It wouldn’t be a typical 24 Hours of Glen Helen if all the prep went smoothly, would it? Our last update ended with our suspension being shipped off to Beta Factory Services to get re-valved for our team’s liking. In less than a week, the suspension box arrived at my front door and the bike was rideable once again within the hour. While the suspension was shipped off, I installed the GPR Stabilizer Pro Kit that they had sent us for this year’s race. It was a fairly easy mount and it will provide assistance in keeping the four of us fresh over the 24 hour period.
Kenda Tires has stepped up huge this year with providing both the Jr. and Sr. teams with their Washougal II tires. A couple of the team members swear by these tires and we feel they will hold up well while still providing excellent grip in the ever-changing trail conditions faced at the 24 Hours of Glen Helen. We also have some DDC Racing steel sprockets that will last us much more than the 24 hours leaving us with one less thing we have to worry about.
Lastly, we’re running A’ME grips for the durability and comfort and the ARC levers were mounted up so we don’t have to worry about breaking any levers during the race. After receiving the suspension, the bike was ridden in practice at round 6 of the Big6 GP Series in Ridgecrest, Ca. After setting the sag at 106mm for our average weight of 155 lbs, the bike handled the course great after stiffening up the compression a couple clicks on the fork.
After the race weekend, the bike was taken over to a Sr. team member’s house along with their Honda CRF450RX to get wired up for lights and perform some more race prep. The Beta was already wired up so all that was needed was to change the plug to match our lights and we were ready to ride at night. Or we thought so at least. We also installed IMS’s 3.0 gallon dry-break ready gas tank so we don’t have to spend much time refueling in the pits every hour of the race. That mount was also fairly straightforward with the exception of some minor trimming of the radiator shrouds which took about two minutes to complete. After two nights of working on both bikes past the 11:00 hour, we got the lights wired up and the brackets mounted.
Last Thursday, I met Preston Campbell out by his house to do some riding and test the KC HiLites lights to make sure we weren’t draining the battery. After an hour of testing, we found that the Beta can’t power the lights we planned on using in stock trim. A week before the race and we’re finding problems on both teams with lighting issues. Sounds like a typical 24 Hours of Glen Helen. After the Sr. team experienced the same problems, they found a company to rewind the stater which will allow it to produce about 100 watts, more than enough for what we need to do.
So after the testing, the stater was dropped off at Ricky Stater in Ramona, Ca to be rewound and give us a little more power. The stater was shipped back the following day and 2 days later we mounted it up along with a new rectifier. Installation was a little difficult since we had to mount the rectifier but we placed it between the airbox and the side plate for a safe and secure fit so we won’t have to worry about it during the race. Now that race is approaching, the finishing touches will be done and we’ll continue to update the site with product tests and more updates. Stay tuned!
