SHERIFF'S TEAM - 2007 Dirt Rider 24 Hour

The Los Angeles Sheriff's Deputies Motorsports Team got an invite to this year's Dirt Rider 24 Hour Torture Test, and they showed up with a Montclair Yamaha WR250F decked out in the black and white of a cop bike. The team consisted of Eric Parra, Jeff Tesdahl, Daryl Peacock, Dan Peacock, Chris Cadman, Lyle Raymond, and Mike Duval, with Deputy Matt Brady handling team manager duties. Matt's a road racer, so we don't blame him for not riding a loop. He did get to goof off all day and night in the custom golf cart that was - you guessed it - decked out like a cop car.

The Sheriff's team was probably the best-organized group at the event. They flew in Assistant Sheriff Doyle Campbell in a helicopter to start the first bikes just after the Sheriff's massive Air 5 Sky King rescue helicopter did a fly-by over the pits. The Sky King stuck around - and good thing. It came in handy when a rider injured himself that day.

The Sheriff's team was the first bike out onto the course, with Deputy Eric Parra at the controls. Each pit stop/bike exchange went smoothly and the little WR required almost no maintenance and won plenty of cop fans along the way. Several riders were considering buying a 250F after having such a good time on the team bike.

I decided to ride a loop with the Sheriff's team shortly after it started raining, and a few hours after the sun had set. I wanted to do a loop in the rain and in the dark, and also wanted to ride with the cops. I rode sweep for Eric Parra as we headed out onto the loop at 22:10 - that's 10:10 pm for slackers like you and me.

I knew from the very start that the rain had made the trail way slicker than anything I'd every ridden on before, and that Eric Parra was going to be a lot faster than me throughout the loop. I went into survival mode even before the pits were out of sight. Eric had to stop and wait for me several times as I skated and slid my way around the trail. I knew Eric was riding for a team, and I started to feel guilty for slowing him down. At about the third time he had to stop for me I told him to go ahead with out me, that I knew the course and would be fine.

Eric told me that we were partners on this loop, and that I was partnered with a cop. "And cops don't leave their partners." It may not sound too dramatic here reading about it in a web article, but at the time it was sure nice to hear. If only for this one loop, I had a partner that wasn't going to let me feed the mountain lions.

Some people say a lot of bad things about cops, but these guys have something special that most of us don't understand. I got a glimpse of it that night. These guys are on a team. Not a race team that changes riders and managers every couple of seasons, these guys are in a lifelong team that means something to all of them.