Baja 500
June 3-5, 2011
Race Report
David Kamo, JCR Honda B Team
A week ago I was down in Baja, Mexico pre-running for the Baja 500. I started riding my section, called "The Summit" about a week before the race. Score had bladed out a new section over the summit, but ended up using the old summit course Wednesday before the race because the trucks had issues with the new section. I was super bummed when I found out, but nevertheless I was super excited to race the 500 for the first time.
My section was only 125 miles, but it was pretty technical compared to the other 300 miles. I put in about 750 miles of pre-running my section. Being new to Baja, I got to experience the amazing terrain, the local people, and being with the JCR Honda family made it easy for me to make the transition from Hare & Hound's to Baja.
When I was out pre-running my section, I had to make sure to know exactly where my VCP's (virtual check points) were. If I missed a VCP during the race I could be penalized 10 minutes or even more. You had to be within 100 ft of the VCP to be scored without penalty. Thank goodness that I only had about 10 VCP's on my section. My teammate, Colton Udall, on the other hand had a bunch of VCP's to memorize, and about 315 miles of course to know like the back of his hand.
The day before the race was contingency day. It was basically a festival for the locals, and an autograph signing day for the racers. You would think that I would be tired from waking up at 5am every morning and pre-riding my section and then getting back to the hotel at 6pm at night would wear me out.... No... Contingency day totally wore me out, and on top of that I was stressing out and was super nervous for race day. I think that I only got a couple of minutes of sleep that night.
Race morning came fast as I headed out the hotel with my driver Scott Dunleavy and my Mom at 4:15 am. We drove out to the start of my section where I was going to get on the bike, mile 100, Honda Pit #2. Colton Udall, my teammate and the rider of record, started the race back at Ensenada. Colton was 3rd off the start behind Shane Esposito, and Kendall Norman (Honda A teammate) with a 30 second gap between each rider on the start.
As I was waiting for Colton, and listening to Johnny Campbell in the Helicopter above Kendall and Colton, Shane ran out of fuel. Colton was only a few seconds behind Kendall. Kendall came in first, got fuel and left. Colton came in, and handed the bike over to me, got fuel from our IMS quickfill. I plugged in my radio headset to the bike and took off about 25 seconds behind Kendall. I lost about 35 seconds to Kendall in the first 5 miles, but I wasn't too worried cause it usually takes me a few miles to get warmed up. I could hear Johnny on the radio telling us the split time... "1 minute!" I kept my composure and keep riding my own race. 15 minutes later I hear.... "split time 1 minute and 20 seconds!" I took a deep breath and keep riding smart. 35 miles into my section the radio goes off again.... "split time 1 minute!" I felt pretty good and made it to my first fuel pit, Honda Pit 3. Got fuel and lost a little bit of time by sweeping out too wide after the pit and stalled the bike. I was riding consistent and not making any mistakes, but I was losing time to Kendall.
I looked down at the GPS on the bike while going across the dry lake bed and saw that I was going super fast, so I let off the throttle a bit. When I got to Honda Pit 4 for fuel I was 2 minutes behind Kendall. I felt good going into my last 40 miles, but I didn't feel mentally together. The course got pretty rough with all of the bikes and trucks pre-running on it. I couldn't get my 450X Honda to pull 5th gear in some of the washes. I automatically assumed that I was getting tired. I came into my last pit, Honda Pit 5, to switch with my teammate Colton. We got fuel, front and rear wheels, and an air filter on in a minute. One of our JCR Honda mechanics, Mitch Hamm, noticed a hole in the muffler right when Colton was about to get on the bike. Then all of a sudden, Eric, one of our JCR mechanics, was hitting the muffler with a rubber hammer trying to get the muffler off. It took about 3 more minutes to switch the muffler out, putting Colton back behind the Honda A about 8 minutes.
I jumped in the box van with my gear on after Colton took off and waited for him at two other pits during the race. I was prepared to ride in case Colton got injured. Colton came into the last Honda pit with a 2 minute lead over Quinn Cody (Honda A Team, Kendall's teammate). Kendall switched with Quinn at the last pit and was about 3 minutes behind Colton heading for the finish. Colton and Kendall ended up crossing the finish line at the same time. Colton was worried, but all he had to do was finish within 29 seconds behind Kendall, and still win.
We found out the next day when the results were official that my teammate missed a VCP and was penalized 10 minutes. Colton made the mistake of remembering an inside line from the previous 500 and took the line, but forgot about the VCP. He only made up about 4 seconds taking the cut, but he was riding so well that he didn't need to. Colton had so many obvious VCP's that he didn't realize while pre-running that he would miss one. Colton and I were still super excited to get 2nd overall behind our other teammates, Kendall and Quinn.
Thanks
David Kamo
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