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/128162
Best in the Desert Silver State Series Round 4: Sun Coast Ho and Casino one minute for each minute they went beyond their 70-minute grace period. That penalty would be added onto the team's aggregate time. The hottest combination in the series this year has been the Destry Abbott/Shane Esposito team. After finishing third at the opening round (the Kawasaki Team Green Laughlin U.S. Hare Scrambles Championship), the new-for- '02 pairing have cleaned up, with wins at rounds two and three. Come round four (the Nevada 1000), however, their win streak, as well as their shot at the championship, appeared about as viable as Abbott out-hustling Kobe Bryant in a game of one-on-one. With the rider of record (Abbott) unable to ride, Esposito knew he couldn't substitute another without forfeiting series points. So he elected to go it alone. "I was going to team up with someone else, but then if we did that, we'd lose all those points, since Destry is the rider of record," Esposito said. "I don't want to just hand points to anyone. Everyone [of the other teams] but Ty and us have had a problem this year and DNFed. So if we didn't ride, Ty just had to finish every [remaining] race Ito win the championship]. That was the main reason we decided I'd solo. "Three weeks ago, I found out I'd be riding solo," he added. "It's not a lot of time to prepare. One thing I was doing Ito prepare] was, I'd get up at four every morning and go to the gym to get used to being able to get up that early and instantly get going. I've been training for this knowing that I'm going to have to do the whole thing." Brian Brown (shown) and David Pearson scored their first Best In the Desert wln as a team by topping the Inaugural Nevada 1000. ESPOSITO SOLOS '''TO POInTS LEAD. STORY AND PHOTOS BY MARK KARIYA LAS VEGAS, NV, J(]NE 20-22 eam Green extended its run of wins in the Best in the Desert Silver State Series by going one-two in the inaugural Nevada 1000. Brian Brown and partner David Pearson emerged as the overall winners of the three-day, three-stage, 900-plus-mile event on their Team Green/Chevy Trucks/Maxima/Dunlop-backed KX500, with a final clocking of 15 hours, 35 minutes, 11 seconds. It marked their first series victory as a team. 42 JULY 10. 2002' cue •• Perhaps more remarkable was Brown and Pearson's Team Green teammate Shane Esposito, who finished second. Esposito was forced to solo the race while teammate Destry Abbott still recovers from knee surgery, but he was up to the challenge. Knowing he wouldn't be able to match the pace of the two-man teams, Esposito's game plan was to conserve energy and ride smoothly and it worked. His pace was just quick enough to grab second overall, finishing out the race with a time of 15:42:59. n II! _. Rounding out the top three were American Honda's Danny Cooper and Andy Grider on their Precision Concepts/Dunlop/IMS XR650R, in 15:44:08. They finished on a high note, turning in the fastest time on the final day, though it didn't alter their final standings. Of the 68 motorcycles and ATVs that started, a remarkable 59 finished, aided, no doubt, by the onehour-and-l0-minute work period allowed each team at the end of the day. Any team that impounded their machine later than that were docked Each day started at 5:30 A.M., with each bike launching off the line at one-minute intervals. The first day featured the most variety in terrain as well as the most miles, approximately 340. It started off U.S. Highway 93, about 25 miles south of Alamo, meandered up to Caliente and Panaca, and then basically paralleled the 93 northward to finish in Ely. On day two, the competitors got a police escort out of town to the start. The 297-mHe course headed immediately west until just past the first pit, when it turned south, crossed U.S.