VOL. 54 ISSUE 22 JUNE 6, 2017 P45
The Ox Motorsports Honda
trio of Derek Ausserbauer/Ray
Dal Soglio/Nic Garvin rebound-
ed from a disappointing San
Felipe 250 to claim second in
11:30:26, while Ox Motorsports
teammates and San Felipe win-
ners Ryan Penhall/Jason Potter/
Mark Samuels settled for third in
11:35:29.
"Justin's the one who made a
lot of time," Esposito said. "We
started seventh; I got us into
physically first around mile 60
and the 3X [of Ausserbauer/
Dal Soglio/Garvin] was staying
pretty close."
Though not as hot as last
year's scorcher, it was still over
100 degrees during the San
Felipe loop, where even Morgan
had to take a break after running
out of water in his drink system
early.
"I was struggling for a minute
there, I really was," he admit-
ted. "I slowed down for a little
bit and regrouped and I got to a
pit and they're like, 'You've got a
big lead,' so I was like, 'Oh thank
you! Just put as much cold water
on me as you can.'"
In fact, Esposito (whose 43rd
birthday fell on race day) took
part of Morgan's section in order
for Morgan to take a quick break
and be better prepared for his
final stint from mile 410 at the
Goat Trail to 480 at Ojos Negros
where the course crossed High-
way 3, with "Espo" taking their
Arredondo Racing/Dunlop/Lu-
cas Oil-backed bike from there
to the finish.
"We've obviously got the
speed," Morgan said. "We've
got good equipment. We've had
a couple freak mechanical fail-
ures in the past, like the solder
blowing off at the 1000 last year
while we were leading, killing our
lights. But we just keep going."
Dal Soglio said, "There were
about four bikes within 10 min-
utes of each other at the halfway
point so it was definitely a battle.
At the halfway point we were
about a minute off the leader,
then 1X was not too far behind
that and I believe 100X was in
there."
The Rider of Record on the 3X
Monster Energy/Lava Propane/
MSR CRF450X added, "Nic
got on the bike and had some
problems with his goggles at first
and got passed by a few people,
but as soon as he settled into his
groove Nic Garvin just started
ripping! He got us back to
second; at one point we were
only seven seconds behind the
leader until he blew a corner,
but he put down a little over 200
miles straight. He's just a beast,
man! I've got to give him a lot of
credit."
That the 10X trio of Kadin
Guard/Tommy Harris/Skyler
Howes got back to Ensenada
was impressive but to physically
finish third on their Lake Powell
Offroad Association/Fastheads/
Monarch Honda CRF450X was
even more so after Howes took
a digger early.
The Morgan Crawford/
Justin Morrow/Kevin
Murphy/Jim O'Neal
team held on to win Pro
Moto Limited (under
400cc) and earn fifth
overall bike.
