Part Three: The Three Forty 600. The Three Part Story of the Baja-Nevada

For some reason when I write on my computer, it seems way longer. Like I type for a while and then I scroll back up and its like whyyyyyyyy is a story about 1 weekend of riding take 3 whole parts?

But if you’re here, reading the third chapter, you probably just like reading what I write, and not really interested in how long this story is. You just like reading my thoughts. Or you reeeeeeeaally wanna know what this long ass race was like for me.

or you just like seeing pictures of Kahlua

Rolling off that podium, post interview, being told I look super jazzed and energetic, and genuinely proud of myself that I handled that 340 mile race without significant incident, I did fool around a bit. Popped a wheelie or two, turned the gas off and did some of my classic stoppie drills (Its where you keep your feet on the pegs, and hold the brakes for as long as you can without putting your feet down) and played around and showed off before parking the bike behind the truck.

It was at this point I actually acknowledged what I had just done.

And saw Amy.

and Kahlua.

and Allison, who, if you watched the interview, helped me through the end of it.

Day 1. Done. I am so fucking relieved.

I didn’t just go do a race. I finished safely, upright, my part mostly done. Bike was in good shape (as far as I knew) I was healthy, and we were ready to race DAY 2.

Knowing Josh and his team had come in safely a few minutes after me was also a huge relief.

TIME FOR BEER.

The last of my energy is spent loading the bike into the back of my truck, and tying it down securely.

I can’t say that the race itself was exhausting? It was pretty interesting how physically demanding it wasn’t. There wasn’t too much hard shit, just a lot of flat, open, fast paced trails. The real energy burn was being on your game for 6 straight hours, keeping a close eye on the next 500 feet, making tiny adjustments at 70mph to ensure you stayed upright for another 150 miles.

That being said, long distance desert racing was hard. I was beat. After the bike was in the truck, and I started to peel my gear off, I started to relax. And I basically collapsed. I was strong and steady all morning. It was 2 o’clock, And I started riding at 530.

I did it.

Allison was hungry. She started bugging me about food, camping, setting up, what I wanted to do, where I wanted to do it. LETS GO.

I wasn’t having it 😂

We decide food> campsite.

Josh, Amy, Kahlua, Allison, and “the guy josh had never met” aka Rick (aka not the super fucking slow guy) All make our way to the Tonopah Brewing Company.

If you’re at all familiar with Amanda, aka As the Magpie Flies on youtube (aka blindthistle) or her CABDR adventure, seen here, Episode 7 ends here.

Except with that, the day ended with bikes covered in snow, and today, the bikes ended being covered in dust and sweat.

Beer, BBQ, Bench racing. The afternoon full of your typical post race “did you see that” and “what about that one Quad” and “holy shit I can’t believe we did it’s.” Stuff Amy (someone who doesn’t ride, and has little interest in) reeeeeally loves to be a part of.

not 🤣

Finally, Allison heads back over to the finish line to scope out a decent place to camp, while Amy and I zone the fuck out in her car, soaking up a/c and Kahlua cuddles.

Once I’ve soaked up enough A/C to function, I grab my phone, and start cold calling hotels in Tonopah. My general interest in sleeping in a tent has dwindled with a 340 mile journey.

Mizpah? Nope. Booked. drat.

Best Western? “No, I’m sorry, we don’t have any rooms available until 430 tonight”

Wait. its 410.

How many rooms are you going to have after 430?

“We will have 3 rooms.”

Quick call to Josh, and Allison.

Josh had a hookup anyway, but Allison is just as stoked as we were to have a shower and a bed tonight, as currently all the trophy truck crews (and their loud ass generators) had arrived, hogging up most of the good camping spots while we were bench racing at Tonopah Brewing Co.

So Amy, Allison, and Me in my dirty ass riding gear, occupied the lobby of the Best Western hotel, gladly pay two hundred something dollars for a room, and start making our way up to the rooms.

So much for needing that sleeping bag😂

Allison sticks around in the parking lot to massage over the ACJ450x with an air filter and oil change, while Amy, Kahlua and I head upstairs for a night of relaxing, watching trash tv, and pouring antibiotic goop into my eye.

