Steve Hengeveld (shown) and Johnny Campbell were physically second all day, but won the race by 42 seconds on elapsed time.
Judging by the starting order of the TSCO Vegas to Reno marathon, the race promised to be an epic battle between Honda and KTM. Leading off the event, which served as round five of Best in the Desert's Silver State Series, was Honda's Kendall Norman, riding a Precision Concepts/Dunlop/HRCA-backed XR650R with fellow off-road rookie Robby Bell. One minute behind them off the start would be the Red Bull KTM 595 LC4 of Quinn Cody and Kellon Walch, with the 620cc version another minute back in third and piloted by Chris Blais and Andy Grider. Fourth off the line would be the defending race and series champs, Johnny Campbell and Steve Hengeveld, the so-called Honda "A" team.
In other words, the Hondas had themselves a KTM sandwich, though it could work against them. After all, the two KTMs could become, however inadvertently, a rolling road block and stymie the "A" team, perhaps forcing the presumably faster of the XR-mounted pairs into making a mistake due to frustration. Another scenario would have one or both of the orange machines get around the less-experienced Honda team and then maintain their advantage to the finish for the win.
Robby Bell (shown) and Kendall Norman gave their Honda teammates a good run for their money.
As Norman said, "On the line I didn't know exactly how that was going to work out. I just knew I needed to go."
And go he did. In the end, the Hondas would fight among themselves, making the longest off-road race in the country their private turf war.
Norman started off by sprinting to a massive lead immediately, surprising everyone including his partner. Bell summarized the race by saying, "Kendall started out just on fire and pulled time all the way to pit four. I got on and I pulled time to five. Steve [Hengeveld] got back on [for their team], and from there, basically from five Steve started inching back up on us. That's when it became a race again."
According to Honda Off-road Coordinator Bruce Ogilvie's time charts, Bell and Norman led by a seemingly insurmountable seven minutes and 20 seconds at pit five, 154 miles into the 495-mile race. But after that, Campbell and Hengeveld chipped away little by little, sometimes losing a bit of time followed by swallowing up larger chunks of the deficit due mainly to experience. As Campbell noted about one particular section, "I guess I've been riding over it for 10 years now. I always do really well over it, and today I put it down. I probably rode my fastest over that than I've ever gone before [though] I still only made up less than a minute on Robby; he was going really good."
KTM built fairly radical side-drop tanks as one of the changes to its two factory bikes after the Nevada 1000.
But with Campbell and Hengeveld both on fire in the latter stages, they managed to chip away at the margin enjoyed by Bell and Norman, a margin that shrank to six minutes, then five and then four. That put Campbell and Hengeveld right where they needed to be, and when Hengeveld got on the bike for the final 75 miles, he got the team under the four minutes needed to be in the lead on elapsed time at last. After Norman stopped at the finish line, quick calculations showed their elapsed time to be 8:24:44. When Hengeveld rolled up a couple minutes later, the calculators read their time as 8:24:02, giving Campbell and Hengeveld the win by a scant 42 seconds.
Team Honda poses for a group shot after going 1-2, the "A" team eking out the win by 42 seconds.
As for the KTMs, their rides were fraught with frustration. Blais and Grider's machine overheated and died due to a crushed exhaust pipe after a crash in the early stages, so they retired by pit four. Cody and Walch wisely decided to back it down a bit and not suffer the same fate, so they reached the finish but in fourth overall in an unofficial 9:03:17. The winning Four-stroke Pro team of Mike Childress and Chuck Dempsey rounded out the top three on their XR's Only XR650R in 9:00:54.
"It's a bummer; I really wanted to win this one, and I thought we had a good chance, but it happens," Norman lamented. "I guess I have nothing to complain about. I'm pretty happy, actually. I made no mistakes and rode strong--had a good run."
As Campbell said, "The boys did really good. They rode a strong race; they rode the race pace, a first-overall pace all day. I was pretty proud of them. They made me dig pretty deep; I haven't dug that deep in a while. It was pretty fun."
Vegas to Reno Unofficial Results
1. Johnny Campbell/Steve Hengeveld, Honda XR650R, 8:24:02
2. Robby Bell/Kendall Norman, Honda XR650R, 8:24:44
3. Mike Childress/Chuck Dempsey, Honda XR650R, 9:00:54
4. Quinn Cody/Kellon Walch, KTM 595 LC4, 9:03:17
5. Mac Stewart/Jason Trubey, Honda XR650R, 9:34:56
6. Max Eddy, Jr./Dal Shemp, KTM 525 M/XC, 9:35:56
7. Michael Berenbak/Adam Thissen, Honda CR500R, 9:47:25
8. Elmer Symons, KTM 250 XC, 9:48:19
9. Charlie Barney/Steve Pitts, ATK 605, 9:55:39
10. Steve Cole/Dunn Voyer, Honda XR650R, 9:56:53