Team Honda's Steve Hengeveld
Team Honda's Johnny Campbell and Steve Hengeveld demonstrated that anyone who intends to steal their Best in the Desert's Silver State Series number one plate will have an extremely hard time. At the Golden West Cycles Parker 250 in Parker, Arizona, round one of the series, Campbell and Hengeveld took the lead after about 30 miles and simply rode away from the pack for their first-ever victory at Parker. They completed the three-lap, 232-mile race in four hours, 10 minutes and seven seconds.
"It's nice to win the first race of the series," Campbell said. "We're just continuing our win streak wherever we go. We'll just keep doing it and keep doing whatever we needs to be done."
Clint Braun and Matt Gosnell traded their KTM 250 for a 525 MXC—even though it meant not being able to run the number one plate they earned for winning the 250cc Pro championship—and charged to second overall, first Four-stroke Pros, in 4:24:06, topping defending Four-stroke Pro number one Mike Childress/Chuck Dempsey, who finished in 4:28:12 on their XR650R.
Open Pro teams Quinn Cody/Andy Grider on a KTM 525 MXC and Taber Murphy/Brian Pinard on an XR650R rounded out the top five overall.
Robby Bell and Kendall Norman made their debut on a second American Honda-backed XR650R, leading the early going, but a Norman crash damaged the bike extensively and sent him to the hospital to get checked out. After much down time to repair the machine, Bell rode the rest of the race, but he too suffered a big get-off and limped in to the finish 17th overall, fourth Open Pro.
Click to see an interview with Baja winner and Honda newcomer Kendall Norman.