Hope you all enjoy this:
Tecate/SCORE Baja 1000, November 20, 2009
Robby Bell:
The 42nd running of the Baja 1000 was again a loop race, starting and finishing in Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico. This year’s race course was one of the toughest yet as the quantity and quality of the pre-runner trucks, cars and bikes have lead to deeper whoops, choppier straight-aways and more rocks showing there ugly heads. The new-era Baja races offer less spreading as land owners are becoming increasingly more protective of their property. I feel it’s for the benefit of the race as gone are the days of controversy over who took what line and it makes for more honest competition.
Bruce Penhall came to me a couple months ago and said he wanted to win the Baja 1000, the biggest desert race in North America and we put together an effort that I was very confident in; our team consisted of me, Destry Abbott, Steve Hengeveld, Ryan Penhall and his brother Conner. With the JCR Honda team, made up of Kendall Norman, Timmy Weigand and Quinn Cody, being the main competition, I felt speed for speed we matched up really well. Having ridden for Johnny Campbell and Honda the previous four years I knew exactly how tough their program is to beat; they have eleven years experience winning in Baja, the pits are flawless, the bike is proven and the riders are quality. Our effort had great riders, but the pits, and especially the bike, were as yet unproven; it turned out, however, that both would prove to be top quality the whole race long.
The start line always has a cluster of people, little kids asking for autographs, guys wanting a last minute picture and media personnel asking the standard “are you ready?” start line question. I was fifth off the line and my goal was to be in the lead within the first twenty miles; Kendall started for the JCR team six bikes behind me so the sooner I could get into the lead the more time I was going to pull. The green flag waved and I was off. I had a great feeling on the bike, a confident feeling, and I passed into fourth less than three miles off the line tucked in doing ninety eight mile an hour. Just a couple miles further and I had caught up to third place, he looked back and waved me by and I set out for the two leaders. With a 6:30 start time the sun is always an annoyance in the morning as the course runs directly into it at times, add in some blinding dust and the threat of crashing or hitting something you don’t see is a real one. I played it smart through a silty section and as I came out I was right on the back of the second bike; I throttled by and could see the leader just in front. I followed him up a hill and at the top of it there was a left hander onto a road, this is where pre-running shows its importance. Just before the left hander some locals had switched the course markings and routed up a silty hill and then back onto the race course, the lead bike took that line but I took the original marked route which got me out of the dust and as he came back onto the course I was able to fly by; eleven miles into the Baja 1000 I was in the lead. From there I felt fantastic, I was keeping up my momentum, hitting the right lines, the best I’ve ever felt in Baja; and I know he bled Honda red, but something told me Bruce Ogilvie was smiling down on me for those first one hundred miles. I came into pit two and handed the bike off to Destry, who would ride the next one hundred miles to pit four, sticking around to see that I had pulled over five minutes on our competition; I had a feeling it was going to be a great day.
Destry had to navigate over the tight and rocky “summit” and then down a fast desert section into Borrego and he rode flawlessly, pulling another three plus minutes on the JCR bike. From there he gave the bike to Ryan Penhall for another hundred mile section down Morelia Road and through all twenty six miles of Matomi wash, unfortunately he was up against Quinn who I feel knows that wash better than anyone. With legal lines all over the place through that section I had a feeling Quinn’s experience might best Ryan’s speed and it proved true as when Ryan got to me at pit six we had just a minute and a half physical lead. I would ride the next one hundred fourteen miles up Old Puertocitos Road, through San Felipe, back through Borrego and San Matias, getting off the bike at the turn-off to Mike’s Sky Ranch. I had two goals as I mounted the bike: stretch back away and give Destry a perfect machine. I couldn’t believe how well our KX450 worked in the rocks; I consider the first fifteen miles of Old Puertocitos Road to be the rockiest and scariest section in Baja to go fast and it was in those first fifteen miles that I pulled almost four minutes on the Honda and by the time I got to San Felipe I had stretched it out further to almost six minutes physically. The next thirty miles are the most physically demanding as it consists of non-stop three to five foot deep car whoops and my back was feeling pretty toasty already. I kept pushing forward through the pain and kept saying, “…one more whoop, one more whoop!” The bike handled all of the whoops extremely well and I came through Borrego with around an eight minutes physical lead. From there it was just ten more miles of whoops, a fun sand wash, three miles of a fast, hard pack road and two miles on the highway before I would hand the bike to Destry once again. I made it through the whoops, worked the sand wash well and had only a half mile left on the hard pack road before getting on the highway when disaster struck. I was feeling the effects of how hard I pushed myself through the whoops, which may have played into my concentration dropping slightly, and I hit a hidden rock in the shadows that kicked the back end out sideways. I thought at first I could save it but when then the back end caught I didn’t have enough strength left to bring it back and it whipped back again and sent me off cart wheeling. I got back up really quickly but the damage was done as I had bent the right side of the bars down to what now resembled a speedway bike, and smashed the muffler completely flat like a pancake, which would lead to it blowing a hole out the side. I got the bike to Destry and after taking a bit of time in the pit to once over the bike he decided to ride with the bars rather than take the time to change them. I have to say I was really impressed with his ride over the next thirty nine miles. When he left me at pit nine our lead was back down to about four and a half minutes and after taking a minute to change the pipe at pit ten he still had five minutes on the JCR bike in second; so with horribly bent bars and an underperforming motor thanks to my job on the pipe he still pulled a minute and a half. From there Connor was scheduled to get on the bike and ride the next forty two miles down to pit eleven; I had every intention to keep Destry on the bike for this section with the way he was riding as I felt he could pull even more time, but the decision was made to put Conner on. Conner did ride well considering the condition of the bike, but Timmy was able to put time into him and by the time he got to pit eleven our lead was down to two minutes. Our pit crew did a stellar job hanging the lights, changing front and rear wheels and the air filter and actually pulled time on Honda, which did the exact same maintainence, by over thirty seconds. From here darkness was falling and it was in Steve’s capable hands for the final one hundred seventy two miles. Kendall got on at the same pit and it was quite a fight to the finish with both riders doing all they could to pull time. I consider Steve to be the fastest night rider in Baja, but I feel the bent bars hindered him quite a bit, not taking anything away from Kendall who really impressed me with his pace at night. Steve crossed the finish line first, but less than minute later Kendall came through and since he started three minutes behind us it meant they won the race by less than two minutes.
All in all I couldn’t be happier with the way the bike worked, it held up really well as Phil did a great job prepping it, and each rider put in every ounce of effort they could. It was one of the closest races in a long time, but that just makes it all the more disappointing to come so close and see it slip away. I have to admit that had I not crashed there is no doubt in my mind we would have won that race; I failed to give the next rider a perfect bike, which is always my ultimate goal in Baja and this crash is going to haunt me for quite some time. The pit crews did an incredible job and to rival the Honda pits which have had such a solid program for years was really impressive. I want to thank the ridres: Steve, Destry, Ryan and Conner for putting everything they had into the race, Bruce Penhall for giving us the opportunity to go down and race, Bob, Phil and everyone at Precision Concepts for all the effort they put into building a great bike, and everyone who helped us in the pits for making them the best down there. I feel that now I have some unfinished business in Baja and I hope to be back next year to put an exclamation mark on it.
Robby Bell
