IN
THE
WIND
P22
SAMUELS, UDALL TOP SAN FELIPE 250
A
fter a close battle for most
of the first 200 miles of the
249.5-mile San Felipe 250, the
Ox Motorsports Honda duo of
Mark Samuels and Colton Udall
finally got some breathing room
when rival Roberto Villalobos
crashed the Monster Energy/
Bremen/THR Motorsports 4X
bike, separating his shoulder.
(He was able to get back up and
limp the bike to teammate Ryan
Penhall who took the bike in to
the finish second overall.)
When tracking data was re-
viewed afterward, the Samuels/
Udall team received 10 minutes
in penalties for missed Virtual
Check Points (VCPs), cutting
their winning margin down to just
over three minutes, 4:46:41 to
4:49:50, but it was much tighter
than that for much of the 30th
SCORE San Felipe 250, the
opening round of the SCORE
World Desert Championship.
"It's been a tight race all day,"
Samuels said. "I wasn't really
expecting it to be this close."
Udall added, "At race mile 146
when we changed [the rear] tire,
I got back on the bike (Samuels
having ridden from mile 30 to
there) and barely got in front of
[4X]. We were practically holding
hands going down the highway! I
was checking my [speedometer]
and we were going 58 and 59
miles per hour and just staying
with each other [in that speed
zone]. He had to peel off to pit
and that's the last time I saw him."
Though the oldest rider on the
Chris Haines Motorcycle Adven-
ture Company/Precision Con-
cepts/Dunlop CRF450X with
the 4X plate shared by Francisco
Arredondo, Justin Morgain,
Penhall and Villalobos, Shane
Esposito put in a solid ride in
his section to latch onto 1X.
"Time-wise, I don't know where
we were at, but we were physi-
cally third [behind 1X and 3X, the
second Ox Motorsports entry of
Ray Dal Soglio/Nic Garvin/Day-
mon Stokie]," he explained.
Fourth off the line, Colton Udall
(shown) and Mark Samuels spent
most of the day at the front of the
field, though they had a stiff challenge
for much of the first 200 miles.
