Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Best in the Desert Silver State Series Round 4: Terrible's Town 250 Cam STORY AND PHOTOS By MARK KARIYA PAHRUMP, NV,APR,26 eam Green's Destry Abbott and Shane Esposito might've led the most miles, but Honda's Johnny Campbell and Steve Hengeveld led when it counted most to take the $7000 bonus awarded to the top-finishing motorcycle team at the Terrible's Town 250, round four of Best in the Desert's Silver State Series. Campbell and Hengeveld completed the one-loop, 263-mile race in a winning time of four hours, 24 minutes and 54 seconds, while Abbott and Esposito stopped the clock at 4:28:07 for second place. "I rode the brakes pretty hard, and that pretty much cost us," a dejected Abbott said. Abbott, the only rider going in to win multiple times (twice) at Terrible's Town had hoped to become the first to rack up three. He and Esposito won it last year. A first-time winner, Hengeveld was understandably jubilant. "Yeah, [$7000'sJ not so bad! I can handle that!" he said. "Cash, that's good. 1 like that!" His partner, Campbell, won in 2001. "An off-road race is a long race, so anything can happen, especially at Terrible's Town," Campbell said. The second bike off the line, Campbell chased Esposito for only a few miles before - to both riders' surprise - Campbell went past for the lead on the Precision Concepts/Dunlop/VP Racing Fuels XR650R, though it would last just briefly. T 52 MAY 14, 2003' cue I e n e _ s After breaking bones at this race last year, Johnny Campbell was both relieved and happy to wln this year's Terrible's Town 250 again, this time with teammate Steve Hengeveld. "Our bike's realJy good in that type of section," CampbelJ said. "I think he was kind of dogging it. I just pulled up alongside, kind of snuck up and go, 'Okay, let's make the pass.' So 1 made the pass, but then it's just like it lit him on fire! He just went right back by me; he just roosted me really hard. Pretty much from there to pit two he ripped! He went so fast, J wasn't going to hang with him. He was just going a lot faster than I wanted to go." Esposito said, "I thought I was riding real good - no arm-pump, just riding along thinking I'm doing good. He came up alongside of me, and it actually scared me because I didn'J: think we'd be able to do our strategy of stopping at pit one. But 1 did step it up and put some time on him, so we were able to do it, which I was surprised J did. He was right there so soon!" Unlike most teams, Abbott and Esposito planned to duck into pit one at 35 miles for a splash of gas; others kept going to pit two at 51 miles. Many teams - Abbott and Esposito included - planned to stop at pit three at 73 miles for the first rider change as well as to fuel up. When Abbott got on the Chevy Trucks/Maxima/Dunlop KX500, he enjoyed clean air, but he didn't feel quite right. "I lost 20 seconds every little section I rode; I was a little off," he said. Whether a result of being "a little off" or something else, Abbott found himself abusing the rear brake more than usual, and it began overheating and fading on the high-speed course. "When I got on [at pit six for the second time], we thought it was mostly fluids, so I tried pumping them up, and that worked a little," Esposito said. "Then we stopped at seven where we didn't plan on it; we just bled them there, but already the pads were too far down. That didn't help, so I had to ride all the way to [pit] eight with no rear brake. I really expected the Honda to get around me. A couple times he was right on me. When we got to eight, we changed pads, and we even had to stop at the last pit [nine] and bleed them again. There were some stops we didn't want to do." Hengeveld said, "When I got to pit seven, Bruce [Ogilvie, Honda Offroad team coordinator] showed me that they were right there, and 1 could see them right there. All the way to pit eight, there were a couple times where I pulled up right behind Esposito, but it depended on the way the wind was shifting. Then the dust shift-

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