Campbell/Hengeveld battle through dust at Vegas to Reno

Best in the Desert Silver State Series
Round 5: TSCO Vegas to Reno; Reno, Nevada
June 27, 2003

The luck of the draw worked against the Honda Red Riders this weekend as
Team Honda's XR650R-mounted duo of Johnny Campbell and Steve Hengeveld drew
the last starting position in the Open Pro class, a significant handicap
they overcame to achieve a heroic second-place finish.

Race-watchers know the start is everything in short races such as
Supercross, but a good start can prove to be just as crucial in
long-distance desert racing, especially when a legion of riders in front of
you throws up a near-impenetrable wall of dust. Nonetheless, as Campbell
and Hengeveld entered the fray in the 511-mile-long TSCO Vegas to Reno,
they patiently worked their way up through the pack, picking off the
opposition when opportunities arose instead of charging blind into the
choking, whiteout conditions. Surging toward the front of the pack, the
Honda duo ran out of time as they reached the finish line with only one
team remaining to be passed.

Hengeveld, who rode the starting section, said, "It was the same old
thing-no wind this morning, and they ran us through a bunch of canyons
where dust hangs in the air for a long time, so I just got held up. I
wasn't able to make the passes I wanted to make as quickly as I wanted to
make them."

Compounding the problem was the decision to start the bikes at 30-second
intervals instead of using the more typical one minute's worth of
separation. "In this type of racing, it's so dusty and so fast you can't
take too many chances in the dust or eventually your number's going to come
up and you're going to fall down," Campbell explained. "You have to learn
patience or else you get hurt."

He added, "As soon as I got on (at pit two, 58 miles into the race), it got
pretty tight immediately, and we went up into the mountains. It was real
tight and twisty, with dust hanging in the air once again. I knew I just
needed to stay with everybody and not make any mistakes because it was real
easy to blow turns up there. The course was so super-tight it's hard to
believe we achieved such a high average speed (more than 60 miles per hour
for the entire race) when we had so many sections that required first and
second gear! Once we dropped back on the flats, our bike's so much faster
we would gain some ground back, but then it kind of tightened up again and
we'd lose a little bit. We got spread out on the start and we stayed
between six and seven minutes down almost the whole way with the lead bike.
We'd pull a little, lose a little, pull a little."

Unofficially, Campbell and Hengeveld finished three minutes, 13 seconds
behind the winning team, marking the first time since the opening round of
the series that they've come away with anything other than first-place
points. Still, the hard-won second-place finish keeps them well in
contention for the series championship with two events remaining.

In addition, young Honda charger Christopher Blais cracked the top five
finishers with his fourth overall in winning the Four-stroke Pro class on
his XR650R. As per usual practice with Blais in Nevada races, he rode the
entire distance himself, eschewing the need for a teammate-a genuine
iron-man achievement!

Vegas to Reno overall results:
1. Destry Abbott/Shane Esposito-Kawasaki KX500-8:12:36
2. Johnny Campbell/Steve Hengeveld-Honda XR650R-8:15:49
3. Brian Brown/David Pearson-Kawasaki KX500-8:34:26
4. Christopher Blais-Honda XR650R-8:53:26
5. Daryl Folks/Elmer Symons-KTM 450 MXC-9:04:07