Dirt Bike Test Tackles Glen Helen’s 24 Hour With Two Teams
We’re back! After having a somewhat successful 24 Hours of Glen Helen last year, Dirt Bike Test has decided to field two separate teams this year: the Jr.’s and the Sr.’s. For now, we’ll focus on the young guns who are determined to take the win in the 125-250 Expert class after a podium finish last year. The first step in doing this race is deciding what bike to ride. After a good run on our 2015 Yamaha YZ250FX last year, we decided to go with a new 2017 YZFX as a race test. With its proven durability that we found in our long haul update HERE and some familiarity with setting the bike up, we decided this would be our best option.
After finding a bike to ride, it was time to see who would be riding it. We brought back some of the same riders from last year and brought in a couple new ones as well. Returning will be myself, Jarett Megla, Preston Campbell, and Willy Simons Jr. New to the team this year is Nick Baehr and Chance Fullerton. We have all grown up racing each other for years in Big6 and District 37 events and we are all Expert or Pro level riders now. Also, everyone has competed in this race at least once so we feel that we have the experience and speed that it takes to get the win.
The DBT Sr. team will consist of six seasoned racers racing Beta’s 430RR-S dual sport bike. Yes, this may not be the usual race bike one would have in mind but DBT is all about testing and pushing our bikes to the limit to provide an accurate test and what better way than racing it for 24 hours straight? With our knowledge from riding the Beta 125 RR-S HERE, we know what to expect when the 430 arrives. The team will ride to the race, make some slight modifications to ensure it will be race ready, and then ride home to test the Beta’s capabilities. The team members consist of District 37 experts with Robert Baehr, Brent Farrell, Jeff Kawell, Craig Hunter, Scott Perkins, and Jason Trubey. They will be attacking the Senior 40+ Expert class looking for a win after a disappointing result last year. Once the race completes, they will provide race reports, product tests, and a full bike test to determine if the 430 RR-S is race worthy or not. And someone will ride it home too!
With the bike and riders set in place, it’s time to focus on getting everything ready for the event. As a result of this race being 24 hours long, we must race through the night so having sufficient lighting is a huge factor in how well the team does. Having light problems at 1 AM on Sunday morning seems to be a normal occurrence in the pits so testing and making sure we don’t have any problems is a big focus with our team. With a set of KC Hilites lights being available, we decided we would try them out and see how they work. I have utilized these lights in the event a couple years ago and they worked flawlessly so I knew I could count on them getting the job done again.
Since we don’t have the 2017 YZ250FX in our possession just yet, we used the 450FX as a trial bike to see where we should wire the lights too and how they will mount. First, with the help of some of the Sr. members, we wired them up to the relay which is right next to the battery under the seat. They hooked up with no issues. When it came time to mount the lights to the front of the bike, we had a little harder time. Before, the lights were used on a 250 two stroke which had minimal cables on the front of the bike. On the modern 450; however, there are more wires and cables then you can count.
The mounts were custom made and they didn’t leave a lot of clearance behind the lights which didn’t have enough room. When on the four stroke, we eventually had to rework the lights onto its bracket which gave a little more room and add spacers behind the mounts on the fork. Additionally, we used a custom front brake line guide since the stock one has to be removed. After figuring out the mounting and re-wiring, we plugged them in and they worked! After seeing that they worked, we decided they needed to be ridden with the lights turned on to make sure they don’t take more power than what’s being generated.
I headed out to Cahuilla Creek MX the next day to see how the mounts worked when riding and test the battery with the light on. Immediately after plugging in the lights and turning the bike on, the lights shut off. I unplugged and plugged them back in several times and even rode but had no luck. I then decided to plug in the top row of lights and surprisingly they worked. However, after turning on and shutting off the bike a couple times, they stopped working one light at a time.
This required a trip back to the garage a couple days later. After rethinking everything through, we concluded that when wiring the lights to the relay rather than straight to the battery the electric starter spikes the voltage for a split second which caused the lights to not work. We’ve now learned a valuable lesson and everything should be in working order after wiring the lights straight to the battery. We’ll continue to provide updates as we get closer and closer to the race weekend and we will eventually have a lot of product tests and stories to post so stay tuned!
