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rocky sand wash right away," Norman's
partner, Bell, said. "Steve caught up to me
right there - that was right out of pit four,
right at the end of the rock wash. Right after
that was a silt bed, so he just blitzed it to get
by me, because he knew it was there. As
soon as he got by me, it was just fog. Icouldn't see a thing, so I dropped back there.
Then in his dust, he slowly started pulling
away from me. I tried to keep him in sight
as long as possible, but I'm still getting used
to how to read the terrain, read the arrows,
not knowing where I'm going. But it was a
fun day."
Hengeveld su rprised many when he
chose to stay on the bike instead of handing
off to Campbell at pit four. It was, however,
an option they'd both considered earlier.
"We were planning on changing at pit
four," Hengeveld said after day one, "but
we also discussed that if everything was
going good for me and I wanted to stay on,
then I'd just stay on the bike. That way, I
was already warmed up.
"We didn't have to pass them physically,
but I knew that once I did pass them, I could
break away from his dust and start putting
time on the rest of the field," Hengeveld
added. "I think right now we have an almost
six-minute overall lead on second. We're
pretty happy with that."
But he wasn't happy later that evening
when, at the riders' meeting, he was
informed that he'd been assessed a fIVeminute penalty for getting on the throttle
too soon after one of the paved road crossing. This reduced his and Campbell's lead
over Childress to just under two minutes.
Bell and Norman held down third.
Still, that didn't compare to the frustration felt at the Red Bull KrM camp. Chris
Blais and Andy Grider also got hit with the
same penalty for the same infraction at the
same place. Instead of finishing the day second fastest, which would've earned them
the second starting position for day two, the
Michelin/MotorexlPrecision Concepts 690
LC4 Rally-mounted duo dropped to sixth
for the day.
The second Red Bull KrM pair of Marc
Coma, the Spanish rally star that was making his U.S. debut, and Kellon Walch were
fifth aboard their 525 MXC. They had run
out of fuel in a 62-mile section, the longest
of the race, and got passed by two bikes.
Ironically, the same thing happened a few
miles later to Team Green's David Pearson
on the Pro Circuit/Dunlop/Moose KX500
that he shared with Shane Esposito, though
it cost him very little time since he was able
to refuel on the fly, via a bottle a fuel that he
carried with him. They would claim fourth
for the day.
Day two, Hengeveld was first off the line
at 5:30 a.m. With 331 miles on the schedule, it would be the longest day of the race.
Starting and finishing in Tonopah (same as
the final three days), this loop made a large
clockwise circuit to the northwest of town.
This time, Campbell got a tum at the
controls, and the N I machine again ran
away from the field, finishing in 5:55: 19
despite having an unplanned
wheel change due to a flat
rear tire.
Childress again soloed
strongly to second in 5:57:54.
"I just kind of got into a
pace that I knew at the end,
where Steve and I would still
be kind of close, but no one
else would corne up and pass
me," Childress said after day
two. "In four of the sections,
Steve was fastest. In four of
the sections I was fastest, and
in four of the sections Kendall
was fastest. We're all right
there in the ballpark, so it's
just going to come down to
who doesn't have any mistakes, I think."
Bell and Norman again
rode cleanly to finish third in a
time of 6:00:36. They were
followed by EspOSito and
Pearson's KX, which made it
to the finish despite having
broken engine mounts. Blais and Grider finished behind the Coma,lWalch duo, with
Open Experts Nick Fain and Josh Wilson
separating the factory KrMs on their 10year-old
Sierra
Roofing/D IH/Moose
CRSooR.
Day three consisted of 323 miles in a
counterclockwise loop southwest of
Tonopah. Campbell and Hengeveld again
started and finished in front, adding another
couple minutes to their cumulative lead
with a 5:29:33. Even a chunked tire and an
unplanned wheel change didn't slow them
down much.
Esposito and Pearson took advantage of
a mistake by Norman in the final miles to
steal second for the day, followed by the
Blais/Grider and BelVNorman teams.
"I felt good," Norman said. "I was riding
good. I got confused with the markers that
the wind had blown, but I looked up the
road and there was Espo [Esposito], so I
hopped in behind him."
As for Childress, he discovered that the
clutch he'd replaced at the end of day two
was faulty.
"There was nothing wrong with it, we
were just doing a little [preventative] maintenance," he said. "So I leave the start line,
and it starts slipping right off the bat. I'm
like, 'Oh man!' I kind of just took it easy to
make sure it made it to pit one so I could
change it. I got to pit one, and the thing was
just smoking hot! Nobody could touch it."
After finally replacing the clutch,
Childress had his work cut out for him and
managed to get back to sixth for the day,
dropping him in the overall standings.
With a relatively short I 19-mile sprint on
the final day, no one expected much to
change - and things didn't for the leaders
and eventual winners, Campbell and
Hengeveld.
The same, however, could not be said
for several of the other teams. Esposito and
Pearson couldn't get their bike to start,
Brief'Y···
The McMillin Nevada 1000 marked the first
time in a Pro class for Paul Emerson and
Gil Grieve, and the duo from Nevada rode
steadily, avoiding major mishaps and ending
up with the 40-Plus-c1ass win. Grieve
admitted, "We weren't geared tall enough.
We were a strong 10 miles an hour slow on
the fast stuff, but we could make it up when
we got up into the twisties. Anything that
would slow the speed averages down we
were able to gain ground on."
For 18-year-old Ryan Hanna, the McMillin
Nevada 1000 was his first-ever race, and he
entered the Ironman Amateur class on his
well-used KrM 625. Buoyed by a third-inclass finish on day one, he had an unpleasant day two, crashing and taking a DNF. So
what caused the crash? He said that he was
overcome by gas fumes from his own fuel
tank and passed out while riding.
which advanced Blais and Grider to second.
But en route to the first pit, Grider hit a
square-edged hole, swapped, hit a rock and
went down hard at speed. He was able to
remount and get the bike to Blais, who'd
forge on to finish fifth for the day, but Grider
went to the hospital to get treated for a lacerated elbow, a tweaked knee and shoulder,
and other assorted injuries.
Their Red Bull KrM teammates, Coma
and Walch, had similar luck when their bike
quit before the first pit, and Walch was
unable to get it restarted. Of course, once
they got it back to the main pits, the bike
fired right up, though it did emanate a loud,
ominous rattle from the bottom end.
This put the BeIVNorman duo into second, despite the Childress bike passing
them. On adjusted time, they knew they
had room to spare.
"Mikey caught us, which was fine,
because he had a reason to push to try to
catch the KrM," Bell said. '1\11 we wanted to
do was finish second overall, and we were
stoked!"
Childress did indeed push hard enough
to catch the KrM in the week's standings,
finishing second for the day, even after hitting a rock and breaking his foot a couple
miles from the finish.
"It is broken," he said. "It's swollen up
big and nasty, but we're on summer break
now, so I'll be all right. We'll make it for the
next one, no big deal."
CN
NEVADA 1000
TONOMH, NEVADA
REsull5: JUlY 7-10, 2005 (ROUND 4)
OVERAll: I. jo/vvly CampbeIIS<""" ~ (Hon)
17:27:00; 2- Robby IleIJK