Ox Motorsports Honda’s Colton Udall and Mark Samuels take the 30th SCORE San Felipe 250.
Story and Photos by Mark Kariya and Devin Chatterjie
When you’re number one, you wear the biggest target on your back.
Colton Udall knows this all too well. Four times, he’s been on the winning team at the SCORE San Felipe 250, and he wanted nothing more than to add another win at the 30th SCORE San Felipe 250, round one of the 2016 SCORE World Desert Championship, last Saturday.
As the defending series champ, he and Mark Samuels had an even stronger backup team in San Felipe on their number 3X Ox Motorsports Honda: Ray Dal Soglio, new member and Dirtikes.com test rider Nic Garvin, and Daymon Stokie.
But the 1X of Udall and Samuels faced a challenge from a different team at this year’s race, held on the Sea of Cortez side of Baja California, Mexico. It came from a newly formed group of two previously separate crews. Despite a budget cutback and the loss of some key riders, THR Motorsports leader Scott Jacobson still wanted to field a team in SCORE races, so he approached Chris Haines, who’s won dozens of SCORE races and ran a team featuring Francisco Arredondo of Guatemala as Rider of Record and primary backer through his processed-meat company, Bremen. Jacobson brought Monster Energy in as a co-title sponsor along with young up-and-comer Justin Morgan, and he and Haines agreed to join forces for the San Felipe 250. Besides Arredondo and Morgan, Baja veterans Shane Esposito, Ryan Penhall and Roberto Villalobos comprised the troupe of challengers. They’d stick with the Honda CRF450X that Haines’ team has employed for years—Jacobson no doubt somewhat reluctantly as he’d relied on Kawasakis in order to overthrow the Honda reign in Baja.
The new alliance gelled quickly, and despite drawing the last starting position in Pro Motorcycle Unlimited, quickly moved their number 4X machine into third place behind the 1X and 3X Ox Motorsports Hondas on the brutal San Felipe course. When the 3X team bobbled, Esposito found himself chasing only Samuels—and closing! Since they’d started 2 minutes after Samuels/Udall, Esposito and the rest of the team knew they had only to crack into that 2-minute difference. If they did, the race lead—and possibly that long-awaited first SCORE win—was theirs. Morgan got the 4X close.
“The first Baja Pit I hit was at 109 and I was in [Samuels’] dust at that point, got fuel and kind of stayed right in the dust all the way down Matomi Wash—made a second here, a second there and really got close,” Morgan said. “They pitted at the end of the wash, and Colton Udall got back on the bike, and we entered the speed zone side by side and rode 60 miles an hour for the four-mile pavement [speed zone] stretch. At the end of the pavement stretch was my pit, so I gave the bike to Roberto Villalobos, and he took off in Colton’s dust. It was pretty cool. It’s crazy to have that close of a race down here!”
Samuels agreed, saying, “It’s been a tight race all day. I wasn’t really expecting it to be this close.”
Unfortunately, Villalobos went down hard around Race Mile 200, suffering a separated shoulder, but he managed to pick the bike up and limp it a few miles to the next rider change, giving it to Penhall, who took it to the finish. What had been a tight race ended up in Samuels and Udall’s favor by a comfortable margin, giving Udall his fifth San Felipe victory in the last 7 years.
“This race course is so extremely gnarly,” Udall said at the finish. “It really is a test of man and machine. The biggest terrain challenges were three- and four-foot-size rock whoops where if you make any mistakes, you’ll hit a rock the size of a football. We are really happy to be here and really happy to be safe.”
The usual post-race review of data trackers revealed that the 1X bike missed a Virtual Check Points (VCP), resulting in an automatic 10-minute penalty, but that still left Samuels/Udall with just over 3 minutes cushion, 4 hours, 46 minutes and 41 seconds to the 4X’s 4:49:50. The Monster Energy/Bremen 4X team had a clean ride despite coming together just in time for the San Felipe 250.
An even newer team drew the first start spot, predictably led for a while and ended up third, finishing with a time of 5:04:14. While Morgan Crawford and Kevin Murphy are familiar with the desert, Jordan Brandt and Cory Graffunder were SCORE debutantes on their SRT Husqvarna FE 501. Graffunder in particular is better known as an extreme enduro/technical woods racer, but he welcomed the chance to try something else and enjoyed a trouble-free day with his teammates.
PHOTO BY DEVIN CHATTERJIE.
The Dal Soglio/Garvin/Stokie trio claimed fourth overall despite Stokie hitting the ground. Pro Motorcycle 40 (for riders 40 years and older) winners Rex Cameron/Mike Johnson/Jason Trubey claimed fifth overall in 5:48:26 aboard their Rally Comp CRF450X.
Other class winners included: Garrett Poucher/Michel Valenzuela in Pro Motorcycle Limited (449cc or less) in 6:52:54; Luis de Nicolas/Jorge Flores/Mario Murillo, Jr./Jorge Valenzuela in Pro Motorcycle 30 (riders 30 years and older) in 5:56:16; Andy Kirker/Flipper Manchester/Jim O’Neal/Mark Winkelman in Pro Motorcycle 50 (riders 50 years and older) in 7:01:38; former class champ Tony Gera in SCORE Ironman (and on a vintage KX500) in 6:32:56; and Kristopher Harvey/Eric Saltzer in Sportsman Motorcycle in 7:06:57.
2016 SCORE World Desert Championship
30th SCORE San Felipe 250
San Felipe, Baja California, Mexico
Results: February 27, 2016 (Rider of record)
Pro Moto Unlimited
1. Colton Udall -Hon/4 hours, 46 minutes, 41.394 seconds
2. Francisco Arredondo-Hon/04:49:49.796
3. Kevin Murphy-Hon/05:04:14.467
4. Ray Dal Soglio-Hon/05:35:32.999
5. Braxtan Gallian-Hon/06:11:50.106
6. Larry Serna-KTM/06:40:32.000
Pro Moto 30
1. Mario Murillo Jr.-Hon/05:56:16.139
2. Kevin Johnson-Hus/06:04:35.785
3. Christopher Schultz-Hon/07:18:06.539
Pro Moto 40
1. Mike Johnson-Hon/05:48:25.752
2. Jano Montoya-KTM/05:55:29.228
3. Colie B. Potter-Hon/06:05:36.091
4. Chad Thornton-KTM/06:25:09.910
5. Giovanni Spinalli-Hon/07:00:57.410
6. David Cardoza-Hon/07:46:02.460
7. Craig Thompson-Hus/08:19:11.122
Pro Moto Ironman
1. Tony Gera-Kaw/06:32:55.737
2. Michaek Skurkis-KTM/06:56:24.439
3. Carlin Dunne-Hon/07:13:55.984
4. Carlos G. Gracida-Hus/07:31:16.939
5. Richard Hank Salyer-KTM/08:10:31.692
6. Boe Huckins-KTM/08:27:12.104
7. Ryan Gutile-Yam/08:32:08.239
8. Mauricio Santana-KTM/08:40:01.172
9. Aki Polvikoski-Yam/08:42:59.866
Pro Moto 50
1. Mark Winkelman-Hon/07:01:37.810
2. John Sylvester-Hon/08:20:19.702
Pro Moto Limited
1. Garrett Poucher-KTM/06:52:53.821
2. Mark Winkelman-Hus/07:38:08.717
3. Jim Owens-Hon/08:17:12.738
Sportsman Moto
1. Kristopher Kit-Hon/07:06:57.023
2. Ryan Littlewood-Hon/08:08:27.307
3. Jason Lulis-KTM/09:06:45.248
4. Giovanni Perez-Hon/09:30:48.817
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