4th Annual HYR 24 Hour's of Glen Helen
Glen Helen Raceway
By KIT PALMER
PHOTOS BY KINNEY JONES
SAN BERNARDINO, CA, SEPT. 7-8
t seems hard to believe that just
last week, Ty Davis was being
rushed to the hospital after becoming
dehydrated during a two-hour off-road
race. And now, actually less than
seven days later, he wins a 24-hour
marathon - the HYR (HondajYamaha
of Redlands) 24 Hours of Glen Helen.
Of course, Davis didn't do it alone; he
had some help. He and teammates
Russell Pearson, Terry Fowler and
Nathan Woods combined efforts to
win the 10 a.m.-to-lO a.m. race that
made use of just about every trail and
dirt road within Glen Helen's hillside
boundaries. (Glen Helen's two
motocross tracks were, of course, utilized as well, which also included the
National track's Mount St. Helens hillclimb.) All told, the course totaled a
little over 10 miles per lap.
Sixty teams in all competed in this
relatively young race, but the one
team that everyone was chasing for
almost the whole 24 hours was Davis'
team aboard the Montclair Yamaha
YZ426F.
It would've been a wire-to-wire victory for Davis and crew had it not
been for the KTM team made up of
I
18
SEPTEMBER 25,
2002'
cue
Kurt Caselli, Joey Lanza, Paul Krause
and Ryan Dudek. Caselli started for
the strong KTM 525-mounted team,
and he rocketed into the lead off the
dead-engine, straddle-the-front-wheel
start. But after the first couple of
hours, the Caselli KTM developed
ignition problems, and by the time
they got that sorted out, the Davi!l
team bike had moved into the lead
and would never again be headed.
However, things did get close when,
I e
n
•
_
s
as the sun was beginning to set, the
Davis bike developed a leaky fork
seal, and they were forced to replace
the forks.
"We had a little dilemma there,
because we had to replace the forks
and install our lights," Davis said.
"That would've made things a little
too hectic - everyone working on the
front of the bike at the same time - so
we did one thing at a time at different
pits stops. I was afraid that, if we did
SIJlty teams battled It out at this year's
n1nnlng of the HYR 24 Hours of Glen
Helen.
everything at once, something might
not get tightened or something."
The Caselli bike closed in on the
Davis team.
"They were about 10 seconds
behind us," Davis said.
"I don't think it was that close,
maybe 30 seconds," Caselli said.
