Hengeveld Scores Las Vegas 200 Win

Mark Kariya | October 18, 2004

Honda’s Steve Hengeveld scored a start-to-finish win at the very rough and dusty Las Vegas 200, October 16. Hengeveld was forced to ride alone when teammate Johnny Campbell came down with an eye infection just before the race, forcing Hengeveld to ride all three 71-mile laps solo. But that didn’t seem to faze the Honda XR650R pilot who finished the race in four hours, 36 minutes and 35 seconds. The win was the team’s second in the Best in the Desert’s Silver State Series, which practically locks up the Open Pro-class Championship with only one round left on the calendar.

Hengeveld is no stranger to going it alone at this event: “It was one of those races that I wanted to do solo,” Hengeveld said, “because I’ve done it [solo] in the past so many times and almost won, so I thought, ‘Well, we might as well give it a shot this year.’ “

Second overall and first in the Four-stroke Pro class went to Mike Childress and Chuck Dempsey, also aboard an XR650R, stopping the clock at 4:54:32. They were the only other team to dip below the five-hour mark, as various problems seemed to plague the rest of the field. Clint Braun and Matt Gosnell overcame three setbacks en route to third overall and first 250cc Pro on their KTM 250 SX with an unofficial time of 5:26:34.