Nick Pearson, Axel Pearson score the THR Motorsports Parker 250, Presented by Polaris, in Parker, Arizona.
Story and Photos By Mark Kariya
After nothing but bad luck at Parker, Nick Burson and the rest of the Purvines Racing Beta team decided to switch things up a bit at the THR Motorsports Parker 250, Presented by Polaris, the opening round of Best in the Desert’s American Off-road Racing Series.
Parker’s 79-mile loop features a main pit near the start and an intermediate pit at mile 27 called Midway. Common strategy is for the leadoff rider to go to Midway and hand the bike off to his partner who then rides a complete lap back to Midway where he hands the bike back to rider one. Rider one does another complete lap back to Midway, hands off to rider two who does another complete lap and gives the bike back to rider one again at Midway, with rider one then taking the last partial lap to the finish at the Blue Water Resort & Casino. That gives both riders an equal number of miles.
But Burson and Pearson opted to let Burson take the majority of the mileage, doing a full loop before handing off to Pearson at the main pit, then climbing on again to take the final lap. All exchanges would be done at the main pit with Burson thus riding twice as many miles. That didn’t faze Burson, though, as Parker isn’t a very physical course; it’s mostly fast sand washes and dirt roads with some rocks thrown in to keep you on your toes. A key benefit of this strategy is also that the leadoff rider can maintain his rhythm instead of having to get off after just 30 or so minutes.
Whatever the reason, their plan worked with Burson moving from his second starting position into first within the first five miles. From there, the duo stayed in front the rest of the day, finally breaking the grip of bad luck that’s plagued Burson he’d always experienced at Parker before.
“I’ve done it since ’09 except for one year,” he said. “A brand-new Kawi broke one year. Ran out of gas one year. Flat one year and the tire came off. It’s never, never been good. We had a decent gap and [team owner] Ron [Purvines] was trying to say [we were on our way to winning], but I’m like, ‘I want to be at the finish line before I even think about winning.'”
But this time, things went Burson’s way and he crossed the finish line on the team’s trusty Beta 480 RR after 4 hours, 8 minutes and 50 seconds, unofficially, giving him and Pearson a very welcome victory.
Jeremy Newton and Troy Vanscourt stayed fairly close on their THR Motorsports-backed YZ450F until the inserts in their tires wore out, forcing them to throttle back. Then, the bike ran out of fuel, though it only took a few minutes to get a splash and they were on their way to second in only their second Pro race in 4:19:56, unofficially.
Third bike overall (though they were 22 seconds behind the winning ATV of Jeff Hancock and Josh Row) belonged to Chris Brown and Shane Esposito on their Reno Racing KX450F in an unofficial 4:34:35 with a broken silencer slowing the eventual Over 30 Pro winners.
Defending 250cc Pro series champs for several years running, the Purvines Racing Beta pair of Curtis Bradley and Jeremy Purvines also switched things up and moved to Open Expert aboard a 480 RR. What didn’t change was their result as they once again topped the category, finishing fourth overall bike in 4:47:59, unofficially, followed by second-place Quad Pros Cody Mitchell/David Scott and Open Pros Danny Cooper/Jesse Canepa.
Open Expert runners-up Chris Gerchman/Dakota Steffen, 300cc Expert winners Grady LaCamp/Kyle Patridge/Patrick Pico, Over 40 Pro winners Alan Cameron/Chad Thornton/Tony Zastrow, Open Pros Ricky Dahlbert/Kyle Townsend and Open Experts Eric Kirby/Zachary Myers completed the top 10-finishing bike teams.
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