Cycle News

VOL. 53 ISSUE 46 NOVEMBER 22, 2016 P77 Other class winners included Reid Edwards/Kyle James/Benja- min Petter in Pro Moto 30 (riders over 30 years old), Bryan Camp- bell/Louie Franco/Jeff Kaplan/ Andy Kirker/Flipper Manchester/ Jim O'Neal/(Rider of Record) Mark Winkelman in Pro Moto 50, Dennis Greene/Robert Hanson/ Mark Hawley/Robert Koch/Den- nis McLaughlin/John Marshall in Pro Moto 60 and Fernando Barbo- sa/Fernando Ferreyra/Alejandro Holguin/Alberto Ruiz in Sports- man Motorcycle. Though bikes traditionally beat the first four-wheeled vehicles in loop 1000 races, this year's course was so rough and treacherous that the marquee SCORE Trophy trucks dominated. In fact, the first six overall finishers were Trophy trucks, led by Rob McCachren and Jason Voss who completed the 854.5 miles in an astound- ing 17:12:57 for an average speed of 49.63 miles per hour. Udall's 1X time of 18:16:42 was near the limit after being pushed all day by the Arredondo 45X bike, so to be more than an hour faster than that almost defies belief. Colton Udall originally planned to solo the race because one of his life goals is to become the first man to overall the 1000 on a bike by himself. However, after pre-run- ning and seeing how the course deteriorated daily, he decided the team's championship was more important so he decided to have backup riders Justin Jones and Mark Samuels go ahead and join him. The next night is when he crashed and broke his collarbone. At that point, he and Samuels de- cided to move Daymon Stokie from the 3X team to the 1X team, then they added David Kamo as well, after a chance meeting. "It just kind of fell into place," Udall explained before the start of the race. "Mark went to breakfast on Wednesday and Rhiannon and David were at breakfast, too. He was like, 'Hey, if you want to ride,' and we were trying to piece some sections together with a different rider lineup. He said he wanted to ride and he took on 80 miles so it's super-cool!" When David Kamo arrived in Baja, he had no intention of racing; he was simply there to work for PCI Race Radios supporting custom- ers with last-minute needs. He didn't even have riding gear with him so when asked to ride for the eventual winners, he had to bor- row everything: "All Colton's gear including his small helmet," said Kamo. "It fits like a medium, but it's small for my fat head. I borrowed all his gear: boots, underwear, socks, everything! I actually pre- ran in the same set of socks I'm wearing right now. One set works great for everything!" So while two riders wore MSR jerseys with Udall on the back, only one was Colton. Kamo, by the way, kept that bor- rowed jersey and had his team- mates autograph it for a memento. You'd think that simply trying to get dressed two days after surgery to install a plate over your broken col- larbone would be insurmountable, but Colton Udall claimed other- wise. "For some reason, I think God's taking care of me this morn- ing and maybe the pain meds also, but I feel all right now," he said be- fore the race. "I'm not 100 percent, obviously, but my shoulder's not really aching that much." Among the first-time Baja racers was GNCC regular Jason Thom- as who joined Ben Debothe, Da- vid Fifer, Scott McIntosh, Justin Moore, Tony Wenck, Mike You- mans to claim sixth in Sportsman Motorcycle. The final team to finish was the fa- ther/son team of Shinji and Shi- nosuke "Shaun" Kazama, their time of 35:29:50 just over 30 min- utes shy of exceeding the 36-hour time limit to be counted as an of- ficial finisher. Shinji, the father, has reportedly accomplished a num- ber of feats such as visiting both North and South Poles as well as climbing Mt. Everest, which he didn't do on a motorcycle. Mark Winkelman, 58, of Texas has been a regular in SCORE rac- ing for several years and usually runs and rides on two teams. This year was no exception; he was rider of record on two teams and both won, one in Pro Moto Limited (449cc and under) on a Husky FE 350 and Pro Moto 50 on a CRF450X. Jim O'Neal, 70, was a member of both squads as well. Briefly...

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