Honda Wraps up the Title at BITD Finale

Mark Kariya | December 3, 2007

The sixth and final round of Best in the Desert’s Silver State Series provided the 71 motorcycle, ATV and UTV teams with the finest conditions one could ask for at a desert race, what with the rain that fell the previous night. What it didn’t provide was serious competition for Team Honda Off-Road’s Robby Bell and Steve Hengeveld as they rode unchallenged to win the Henderson’s Terrible 400 just south of Henderson, Nevada, on December 2. In doing so, they also wrapped up the series championship on their Precision Concepts/Pro Honda Oils/Dunlop-sponsored CRF450X.

“All we had to do was start to win the championship, but we come here to ride our best and to come out here and win and give a good showing for Honda, and that’s what we did,” Hengeveld declared a few minutes after finishing. Their unofficial time for the 162-mile multi-lap event was four hours, 15 minutes and 28 seconds.

With the championship a virtual lock, the bike turnout wasn’t exceptional. Still, the runner-up was rather exceptional in that the team wasn’t comprised of Pros but of Experts. Brothers Kelly and Scott Fisher took second overall, first Expert team overall and first Open Expert in 4:35:14 aboard their Team Tuna Racing/Pocatello Powersports-backed KTM 525 XC.

Richard Birchfield and John Myers teamed up for third overall and first Four-stroke Pro on their North Valley Racing/M&M KX450F, just edging–physically, anyway–the winning 250cc Pro duo of Seth Johnson and Cody Wallis aboard their Speed Technologies/3D Reed/Reno Motorsports YZ250.

Scott Glimp and Ron Purvines rounded out the top five overall, unofficially, and won Over 40 Pro aboard their Countrywide Estate Planning/Berkeley Honda/Motorex USA CRF450X.