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/128112
B e s t in the D esert Silver State Series Rou nd 3 : Tonopah 300 Hen g eveld /Street drew the f irst startin g position , and Hengeveld hit the cou rse at 5 :45 a.m . He and Street w ould nev er be head ed , t h o u g h they'd misjudged th eir j etti ng enough that the bike was ru nning too lean for the fi rst few , co ol hours. "T he bike j ust wasn 't pu ll ing that good i n t h e morning , " Heng ev eld rep ort ed . " It wa s ru nni ng a little too lean, so every time I'd shift into fifth, it'd bog out. 1 could ma in ly run only in fourth gear." At pit two, 88 m iles int o the race, Heng eveld he ld a sli m ph ys ic al lead. However , Espos ito appear ed to be close enough in second place to have the lead on corrected time, followed a short ti m e later by Destry Abbott on (Left) Steve Heng eveld p oints It toward the finish. He and partner Jonah Street were first off the line a nd stayed there a ll day to win Tonopah, their first win In the series this yea r. Unofficially, h ow ever, they lead both Silver Stat e and SCORE series points, giving them confidence In their quest to secure their fi rst number-one p late. (Below) Shane Esposito had to stop to avoid hitting horses early In the race. Later, the b ike he shared with Andy Grider n e eded the rear-brake pads replaced. Stili, they ended up second, their best finish to date in Be st In the Desert. STOR Y A ND PHO TO S BY M A RK K A RIYA TONOPAH, NV, JUN. 23 t e v e Hengeve ld and partner Jonah Street became the third different winning team in three rounds of Best in the Desert's 2001 Silver State Series, taking their American Honda XR650R to first overall at the Tonopah 300 in fi ve hours, 10 m in utes and 54 seconds. Thanks to that and the team 's recent th ird-consecu tive SCORE Baja 500 win , the pair now holds the unofficial points leads in bo th series, and is anxiously looking forw ard to tradi ng in their bike's number -two p late for at least one nu mber one . "Right now, our team's really exci ted, " Hengeveld exclaimed . " We' re lo ok in g forward t o Vegas to Reno [the next Silver State round] ; I th ink it'll be a good course fo r our b ik e. Everything's sta rting to click right now . I feel really comfortable on it, just like I did on my [Kawasaki] 250s. Ev erything seems to be work ing great." Shane Espo sit o and Andy Grider ended up second, a few minutes back S 54 JULY 11, 2 0 01 • co U co • e on their Price Racing /Team Green Kawasaki KX500 in 5 : 16 : 12 . It was their best series finish to date, despite the fact that they had to rep lace worn rear-brake pads late in the race. Th ird in 5:20:31 went to defending race and ser ies champ ions Johnny Campbell and T im St aab , Campbell slowed b y a nasty c rash when he overshot a corner and endoed h is Team Honda XR6 50R. The first 10 bik es beat the trucks and buggies. Promoter Casey Fol k s c am e up with a number of new sections for the 290 -mile course that started just south of town. It sent the racers west across the Montezuma Valle y , sk irted t h e north side of Lone Mountain into Big Smokey Valley, then headed over the Silver Peak Range , turning sou thwest into Fish Lake Valley. Fro m there , it went east , back over the Silver Peak Range and down to the desert floor, hitting the towns of Silver Peak and Goldfield. The competi tors then took a loop south of Goldfi eld before heading north , ro u gh ly para llel ing Highway 95 and ending up at Tonopah High School 's Joe Friel Sports Compl ex. n e val s the Team Green KX500 he shared with Brian Brown. The Mike Childress/Dayton Raper XR 's Only XR650 R came through in fourth while Staab handed Campbell the ir bik e in fifth . " Leavi ng p it two , I w a s about a m inute beh ind J ona h , and I caught up to him and his dust," Gr ider said . "I went to go through his dust on a fast road and chopped the throttle lin a comer] and sl id ou t at som ew here betw een 6 0 an d 8 0 miles an ho ur. Luckily, I was on top of the bik e! It kind of ble w my co nfiden ce for a whil e. B rian go t by m e, an d we go t going again[re- passi ng Brown]." But Gri der wasn 't the only one to go down. "T im got hung up in a lot of dust between [pits] one an d thr ee , so [when I] got back on , I finally got so me clea n ai r," Ca m p be ll sai d . "I knew I had t o m ak e up some tim e, so I p u t t h e h a mmer dow n an d was making u p g o o d ti me . I ca me u p around a corner; the course turned down to the righ t , I went stra ight, and there was a sand wash with a ro ck c ro p p in g . I j u m p ed over the rock s l an d] made that okay , but the 18 inch bo ulde r that was 20 feet fu rther down the sand wash, I didn 't m iss. So I ended up doing a big endo, and the bike came back and go t me p retty