Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Best in the Desert Silver State Series Round 4: Vegas to Reno STORY AND PHOTOS BY MARK KARIYA RENO, NY, SEPT, 28 hances are, getting lost and running out of gas would ruin your day in the desert. Somehow, though, defending Best in the Desert Silver State Series Champions Johnny Campbell and Tim Staab didn't let an early setback like that deter them. Instead, they just kept plugging away on their Precision Concepts/IMS/ Acerbis-backed Honda XR650R for the rest of Vegas to Reno's 526-mile course, By the· time they reached the . finish at Tracy Clark, 20 miles east of Reno, only two other teams had checked in. However, Campbell and Staab found themselves the overall winners by a scant 31 seconds over Price Racing;Team Green/Pro Circuit Kawasaki KX500-mounted Shane Esposito and Andy Grider, 9:21:49 to 9:22:20. Rounding out the top three were long-time race leaders Steve Hengeveld and Jonah Street on their Precision Concepts/Dunlop/Acerbis XR650R in 9:24:07. A total of 129 bike and ATV teams entered, with the start located this year just outside of Pahrump instead of in the parking lot of the Terrible's Town Casino. Street took the early lead after the first team to get the 6:20 a.m. green flag went down on watered pavement within a few hundred yards of the start. After the first pit - 15 miles out at Johnnie - Esposito passed Street. By the second pit at Lone Butte, 59 miles into the race, Esposito and Street had a big gap on the field. However, they and the rest of the field would run into trouble. "It was going okay: Street said, "but we all got lost right before [pit] two. Somebody actually went out there and remarked [the course]. We were lost for a long time. We went three miles down the [dirt] road, came back three miles, went back down to [another) road three miles. When that happened, all the rest of the class caught up to [me and Esposito). When I came into pit two, I C 24 OCTOBER 17, was seven minutes behind! It's not [promoter] Casey [Folks'] fault, but it just sucks." Staab also got lost and wandered in the desert. Things went worse for him, though, as he ran out of gas before finding his way to the pit. "I thought, 'Oh my God, the race is done; we're hosed!'" Staab admitted. "Luckily, I flagged some guys down and they put their foot on the footpeg, and I grabbed their front number plate. They pushed me close [to the pitj. The Husky team, Eron Boyer, he really helped me out; lowe him a lot." After what seemed like an eternity, Staab finally reached the pit and pushed until he saw a Honda crew member running at him carrying gas. So, Staab stopped to catch his breath and clean his goggles. By the time he got back in the race, "We were behind everybody then. But we were still in the hunt," he said. It just didn't look that way at first. It didn't take too long before Hengeveld/Street and Esposito/Grider retook the first two spots, with the Honda team leading the way by less than a minute over the Kawasaki most of the time. "All day we were chasing dust after [getting lost at two]: Esposito said. "We were within 15 to 40 seconds at n e _ so 2001 • c u e • e Johnny Campbell (shown) and Tim Staab came from behind after getting lost and running out of gas to win Vegas .to ReM. TIIolllllh third or physlcallr at the finish, the Honda duo tum8d the fastest time 0ftf'lI1I by just 31 seconds. every pit behind them. It's a tough way to ride - in the dust all day. "I was hoping maybe that added pressure [of being in the lead for so long], putting that on them, would do something, but they kept it together all day." "At first it felt like we were there, but Destry [Abbott and teammate Brian Brown] was still in the race - he was right behind us - so we had the pressure on: Grider said. "I didn't know [Abbott/Brown] broke so I was still riding like he was behind me and I had to make up the time. "Steve Hengeveld rode so good I just couldn't get by him. I'd get up into his dust in the tight sections, and I'd get ready to pas!j. him, then all of a sudden we'd break out onto a road, the wind would turn the wrong way and I just couldn't get by him. Finally, Shane, towards the end, got by him and gave us some breathing room. "I swea:t, I had tflat bike pinned the whole way the last two pits. I don't think I ever let off the throttle!" While those two teams waged their private war at the front, Campbell/Staab made their way into third place physically. Slowly and steadily they chipped away at the gap. Hengeveld/Street were the second bike to start, while Esposito/Grider were third, a minute behind. That meant Campbell/Staab, as the eighth bike off the line, needed to close to within five minutes of the Kawasaki and six minutes of their Honda teammates to have a chance at winning. Here is where the events of early in the race began to payoff. By being behind, unofficially, by some eight minutes halfway through the race but in third physically, the number-one Honda actually had clean air as well as two sets of tire tracks to follow. Plus, Campbell is supremely confident in the upper part of the course, particularly in the final 100 or so miles to the finish. "When we got beflind, I knew I had to push: Campbell said, "but I didn't want to push like I pushed at [the] Tonopah [300] and end up out in the weeds, so I went a couple percent less than that. "I always do really well in the northern section of this course, for some reason, so we had an ad'vantage. Even though we were behind, we had an advantage because we had no dust and we had a great bike - it was awesome; we worked hard and tested a lot [to clear up) some heatrelated issues over the summer and got the bike to run cooler." (Below) Who's number one? Campbell (left) and Staab.

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