The next day starts just like the first: break camp [hotel room, nerds], roll to the start line, and play support crew. Allison, if I had to guess, was hungry for her chance at long distance riding, and wanted ever so badly to catch that Yamaha that passed me early Friday morning.

I wish I had access to everything that was going through her mind, but you’re getting mostly just the pit crew’s view today. Luckily for us, however, Allison was kind enough to share her journal entry she made after the race, which was incredible of her to share. I’ll post her lightly edited thoughts throughout the story in italics. Thank you so much to Allison for that. It really adds a valuable perspective of the race.

Her thoughts:

Day 2 started the same way—wake up at 3:45a. I get my gear on, pack everything up and get over to the start line. This morning was nice, a bit cool and some wind—so the dust should be manageable. I got on the bike, nervous but excited, and we lined up for the start. We lined up in order of our prior day finish, so we were near the back, with one moto and one quad behind us. I knew from my other races that I always need to take a little time to find my pace and get oriented at the beginning. I also knew that I wanted to make up some time and give day two a strong push. Remember, everyone else had raced at least some yesterday. I was totally fresh. I tried to use this to my advantage.

Reports from day 1 described lots of fast open roads, but some marble gravel on hardpack in areas, and that’s what caused Matt’s crash the day before. I kept this in mind as I rolled up to the start.

So Allison was ready and hungry, and I wasn’t as sore and beaten as I’d assumed I’d be. I was ready to chase this girl up and down route 95, all the way to Bonnie Clair.

Yes. The night before, I’d finally done the research to understand where the hell all of my pit stops would be, including the finish line, which was located just south of a little town called Gold Point.

You might recognize Gold Point from countless adventures on the Mighty Tiger, including the little fiasco involving my buddy Josh. You can read about all that here .

For a moment, I was a little sad that I was riding in unfamiliar territory, while Allie got to ride in my old ADV stomping grounds, whether it was the 2018 Taste of Dakar event, the scouting trip for the later canceled 2020 Taste of Dakar event, and not 1, not 2, but 3 separate trips on the NVBDR.

But we had a plan, and we needed to stick to it.

Goodbye/Good lucks issued at about 530am, I snap one final pic of Allison, mounted up on the trusty 450x, staged right in front of Josh’s Rider of Record (for whatever that’s worth. If you couldn’t tell by now, the RoR was the really fucking slow guy, and he insisted that meant something. Even if his boat anchor ass was fucking up Josh’s chances of being competitive in this race)

I hike my ass back up to the truck, jump in, Amy (and Kahlua) waiting, and we roll north.

Allison’s thoughts, after I left:

Each bike had a one minute delay between their starts, so I wait, watching the yellow light, waiting for it to turn green.  The light turns green, I twist the throttle, and as the bike rolls forward I stand up on the pegs—it’s time to race.

It was still dawn at this time, so the road was visible but dark—I wanted to find my pace early—knowing I had some ground I wanted to gain on the others in my class.

In races I often talk to myself in my helmet—phrases of common wisdom well-known in the racing community, like “slow is smooth, smooth is fast”, “you can’t win it in the first leg of the race, but you can certainly lose it”, and “to finish first, first you have to finish”. These truisms seem trite, but when your using every ounce of your mental capacity to operate this race machine as close to its maximum as possible, while keeping your own psychology around completion and risk-profiles in check, these simple statements can be lighthouses in a stormy sea.

The first 15 minutes was fast and sandy. I know the bike is heavy, so the front wheel can wash out on sharp turns, so I work to make my turns wide and hit the apex-just like street bike track days.  I find a long straight and open it up—she gets up to 60 and I’m getting used to how this terrain feels. I’m focused so much on getting comfortable at speed that I blow the first 90 degree turn and sail past the white “W” wrong way signs. I make a quick turn through the sage back onto the course, and flip the computer from speed to the GPS map. I tell myself not to forget to navigate, and am then reminded of yet another truism that my teammate told me on a previous ride that pilots often use: “aviate, navigate, communicate, in that order”.

