VOL. 55 ISSUE 22 JUNE 5, 2018 P41
smooth, I didn't push it, I rode
within my ability and it turned out
good. I gave it to Mark and he
rode great."
Their ride wasn't entirely
trouble-free, though, Morgan re-
vealing, "Jones went up the [Pa-
cific] coast [side of the course]
and it was just about perfect
until he got before Santo Tomas
and the forks came apart inside.
We were riding on just springs
because all the oil came out of it
on [our] boots. He gave the bike
back to me near Ojos [Negros]
and he was like, 'Don't let the
front wheel leave the ground!'
because it felt like it was going to
break; it felt like the front wheel
was going to come out the bot-
tom." Despite that handicap,
they made it to the finish intact
and in first.
Fourth off the line, the defend-
ing series champion Max Eddy
Jr., Shane Esposito and Tyler
Lynn reportedly made it tough
on themselves, sliding back a
spot early then playing catch-
up to finish second in 12:29:54
aboard their Contractor Nation/
Chris Haines Motorcycle Adven-
ture Co./Pro Circuit CRF450X.
A regular in the Kenda/SRT
AMA Hare & Hound National
Championship Series, teenager
Lynn made his SCORE debut
after getting the call from Eddy
and Esposito who wanted to add
a third rider for the 500, and he
performed solidly in a different
type of desert racing.
The fifth bike off the line be-
longed to Skyler Howes, Garrett
Poucher and Michel Valenzuela,
but after steadily hammering
away, they ended up third in
13:13:15 aboard their Garrett
Off-Road Racing/STI/Fly Racing
CRF450X, the team's first-ever
SCORE podium.
Howes took stints in both the
dark (just after start to mile 120)
and during the day (270 to 405),
saying that the section from the
Mike's Sky Rancho cutoff to
Colonet on the Pacific side, "…
was brutal because the quads
and the sportsman bikes got to
cut off that whole northeastern
loop [thus reducing their total
miles to about 473]. I think there
were four or five quads ahead of
me and a sportsman bike. Only
one of the quad riders looked
back and pulled over. Every
single other quad looked back
and tried to race me, and it was
super, super deep in silt. I ended
up going down in a silt bed. It
was gnarly and kind of zapped
me and got me super-frustrated
going across the crossover,
but I actually made up a ton
of time, apparently. I got back
around 4X [the Santiago Creel/
Ray Dal Soglio/Braxton Gallian/
Tyler Lynn was
recruited to the Max
Eddy Jr. and Shane
Esposito team and
helped them to a
second-place finish.
