There is something about a 24 hour race that is always intriguing, difficult and usually at 2am, competitors and crews may ask themselves, “ What was I thinking?” No matter if you are having a flawless run (not common in a race this long) or being tested, by hurdle after hurdle, endurance races usually brings out the heart and soul of a person, to see how determined a racer is OR how weak! Here is a video that brings that to light.
Regardless, these races take an enormous amount of preparation, time and a whole lot of team work! For the 2015 Glen Helen 24 hour I chose the DirtBikeTest.com Yamaha YZ250FX and it didn’t disappoint. My team piloted the little YZ250FX which included a host of young, teenage, hungry rippers. Renton Minuto, Willy Simons, Trevor Hunter, Kelly Postel, Jarett Megla, and myself. The race went really well as we had no major mechanical issues with the bike. The Baja Designs Squadron XL light worked flawlessly all night. My trustworthy pit crew, Greyden and Gage Day, Reilly Klarenbach, “Gas Man” Travis Claypool and video guru Owen Russell did an outstanding job servicing the bike. We swapped wheels for fresh Dunlop AT81’s/ MX51’s to keep us hooking up. We changed 1 front wheel and 4 rear wheels. The DT1 air-filters kept the engine running clean and safe from the massive amounts of silt laden trails. It was super dusty and we went through six filters. Huge thanks to Scott Wright at IMS for taking the guess work out of our refueling. He supplied us with a 2.5 gallon dry break tank and Pro-series pegs to keep us on our toes. The FastCo. Flexx Bars combined with AME half waffle grips from Bob Rutten, kept us comfy and “blister free”. There was a few tip overs and we had to straighten the front end a few times. Everyone on the team rode great and we kept the bike going the whole time. We had one injury early Sunday morning when Kelly Postel crashed on “Ty’s Tower”. He injured his shoulder and suffered a concussion but he toughed out the rest of the lap and got the bike back to the pits. We floated around the top 3 the whole time and we unofficially finished 3rd in 250 intermediate/expert class and 9th overall.
Here is a link to Trevor’s race report:
http://dirtbiketest.com/fresh-dirt/2015-24-hours-of-glen-helen-race-report/