Okay…… so that last part has me blushing. I told her that back in the fall of 2019 when her and I tackled the famous La-Barstow-Vegas ride. It was our first experience using a roll chart, and it became apparent to me that many riders could potentially get tripped up by focusing too much on the roll chart and not enough on the terrain in front of them. A very dangerous place to be, depending on where you were. The fact that she hung on to that nugget of wisdom my father had passed onto me just melted my heart.

*Anyway*

The speed limit in the town of Tonopah is like 25, and it’s one of those smaller Nevada towns where speeding tickets keep the streetlights on. So, *pro tip* if you’re making your way through Nevada, whether its on a bike, a truck, or a car, whenever you get to those small Nevada towns, you take your sweet fucken time and set your cruise control at whatever aggravatingly slow the speed limit happens to be. You WILL get a ticket if you don’t, and you WILL need to make the 3-4-8 hour drive back to the tiny little shithole you got pulled over in, endure a lecture about the rich mining history the town has, and you WILL pay the fine for speeding.

Go the speed limit. Just trust me on this one.

Anyway, coasting our way through Tonopah, I hatch an amazing idea:

What if we got breakfast?!

Burger King is right at the end of town, and we have some time to snag some wtf drive thru special before we haul ass to the rest stop just north of town, where the first pit stop happens to be.

The first motorcycle left at 530, and thanks to my slow ass, we are second to last. That gives us at least 20 minutes or so to grab breakfast before she even leaves! Hell yea!

We pull into the BK drive thru, and wait.

and wait.

and wait. The little speaker thingy does not ask me what I want for breffest.

Doin me a Heckin Confuse.

Finally, we drive thru the drive thru, and pull around to the front.

Drive thru opens at 6am.

It’s currently 5:50am.

I’m not trying to screw Allie over a second time by making her start damn near dead last right before the Boat Anchor AND miss her first pit.

So we decide to think hungry thoughts, eat some snacks, and make a bee-line for the 1st pit stop.

Tangent: I ride with my Cardo unit. I think I mentioned that a while back. I listen to music to remind myself that its just a motorcycle ride. Otherwise I get all amped up and excited and I ride like a moron and next thing you know I’m buying $350 helmets like candy because my dumbass keeps crashing.

Well, at some point I wanted to test the Ok Google function of my phone, and changed Allison’s name on my phone to “Pit Crew” because with the wind and engine noise, hopefully ‘Pit crew” was easier for ok google to decipher than “Allison CRF450x” because personally, I put everyone that rides in my phone as First Name- What Bike you Ride.

Yes. You. The person reading this whomst number I have and rides a bike. Ask me to send you a screenshot of your contact info. It’s your 1st name and your bike. Test me.

Well, it never actually worked. Because 1, I never needed to call her. 2, I don’t really know if I had enough service to call her, and 3, of the couple of times I tried it that Sunday before the race, it worked exactly 0 times. But knowing me, my lazy ass never changed it back.

(end tangent)

We get there with plenty of time, take a bunch of gorgeous photos of the sunrise, before the dust clouds start rolling in.

and then Allie makes her way into pit 1.

“I only crashed once! I was doing like 65mph!!”

😲 ohhhhhkay…..

Allison’s account of the First Leg:

By now the sun is up and the bike is running great and I’m finding my pace. The route is twisty and sandy and lots of small hills and berms, so I’m working to find a good position.  I try a turn at speed while standing up—seeing if I can get the bike leaned over enough to bite and sail through. It does so perfectly. I think to myself, “pull this kind of stuff all day and you won’t fall at all.”  So I try again on the next turn, this time on an uphill with a left turn at the top. I give the same input to the bike and when I get to the top and lean it over, the front tire hits some of that infamous marble dirt and the bike slams down on its left side while I fall onto my right shoulder and elbow. I get up, quick body check—nothing hurts, nothing bleeding, quick arm stretch to confirm, and I pick up the bike again—still running.

Ok, well… Uhm…. here’s some gas. The bike looks good. I think someone may have bent your shifter….

Her thoughts:

We have pitting down to a science now. Matt fills the gas and resets the computer, I get some water and put in earplugs that I forgot at the start. Matt’s friend Amy came down for day two, and she already had the earplugs ready to go.

I get my helmet back on and it’s time to go. I’m feeling great. I got my fall out of the way—or in other words , I found my limit of traction for the bike on this terrain, so I know know how hard I can push it.

