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Round 4 OFF-ROAD ' . . Best in the Des ert S live r S t ate Series Johnny Campbell and Steve Hengeveld take Vegas-to-Reno Win STORY AND PHOTOS BY MARK KARIYA Johnny Campbell (pic.lu red) and Steve Hengeveld were the fir st team to Reno. .... eam Honda's Johnny Campbell and Steve Hengeveld picked up their first win of Best in the Desert's Silver State Series with a wire-towire victory at the TSCO Vegas-to-Reno 490-mile race up the state of Nevada. In leading an XR650R sweep o f the top three spots, the factory -backed duo and their Honda Pro Oils/Precision Concepts/Dunlop machine completed the course in eight hours , II minutes and 14 seconds for the overall and Open Pro honors. That put them almost seven minutes ahead of Four-Stroke Pro winners Chr istopher Blais and Quinn Cody, who were second overall in 8:17:59 on the ir Mid-Cities Hond a/Pro Honda Oils/Blaisracing.com-b acked XR. Both teams also bested the entire field of trucks and buggies . Four-Stroke Pro runne rs-up Chuck Dempsey and Andy Grider were third overall (motorcycle) in T 52 9:06:30 on the ir XR's Only/O'NeaI/Carpelland XR, having to come from the back of the Pro pack after Grider missed the start while registering at the last minute . This year's event started at Johnnie, a few miles north of Pahrump and the start ing location of the Terrible's Town 250 a couple of months ago. It basically paralleled U.S. 95 north and west through the Amargosa Valley, the outskirts of Beatty, the property adjacent to the Cottontail Ranch and then Goldfield at mile 176. There, it turned west for 25 miles before, once again, heading northwest past Silver Peak, Coaldale, Mina and Luning. Once the course reached pit 13at Top Gun, about 20 miles south of Fallon, it crossed 95 and continued west anothe r 75 miles to finish in Dayton, which is just east of Carson City. While much of the course was fast dirt road, it once again too k competitors from fairly barren low desert and dry lakebeds through pine-filled mountain passes. JULY 14,2004 • CYCLE N EWS Hengeveld got the green light at 5:15 a.m. to lead the field. It would be the last time until the finish that the rest of the fi eld wou ld see the eventual w inning team. "My first goal was to ge t to pit one [at mile 15], just get through the start and all that nasty, rocky stu ff without do ing anything dumb ," Hengeveld said. "Once I got to pit one , that's where I cou ld start turn ing it on, and that's what I did. "We had a little mechan ical prob lem pretty much all day long - for about 300 or maybe more miles - with the heade r pipe. We both noticed it , but we couldn't actually see it, and we didn't want to just sta rt ripping things apart. So that slowed us dow n a little bit with the top speed , but I can't say anything else as far as the ce because my ride was really uneventful. I just tried to ride smooth and not make any mistakes ." Mike Childress and Beau Hayde n held second overall and second Open Pro for about 100 miles or so on their Carpet land/Triangle Enterprises/XR's O nly. XR650 R, but they eventually DNFed when the right footpeg broke off. "We were staying 20 or 30 seconds out of the ir dust ," Childress said. "I was just waiting for the opportunity to sneak 40th Anniversary up on them." Tho ugh they attempte d to replace the peg, they we re unable to drill out the harde ned mounting bo lts they'd used. "We burned thro ugh about 15 drill bits," Childress said. That put the Blais/Cody team into sec ond , which is where they finished , having experienced almost no tr ouble along the way except for Cody sliding out once and having to rep lace a front wheel. After his start-l ine fiasco, Grider said, "I figured our race was over and today was just going to be for fun. When we got to pit seve n at Silver Peak , [Q uinn] Cod y's team was do ing so good , and Hengeveld's bike was popping. I got on Chris [Blais] and said, 'Hey, you guys can overall this th ing. Get it going!" Indeed, the Blais/Cody team ran about four minutes behind the leaders for about 300 miles, but they lost som e time in the end. The Dempsey/Grider duo plugged away all day, making up the ir early deficit to claim third ove rall at the finish . Paul Krause and Elmer Symons stuck it out to earn fourth overall, third FourStro ke Pro , on their Malcolm Smith Motorsports/FMF/Bridgestone KTM 525 MXC, after Symons went down hard . Chuck Dempsey flogs down teammate Andy Grid e r.