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/128354
sixt h motorcycle wa s the Temecu la Mot ors ports X R650R, ridde n by Brian Pinard, Martin Lemiereux, Bo Harris, Jim McKay and Roland Buche r. "It was a clean ride and noth ing we nt wrong wit h t he Precision Con cep ts-setup bike. It was a full team effort , and everyone did their job," Pinard said. Ch ildre ss, Mouse McCoy, C huc k Dempsey and C raig Smith ex pected to finish near the top , but as mentioned, they fell too far back in the first 200 miles. They did manage to salvage a fourt h in O pe n class but were not able to take advantage of teammate McCoy 's blazing Baja speed for a higher fini sh. Jim O ' Neal, Louie Franco , Steve Co le , Kevin Hines, Scott Donlavey and Jeff Kaplan rode an immaculate ly prepped Be rkeley Honda XR650R to a first in Class 40 and t hird bike overall in a time of 17 hours, 33 minutes and I3 secon ds. Ride rs O 'Neal, Franco and Cole all rode part icularly strong splits at t he start o f the race , and the Class 40 bike was sec o nd overall 332 miles in at EI C rucero befo re se ttling into third, wit h Hines, Dunlavey and Kaplan, all wit h considerable Baja ex pe rience, co nce ntrating on assuring a class w in. "I cou ldn't really train for th is one ," said O'Neal, w ho broke a st ring of prerunning injuries and was finally able to put in a strong race. "We 're all longtime bud dies, and we 're thrilled to death to get this one . No body fell down and nobody got hurt. Th e Pre cision Concepts suspension was awesome ." As for second in Class 40, last-minute rider substitution Pete Postel paire d wit h P. G. Lundmar k aboa rd an X R650R to take second , 50 minutes behind the O 'Neal e ntry. Lukas Lundin, Lundm ark's regular part ne r, was una ble to make t he trip to race due to previous commitments. Class 30 riders Ge rrardo Rojas, Se rgio Vega, Vicen te Gue rre ro and Manu el Santanna finished in 17 ho urs , 35 minutes and 23 seconds for fourth motorcycl e overall and first in class. The XR650R riders swe pt all three Class 30 race s this year in the Score Baja se ries, and Rojas seems to have put the spectacular high-speed crashes he was note d fo r be hind him. "It was a clean race , no probl ems," Rojas said. Class 30 riders Todd Star ks, Keith Jones and Jo hn T hornto n took second in t heir class, five hou rs off the lead ing pace. Joe Des ross iers, Mark Daniels, Carlos Molina and Julian Guer ra had problems ea rly but took the Class 2 1 lead for good at the Bay of L.A. loop , aboard their Santa Barb ara Motorsports YZ250 . It took the tw o -stok e riders 23 hours and 25 minutes to finish, with a 43 .2-mph speed average. "This is definitely a team effort, not something you 'd want to do alo ne," Desrossiers said, after he clinched the Class 21 Championship with this race. Racing for the first time since recover- Jim O'Neal, Tim Wit hers a nd Jeff Kaplan finis he d in the third p lace positio n after the long , 1000-mi le race. ing from a broken neck, M rk stated, "I just want to thank Santa B Motorsports for their help with the i Members of a team from [apa Katsuhish a Mikami, [u Mihashi and Hiroyuki Watanabe brought in their XR250R in six ho urs later for a second in Class 2 1, with four riders in it. Billed as th e "Dream Team," Class 50 Briefly... In the past there has been some trouble with speeding on roads through towns. So, to keep it safe for everyone this year, Score race officials established a 60-m ph speed limit on allof the pavement sections. Honda teammates Steve Hengeveld and Johnny Campbell swept the table, winning all three Score Baja races in 2004. In Addition, the pair has won the last three lO00s. It was Campbell'seighth-straight win and Hengeveld's fourth. Of the 37 Baja 1000s that have been held, only one person has competed in them all, and that's Ron Bishop, who fin ished second in Class 40 this year. Riding any event soloisnever easy. Thisyear, KentRichardson fulfilled a longstanding goal and soloed the entire race. Whileit took him longer than most of the teams, he still finished nonetheless. Someother riders that soloed the event were Arizona riders Don Robbins and Steve Luly. Theysoloed the 10l6-mile course together,but they rode their own pace for the last 200 miles. As plannedbefore the race, they met at the finish and crossed together. In the end , they both made it, but Robbins rode the last 30 miles with a severely lacerated hand aftera fall inthe silt. All vehicles in the Trophy Truck classwere equipped with a GPS. Next year, to make it safer,every entry will have one. ilVWWcyci new co CY CLE N EW S • DECEMBER 15,2004 29