She hops back on the bike, and just…. GOES. Maybe 2 solid minutes in the pits. 6:27am to 6:29, according to the pictures Amy took with my phone.

We could have toooootally waited for 6am and gotten breffast 😑

We pack up, get ready to roll out, and there’s Josh.

Full Gear.

Waiting.

Poor bastard left the start line *1 minute* after Allison did.

We give him the 3 fingered salute thing they gave in The Hunger Games movie, and roll.

It was at this point I promised myself we would team up for the next race. Josh, if you’re reading this, I’m serious. Next race I’m able to do, we’re teaming up.

Who are we joking. Grizzly Fuckin Adams can’t read 🤣

Next pit location is north yet again, place along 95 called Redlich Summit. That was kinda cool because you could see them riiiiiiiip across the desert, making this cool ass cloud before they hung a left and came into the pits. Amy was up on the hill and got a great video of Allison hauling ass across the desert.

She rolls in. Me: “How ya doin?”

Allie’s Thoughts:

Coming into the next leg I keep pushing my speed higher will trying to stay smooth. I remember another truism, “you should always be accelerating or braking, never coasting”. I would coast a lot when I first started racing, and I would then wonder why I would have such bad times. A few seconds slow on this and that turn can add up to hours over the course of a two day race. So I begin to constantly accelerate or brake—no in-between.

I’m now standing on the pegs and getting up to speeds around 75 mph. A wide sandy wash, plenty of room. But I see a sharp turn coming up faster than I anticipate, so I slam on the back brake, locking the rear wheel.  It slows the bike, but not enough. I put my index finger on the front brake and lean the bike into the sandy turn, a feeble attempt to trail brake a dirt bike on sand. The front wheel shudders and slips and as I lean, it somehow stays in the sand rut and follows through to the other side. I whoop and holler inside my helmet—having done a thing I didn’t think I could do—a thing I probably _shouldn’t_ have done, and made it to the other side. This, I think, must be how the experts hit every turn.

Now the road opens up to a wide, flat, power line road. Here’s my chance to really stretch the legs on the bike. I get her up to 80, then 85. I see a danger sign up ahead, so I slow, and it’s just a small cross rut made by some rain runoff. No big deal. I accelerate again, feeling the wind blowing by, and another danger sign. I slow again and this time it’s a bigger cross rut. I slow more and lug down and up the other side. Back to speed, a third warning sign, but it’s up a ways and I keep on the throttle. But seemingly out of nowhere another cross rut appears, bigger than the previous one.  I slam on the back brake, locking the tire, while modulating the front brake as much as possible without locking the front, and I slam onto the uphill side of the wash, bottoming-out the forks, and bucking me off of the pegs—only holding on to the handlebars. The bike comes out of the wash and I land half back on the pegs, knuckles white from griping the bars so hard, cussing up a storm in my helmet. No danger sign on this? What the fuck?  Did it get knocked down? Was there ever one? Doesn’t matter, this is desert racing, it’s up to you to survive and finish, not someone placing signs.

Her, at the pits: Good. Doin alright. Little rocky.

“You’re about 5 minutes behind 190. [2nd in our class] You’re hauling ASS”

Her: Yea man, I almost ate so much shit. They marked a danger that wasn’t really a danger, but skipped out on this gnarly washout, feet off the pegs, total rodeo. I don’t fucking trust their fucking signs anymore.”

Welp, that’ll happen on a 600 mile race, dude. Lotta dangers and they just can’t mark them all. Any issues with the bike? Okay, you’re doing good. 35? miles to the next? *Amy signals* Forty Three miles. *signals Four- Three* You got this!

*rides off*

Things I would have done differently, in hindsight:

• NOT told her about 190. She was already hungry enough. I didn’t need to tell her that she needed to go faster just to catch some guy for no reason. She was already doing that.
• Told her to SLOW. THE FUCK. DOWN. Reading your racer and knowing how they feel and comparing that to how they are doing is a huge responsibility of the pit crew. They know what’s right in front of them, you have to pay attention to everything they can’t see. She was already amped up, ready to go, throwing it down. I forgot the she also hasn’t done a 300 mile race, and endurance was another weak point in her race game. She was plenty fast on that bike, she needed to be reminded to save some for miles 105-300. We were barely 50 miles into the day and she was screaming.

