and we re faced with kickstarting the bik e th e rest of the way to Reno, and there we re flat tires galore. "We rode 10 miles into pit four on a flat. and we got another one later in the day," Johnny Ca mpbell said . 'The rain had tak en out a lot of the washes a nd left exposed rocks, a nd th at d efinitely made it toug h on tires . We us ually don't get an y fla ts, bu t this time we go t two a nd our fro nt tire is reall y w orn out, mu ch mo re so than normal." a Destry Abbott, who was tea med with Garth Sweetland .on Team Vos burg's Open Pro KTM, also found the early going a fittte tough. "It was go ing, but th at's abo u t all I ca n say abo u t it," Abbott sa id . "I jus t started oo t real slow . I did n' t feel good, and I went from third off the start back to fifth, a nd we we n t to sixth when Sweetland was on the bike. But we started moving up in the middle of the race passed everybody and got back up to third." Ou t in fro nt, the two factory Kawasaki tea ms jus t kept on charging. Davis, wh o was eighth off the line, had worked his way past the earlier starters and was second, ph ysicall y, behind Boo k, when he hand ed over to Krau se at pit four. "I thi nk I had th e lead o n time by seve n o r eig h t s econd s, and Kraus e passed O ndas going into the next pit ," Davis sa id . "We were having a clean race . Our onl y problem wa s dust earl y thi s morning. That made it a problem getting by guys, but th a t's desert rac ing. " Krause and Ondas sw apped the lead back a n d for th a ll the wa y to the halfway point near the old mining town o f Gold field . When th e Book /Ond a s KXSOO clea red pit seven near the Goldfield Cem et er y at 11 a. m., the Davis / Kra use KX500 was less than a minu te behind . Abbott and Sweetland dashed through the Gol dfield pit in third, just ahead of KTM pilo ts Rick Bozarth and Jim Gray, who we re picki ng up the pace after o pti ng fo r a slow-but-s teady ap proach in the ea r ly ru nn ing. Greg Sea rl e and Dennis Belingheri were maintaining a fast pace on th eir Open Pro Kawasaki a nd were running fifth overall and almost side bv side with the Campbell Honda, which had a lread y cha n ged two rear ti r es. The Pearson brothers were well out in fro nt of the 250cc Pro field, racing a high seventh in the physical stand ings, and the lead in the Four-Stroke Over 450cc division turned over as the father-and-son team of Steve and Paul Pitts began shredding tires on their ATK605, and Paul Ostbo, who rode a lon g 270-mil e section fro m pit two to pit nine, moved the Ho nda he shared with Casey Longman thr ough to take over. "I like ridi ng lo ng dista nces, and I . was so nerv ous in th e car that I wo uld mu ch rather be on the bike," Ostbo said. "The du st is a nice cha nge for me. J live in Wash ingt on, and the last three prac.tice d ays I had up there, it rained an inch and a half each day . It's nice to get down here and get dried o ut." Ondas lost tim e to a rear flat on his wa y in to pi t nine, 366. miles into th e race, a nd , w ith Da vis just 20 seconds behind in the physical standings, he had slipped into second on adjusted time . "The fla t was our only problem up until the n," On das said. "The bike was running really well , and we were both having a good ride." By the time the other racers reached pit nine, Abbott and Sweetland had lost time changing a tire and some pipe mounts, and ha d switched their focus from getting the win to making it to the finish. A bad foam tube had slowed the Boza r th /Gray KTM , radio calls we re goi ng out for medical care for a rider in the Over 30 Amateur division who had crashed and had possibly broken ribs, and the r ace was turning into a pan· icked sprin t up Highway 95 for many of the pit crews, who were str uggling to keep up with their riders. Speed was also becoming a factor out on the race course : "The d istance is fu n at a race like

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