Cycle News

INTERVIEW KURT CASELLI FOUNDATION RIDER SAFETY ADVISOR AND DAKAR RALLY AMBASSADOR P84 having transfers and special tests. It's also relatively inexpensive for any American to go down and ride the Baja Rally." KURT CASELLI FOUNDATION IN BAJA His role within ASO together with his passion for racing align to give Cody great insight for his most important job— Rider Safety Advisor for the Kurt Caselli Foundation. It's what keeps him busi- est, and while the Foundation is still very young, their accomplishments are already impressive, namely within SCORE Baja racing. Many of the improvements to the series came directly from ASO proce- dures, but many also come from Cody's own innovative ideas. "We've done quite a bit with SCORE," Cody said. "We've been working really hard on getting the tracking devices on all the bikes. We're also working with SCORE on their response time to be able to respond to an accident and get people evacuated. We're also doing simple stuff, like passing out flashing red lights to all the riders. Every rider has a visibility light on their back so when the trucks catch the slower riders they're visible; if some- one crashes at night they can be seen. There's also the basic stuff like the riders' briefings and telling the racers the dangers because there's still new riders down there that don't know." The SCORE Baja 1000 is fast ap- proaching, and as Cody asserts, it is a tough time for everyone involved in the Foundation. But it is also an important time, and the Foundation continues to learn and evolve its safety efforts each year. KCF funded a helicopter in the 2014 Baja 1000, but as Cody explains, it was not deemed the best use of the Foundation's resources. "We're not going to do our helicop- idea to race Baja, or a rally somewhere else in the world." The Baja Rally, a relatively new event in only its third year in 2015, serves as a good step toward gaining North American interest in rally racing. It's one of the select events Cody himself still races. "The Baja Rally is a great event," Cody said. "It's really neat, low pressure, fun event and it really gets people into rally, like learning what it takes to navigate with the road book and the whole format of As part of his responsibili- ties with the Kurt Caselli Foundation, Quinn administers the baseline King-Devick test to Youth National Hare and Hound racer Jakub Alvarez. PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARK KARIYA The "Tracker Packer" holster for the SPOT device, which Cody helped develop with Giant Loop, is one of the many safety features KCF has introduced to SCORE racing.

• Cover