She had already crashed twice, almost got seriously hurt, and was gaining on the 2nd place unnaturally fast. This was all a recipe for disaster.

We leave pit 2, and head south. At some point, the race course crosses under route 95, turns left and also heads south. The 3rd pit stop of the day was off route 6, which is west of 95.

43 miles for her. About 25 miles or so for us. Luckily, we pass Josh’s truck coming into Redlich’s summit just as we are leaving, meaning Boat Anchor did, in fact, make it to the first pit.

We get about 5 or 10 miles down highway 6, when…. hmm..

I get a phone call from….

Pit Crew.

Okay, Matt. Restart your heart for a second.

What exactly are we thinking here?

Whyyyyyyyyyyyyy the fuck…. is Allison calling me?

The Bad: Shouldn’t she be racing? I’m not sure she has her Sena connected to the level that she can call me while riding. She’s stopped. This isn’t good.

The Good: She’s calling me. That means either her, or her phone, is intact enough to make a phone call, and to call me, of all people. Which means she is okay enough to call me, or tell someone to call me.

I answer the phone, telling myself she was okay, and that’s the important part.

“Engine blew. Come get me. Bike’s toast.”

This honestly hurts more now that I’m writing about it than it did at the time.

I just wrote

Two Whole Chapters

About me, and my prep for the race.

And Allison gets….

Like 2400 words at this point.

She put so much love and effort and money into this race. And I ran her bike into the ground and she got maybe 88 miles.

She sends me her location. “You can just follow the path to get here. I can damn near see a paved road from my location.”

What about driving on the course? Won’t they….

“Disqualify us? Matt, my engine is seized fucking solid. We can’t get much more disqualified than that. You’re good dude. Just come get me.”

Okay. I’m turning around. I’m glad you’re safe. We got you.

Her words:

Once through [the underpass under 95] the road opens up to what feels like a very new, very wide, freshly graded road. It almost feels like it could be paved it’s so flat. I know all the other racers will have opened it wide up here, so I do the same to keep pace. I get into third gear, then fourth, then the fifth and final gear, continuing to hold the throttle wide open against its throttle-stop. The wind buffeting gets bad over 75mph so I tuck down with my butt over the back fender, thighs parallel with the road, with arms stretched out forward like Superman, and helmet tilted down so the visor doesn’t catch the wind and yank my head back. Now at 85, then 87, then 90. Then to 92, and then 94. I think of those videos of Baja legends like Johnny Campbell, in similar poses ripping across dry lake beds. I feel like I can now understand the exhilaration of pinning a 450 across the desert. Only a few people have experienced it, and I’m grateful to be one of them now.

I’m singularly focused on keeping everything perfectly smooth and calm. At this speed a crash would be catastrophic for woman and machine. I quickly glance back down to the computer, and it’s still showing 94, but it glitches a bit, showing 16 mph, then 94, then 48, then back to 94. I assume this is because the wheel speed sensor is unable to keep up with the speed, or something like that. I don’t know exactly. But must focus on smooth riding.

I continue to keep the throttle pinned for what feels like ages, but is probably in reality around three or four minutes.  I continue to hold my tucked position, the bike is screaming at the top of her lungs, and the wind is whipping by, with what I imagine is a pretty epic dust trail behind me.

Suddenly, a loud click, and then nothing. I hear the wind blowing by and the chain whirring, but the engine has stopped. I sit down, press the starter button, nothing.

“You’re good dude. Just come get me.”

I go back out to 95, turn left and go north for a few miles, then turn left onto some old paved road. There ain’t a whole lotta shit out here.

I pass by where the race crosses the road I’m on, and turn left down a paved road just north of her location.

Amy looks at me, and then Kahlua, and back at me.

“Matt, you know its about to get hella crowded in here?”

Ah feck. My truck is a crew cab. Specifically purchased for the actual human sized back seat.

Except today it happened to be full of dog, tools, race gear, and snacks.

And Amy.

