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Round 5 OFF-ROAD efending champions johnny Campbell and Steve Hengeveld came from behind to win the TSCO Vegas-to-Reno desert race and in, doing so, led a Honda sweep of the first three positions overall. The 495mile competition served as round fiv.e o!._ the Best In The Desert Silver State Series. The race started in johnnie, Nevada, north of Pahrump, and finished east of Reno, in Dayton. At first, it appeared that Vegas-to-Reno would serve as a showdown between Honda's effort, with the proven XR650R, and that of the rival Red Bull KTM squad, which fielded a pair of LC4 rally-based machines. Kendall Norman, of Honda's B team, was the first to get the green light at 6:30 a.m., followed at one-minute intervals by Red Bull KTM Dakar Rallye racers Kellon Walch, on a 595, and Chris Blais, on a 620, and then Hengeveld. But Hengeveld would qUickly sweep past the pair of orange machines, at which point it became an intrasquad duel between the Precision Concepts/ HRCA/Dunlop-sponsored Hondas, with Robby Bell and Norman the first to cross the finish line. However, when Campbell and Hengeveld took the checkered flag a couple of minutes later, quick calculations showed that they had the overall and Open Pro victories on elapsed time, with the defending race and series champs D ~ Best In The Desert Silver State Series clocking eight hours, 24 minutes and two seconds. Bell and Norman were just 42 seconds slower, while privateers Mike Childress and Chuck Dempsey turned in the third-fastest time - 9:00:54 - on their XRs Only/McCanzies/O'Neal XR6S0R, giving them third overall plus the FourStroke Pro win. Racing for the first time in Vegas-toReno, Norman did the only thing he could when he got the signal to start - the first in a field that consisted of 75 motorcycles, 30 ATVs and 77 trucks. The fact that two KTMs were right behind, with the second factory Honda starting fourth, added to the pressure. "On the line, I didn't exactly know how that was going to work out," Norman said. "I just knew I needed to go." And that he did. "Kendall started out just on fire," his partner Bell said. "He pulled time all the way to pit four, then I got on and pulled time to five." Notes that Honda off-road coordinator Bruce Ogilvie recorded confirmed that Norman gapped the field immediateIy, increasing his lead to over 3 1/2 minutes by the time they reached pit one at mile 16. Part of that was due to Blais' crashing and setting the stage for an early exit; initial diagnosis of the problem pointed to the engine overheating due to crushed pipes restricting exhaust flow, but later examination indicated a possible electrical problem. At any rate, KTM's 52 OCTOBER 26, 2005 • CYCLE NEWS hopes fell solely on Quinn Cody and Walch less than 100 miles into the race. So the race then turned into Bell & Norman running for their lives, while Campbell & Hengeveld tried to chase them down. At times, it seemed to be in vain. At pit five, where Campbell turned the bike back to Hengeveld, and Bell simply got fuel, the margin between the two bikes was 7:20, with the Cody & Walch KTM another 4:30 back. "Once I got around the KTMs, then it was like, 'Okay, now I can start to get into a groove,''' Hengeveld said. "You didn't have to woIT)' about the dust hanging; Icould see everything, so that was pretty good." The margin shrank to 6:59 at pit six, then 5:34 at pit seven. Norman was able to pull away from Hengeveld in the run to pit eight and stretch their lead to 6:04, but at nine, where both teams made a rider change, it was down to 5: 16. That's when the tide really started to change for the veterans. "Both Robby and I are rookies at this race," Norman said. "Not anymore, though. johnny and I were sitting at pit nine, waiting to get on the bike, and I was talking to him for a second. He kind of like had that game face on, and he was like, 'I'm just thinking of all the times I've been up over this pass, just trying to remember it. I think I've been on it every year since '94 at least once.", Indeed, that experience may have made the difference, as the margin plummeted to 4:31 at pit 10. "I was looking forward to the section from pit nine to 10, because at the Nevada 1000, I was the fastest through that section," Bell said, "and so I thought I'd nailed it. I hit all my lines perfect, and johnny pulled 45 seconds on me! He must've just been pinned! But he said it was the best he's ever ridden that section in his life, so it's not bad but... It was just amazing: I couldn't believe he pulled me because I felt so good." "I guess I've been riding over that one pass for I0 years now, and I always do really well over it," Campbell said. "Today, I put it down. I probably rode my fastest over that section than I'd ever gone before. I still only made up less than a minute on Robby." But it did get them closer, and at pit I I, the difference was down to 4:07. Bell widened the gap to 4:20 at pit 12, but Campbell came right back in the next section, slicing it to 3:57 at pit 13. At that point, both teams made their final rider change, making it a sprint to the finish between Norman and Hengeveld, with one more pit in between. At pit 14, Hengeveld cut that to 3:03, giving him 45 miles to make up another four seconds and secure the overall victory, which he did handily. After finishing, Campbell had nothing but praise for his two younger rivals. "The boys did really good," Campbell said. "They rode a strong race. They rode the race pace - a first-overall pace - all day. I was pretty proud of them. It made me dig pretty deep; I haven't dug that deep in a while." For Campbell, this marked his third Vegas-to-Reno victory and his second with Hengeveld.