Mark Kariya | April 3, 2017
2017 SCORE San Felipe 250 Results – Eighteen seconds. It takes longer than that to warm a burrito in the microwave, as Ox Motorsports Honda crew member Ian Young quipped.
2017 SCORE San Felipe 250 Results
But that was the how much quicker the team’s Ryan Penhall, Mark Samuels and Daymon Stokie completed the brutal 272-mile course at the 31st SCORE San Felipe 250 compared to the Bremen Racing Honda squad of Francisco Arredondo, Shane Esposito, Justin Morgan and Roberto Villalobos.
Arredondo’s Chris Haines Motorcycle Adventures/Precision Concepts/Lucas Oil-backed CRF450X physically led all day at the race which served as the kickoff to the four-round SCORE World Desert Championship, having drawn the first starting position.
But that made them the target for everyone else in the 38-team motorcycle field, especially for the defending San Felipe and SCORE champs from Ox who started sixth. (Due to a trench reported on or near the course, officials delayed the start after the first three bikes left the start line to investigate, though that time difference was corrected in scoring.)
The Monster Energy/Lava Propane/MSR CRF450X bearing the 1X enjoyed a good but not trouble-free race.
2017 SCORE San Felipe 250 Results
“I was trying to chase them—Justin Morgan was on the bike—and I was going for it!” Rider of Record Samuels said. “I was at 11 minutes [down] and I made up a minute at our next pit and I lost the rear brake [after bending the rotor].
“I sent Stokie to the next pit where [team co-owner and last year’s Rider of Record] Colton [Udall] and let him swap it out. He did the rear wheel and got us back going. That’s when Penhall got on it.
“At mile 236, I ran down there just to be backup and Penhall was just under three minutes [physically], right behind them so it was tight! He was making time.”
As fast as Penhall was, part of the reason for the narrowed gap was an issue with the rear axle on 45X. Esposito reported, “When Roberto got on the bike at 180, we had 15 minutes [over 1X physically]. I literally went two miles [after I got on at 200 and] stopped for a couple minutes. I thought the mousse was coming apart so I checked that and found out it was a axle issue so I rode to where I could find some rocks to prop it up and tried fixing it.
“There was nothing I could do without more people to help me and I rode from there to 212 and they caught up to us.”
Esposito got to the finish in five hours, 12 minutes and 56 seconds, officially. (For the first time in the history of the race, start/finish was on the Malecon next to the beach in downtown instead of the traditional arches at the edge of town.)
The Arredondo team knew it’d be tight and when Penhall rolled in at 5:12:38, their hearts sank. For the second SCORE race in a row, a freak problem robbed them of what appeared to be certain victory—a broken solder connection in the stator resulted in no lights while leading as night fell at the Baja 1000 in November.
“It’s such a satisfying feeling [to win]; this is such a dangerous race,” Australian Stokie declared. “Just the whole pre-running leading up to [the race], I was just happy to get through that, but to take home a [winning] result as well, I’m really stoked for that. I came over and won the 1000 [with Ox Motorsports] last year as well so to top it off with a San Felipe win, unreal.”
Third bike overall and third in Pro Moto Unlimited went to Derek Ausserbauer who chose to tackle the entire race by himself, though that was nothing out of the ordinary for the former Pro Moto Ironman racer and his Poor Boyz Racing/Precision Concepts/Dunlop CRF450X. He finished in 6:03:12 followed by Pro Moto 40 (riders over 40 years old) winners Ryan Gustine/Kevin Johnson in 6:06:45 and the Pro Moto Unlimited team of Schuyler Schoonmaker/Grant Statley/Mark Winkelman in 6:09:18.
Other class winners included Morgan Crawford/Kevin Murphy/Jim O’Neal in Pro Moto Limited (449cc or less) with their 6:52:43; Dennis Belingheri/Chris Brown/Sal Hernandez/Chad Thornton in Pro Moto 30 (6:27:59); Troy Pearce/Earl Robert/Giovanni Spinali in Pro Moto 50 (7:01:00); Ron Dugan/Robert Koch/Donald Lewis in Pro Moto 60 (8:35:45); Jose Armando Carrasco in Pro Moto Ironman (6:44:29); and Caleb Bertrand/Kevin Gravett/Nick Lanning/Sidney Marchand/Jim Morton in Sportsman Motorcycle (7:22:07).
2017 SCORE San Felipe 250 Results