(and Kahlua)

We go to the location on the paved road where Allison was closest, and low and behold, a dirt road that went straight to her.

Its hilarious how she ended up. According to her, she had the thing pegged at 95mph for a sustained 5 to 6 minutes when

*pop*

Bike dies.

With yesterday’s care flight story fresh in her mind, Allie was convinced her rekluse autoclutch saved her life:

As I wait for my pit crew to arrive, it dawns on me. A racer the day before had an engine seize up at top speed and it caused the rear wheel to lock up and subsequently a terrible crash resulting in the rider needing to be airlifted out via medevac helicopter—and parts of a bike strewn across 50 feet of the Nevada desert. The same thing just happened to me, but I’m just fine.

It occurs to me that the prior year I had installed an aftermarket clutch that has an auto-engage feature. Many hardened riders speak ill of this type of clutch, calling it “easy” and “cheating”, as if riding a motorcycle is a board game. It’s my understanding that Jimmy Lewis likes this type of clutch, and is quoted as saying “if it makes riding easier, then ride harder stuff.”  I originally installed it because the bike would continually stall when navigating very slow terrain—like walking-speed slow. My earlier races had a lot of that type of riding and instead of buying a new bike more suited to technical slow riding, I opted to get this clutch and do my best with the bike I had—knowing I’d want to race fast desert someday.

It turns out that the very feature that prevents the engine from stalling at slow speed, also prevents the wheel from locking up at top speed if the engine stops. This was not an advertised feature. It hadn’t even occurred to me that the clutch would work this way under this situation. But it very much does occur to me at this point that this clutch likely was the sole reason I didn’t have a life-changing event when the engine seized.

Motor went pop, and because of her autoclutch, her and her ACJ450x coasted from 95mph to a peaceful death next to some trailer in the middle of nowhere.

The trailer, just so happened to belong to the race photographer.

Okay, from all accounts I got, the flagger dude was actually pretty cool. And when I went to buy the photos from the race, the photographer gave me a screaming deal because ‘our’ motor blew up, but I couldn’t help from meme-ing the shit out of this photo:

The actual frustration came from Thursday, during tech inspection, when everyone insisted on looking at me while talking about Allison’s bike. I immediately motioned to her, that this was her bike, and I was just her teammate. She was the actual Rider of Record. But…. dudes are gunna be dudes. So I don’t feel bad about how many memes I popped off with the above pic.

aNyWaY……

For the record. Aside from the standard ribbing everyone gets from having a different setup from me, I have nothing against rekluse autoclutches. If that’s what gets you out there to enjoy riding, then do it. I don’t run one because they’re expensive, and I’ve learned there are significant disadvantages to them on downhills, but in this case, the split second it would have taken Allie to reach for her clutch, had she been running a standard clutch, and grab a handfull to keep her rear wheel from locking up could have ended her life. I’ll stand right behind that without a moment’s hesitation.

I found out later from talking to other racers, that the guy who got care-flighted out didn’t actually blow his engine. He hit a pothole at high speed on that nasty ass gross road I was struggling with at the end of the day. Unable to recover, he hit the ground at about 100mph. So while his engine didn’t seize, Allison’s did, and her rekluse likely kept her seized motor from turning her rear wheel into a stationary object at 95mph, and the rest of this story, from ending in a hospital.

instead, it ended like this:

Me: Sooooooo, breakfast in Tonopah?

Everyone, including Kahlua: YES

About this time…. an agonizingly long time after Allison

broke down.

Called me.

Waited for me to show up

We rearranged the entire truck to accommodate her and her bike

I loaded the bike into the truck.

and we decided on getting breakfast

Rick goes riding by on Josh’s bike.

I was the one who made the awful joke after Allie called that she wanted us to drive the truck up the race course to rescue her, because for 1, fuck it, we can’t get any more disqualified, and 2….

It was only Josh’s bike behind us 😂

Yes. Yes I am that person. Who makes awful jokes at a time when everyone’s having the worst day ever. I’d either make an awful Paramedic, or a great one.

We rolled back to the Mizpah Hotel for breakfast.

