|
|
|
Lucerne Hare and Hound We were going to go to the Dirt Rider 24 hour test so on the way we decided to stop by the Hare and Hound on the way. We raced at Lucerne before and swore that we would never come back but sometimes it takes more than once to convince us of something. We have been down to Lucerne before in January where it has been raining non stop in NorCal and then drive down to Lucerne and it is dusty, with the local saying it has been since about 1996 since the last rain. Mikey from TopSpeed came drove down with us on Saturday arriving in time to practice the bomb run a few times. Brian and I started out to the bomb and saw a little whooped out road and started to hammer down it. Coming into the desert for the first time in a while is weird on the eyes and is hard to pick up bumps and drop offs. I blew by Brian, then get scared and he would blow by me. We did that a few times and I noticed that Brian wasn't on my side anymore. I looked back and saw Brian lied out on the trail. I went back and checked him out and he said he crashed his brains out and he still hadn't even made it to the start of the bomb practice. I went on and checked out the start. The first straight was a five mile long run up a valley. We could practice the first two miles of it. I started off and got my bike wide open with stock gearing in no time at all. Right away I knew I was going to have to gear up to have any chance at a good race. The bomb run was actually set up about as safe as it could be for a straight shot across the desert. There weren't too many rocks or drop offs, just a bunch of small pucker bushes. After finding a line to the bomb Mikey took Curt Caselli and I out to do a little filming. After that we spent the last few minutes of daylight putting fresh tires and filters on our bikes for race day. Sunday was a bright sunny day out in SoCal. There was not wind and when looking out at the bomb run there was a cloud of dust staying over the valley with no wind blowing the dust away. When we lined up for the start I noticed most of the top guys on the big bikes were starting at the far right so I went to the middle where I was as far from anyone that looked like they would get a good start as possible. Brian lined up near me but was closer to the guys on the right. When the banner dropped I got out of the hole good but within the first half mile I could see the 500 riders begin to pull away. Brian Brown got close to me and I could just see him keep accelerating from me after I hit top speed. I held my bike to the stops for about tow miles then got into some dust and had to start weaving to stay out of the dust. Brian had a couple of 500's start close to him and so he got dusted out pretty bad off the start. At the end of the bomb the defending champ, Destry Abbott, got his KX 500 clear of the dust and grabbed the hole shot. Nine of the top 10 at the start were 500's with Ty Davis the only one able to get a smaller bike up front early. Right away the dust turned me off to going fast. I saw Clint, one of the Pearson's friends go over the bars right in front of me. Brian came up and passed me and I could see he wasn't taking too many chances after his big crash the day before. We both had a good time in the rocks and tight stuff but got railed in the Valleys where guys would blow by us like we had no business being in the desert. We both took the race pretty cautious and made sure of getting out of there unhurt. At the end we finished well down the field in the twenties. Destry Abbott took the win when Ty Davis ran out of gas with about half mile left in the race. Brian Brown rounded out the podium followed by David Pearson and Shane Espozito.
|