I think I’ve already written about this, but seriously. If you are ever in Tonopah, Nevada, and are in need of a place to stay, your first place you should call is the Mizpah. I’ve stayed there twice now, and aside from being full of rich history, its also a very well done themed hotel. Its beautiful. Please support this hotel over Best Western or Comfort in or that fucking weird ass Clown Motel. Mizpah. Stay there.

Thank me later.

They have a pretty decent setup for breakfast, and unable to find a better choice on google, we piled into the booth at the Mizpah.

To lick our wounds, to reflect on how lucky we are, and to share lessons learned.

3 people. On 2 feet. We walked away from a 600 mile race.

That is for sure worthy of a grand tale.

3 Chapters, tons of photos. An epilogue?

Epilogue

Allison talked to a JCR mechanic, Like a real life Johnny Campbell Racing mechanic.

According to him, holding that 450x motor pegged at 95mph should not have blown it up. He’s pretty sure he knows why it died. A target-brand cooler purchase and shipping her poor dead motor to SoCal for some TLC will have a fresh built motor for Allison, and her ACJ450x will be back to life, ready to tackle the next race, challenge, group ride. Whatever.

In the meantime, she just recently purchased my brand new CRF450rx. A newer, fuel injected variant of the honda track bike, with minor modifications to make it more trail-friendly. Its a much lighter, faster, hungrier version of her overweight 450x, and she cannot wait to rip that thing on our shorter 100 mile desert races this fall.

Her parting words from the race:

This wasn’t how I envisioned this race going. I didn’t want to only race 88 miles.  I wanted to race all 300. I wanted to finish. Even in last place, I badly wanted that finish. Especially on an inaugural race that is bound to become massively popular in the coming years, I was so frustrated. But I think back to the goals Matt and I set on our drive down. Survive, finish, don’t come in last. We didn’t achieve the latter goals, but we survived uninjured, and both had a taste of high-speed desert racing. The magic of human and machine in synchrony, racing across ancient lake beds nearing triple digits, defying nature by sitting on a contraption mounted between two wheels, executing controlled explosions happening 150 times every second.

Not many people have experienced that. I’m glad I have. I hope to again. It’s important not to spend our lives simply not dying, but instead to spend them truly living. Maybe another truism to add to the pile.

Me? My little beta 350 is an amazing machine to handle almost anything I could throw at it. Big enough to tackle longer distance rides, but still light enough to simply handle any obstacle I could throw at it. Long distance desert racing, though? Probably not.

True, the beta did tackle the Vegas to Reno race under it’s previous owner, but its very important to note that the previous owner was a 16 year old girl. Not a 240 pound vet C rider at best. I resprung the bike to handle my weight, but springs don’t make a 350cc bike pull me any faster.

If I had Allie’s bike tapped out at 88/92 mph, and she was pushing 95+, then I’m going to need to get on a diet, and re-gear the 450 even more to handle another 300 mile race.

No, I think if I did a race like this again solo, I’d actually want to be on my scrambler. A larger bike would have probably done very well at a race like this.

We hauled ass. We raced 432 miles of a 640 mile race. We had our notebooks out, and boy did we get schooled. I’m proud of us for what we accomplished, and we are both ready to tackle another race. When? None of us are sure.

Josh ended up Ironman racing the last 200 miles, snagging the finisher pin that was meant for us. Rick was exhausted, and if they gave the Boat Anchor anymore shots at the race, they would for sure be run over by a fucking trophy truck.

Or the sweeps cleaning up after the race.

Or a tractor grading the road.

Josh, about 100 miles from the finish line, passed by a race official, who shouted “YOU BETTER HAUL ASS, THE TRUCKS ARE RIGHT BEHIND YOU“

Which caused Josh to ride the fastest he’s ever ridden in utter terror.

He got to the next pit, about 55 miles away, and someone told him “no dude, trucks are like 4 and a half hours away!”

So there’s a few years off Josh’s life for no reason.

Seriously though. I could absolutely see the 3 of us teaming up for the next one.

If he ever comes back from Idaho. Aside from his inability to read, I’m pretty sure they don’t have cell service up there, so no clue if he’ll ever even know about the next race.

But he is invited.

Unless Allison decides to Ironman the next one.

Which she totally could do.

But why would she? I look way better in the photos 😉