JBC 24 HOURS OF GLEN HELEN

This weekend’s John Burr 24 Hours of Glen Helen had one of the most talent-packed line-ups of the year, as far as off-road racing is concerned. This has turned into one of the most anticipated races on the calendar for many riders, and all of the most experienced teams were represented this year. The main players were Precision Concepts , JCR Honda, Ox Motorsports,  John Burr, Zip Ty Husky, Team Jirsa Husky, the Caselli Foundation and a dark Horse team from Alaska led by Cody Woodworth.

Early in the race an intense battle formed between JCR and Ox. This two teams have a number of common elements, as Ox is partly comprised of former JCR riders. Colton Udall and Mark Samuels joined Justin Jones and Sean Collier, and they chased down early leader JCR and the battle was on. JCR had the wild mix of 24-hour specialists Ryan Dudek and Benny Breck mixed with east-coast riders Chris Bach and Trevor Bollinger. At first the eastern guys felt out of their element. “For the most part, the slowest part of this course was faster than our fastest sections,” said Bach. Bach found himself leading the race after Dudek’s fast start, and trying to fend off Justin Jones. “I was held up by a group of lapped riders in the one slow section of the course, and Jones caught up. Then he passed me legit and pulled away, but in the same section on the next lap, he was held up. There was a bottleneck and I had to get creative to pass Jones and everyone.”

After that, Bach started to settle in and his pace picked up considerably. Eventually, the JCR team pulled out a seven minute lead. In the meantime, the John Burr Team with Ryan Reina, Sean Lipanovich, Ryan Surratt, and Jeff Loop was coming back from a first-lap wrong turn, which cost them dearly. They would eventually become involved in a neck-and-neck battle with last year’s champions on the Precision Concepts THR team. Robby Bell, Justin Seeds, Justin Morgan and Ryan Abbatoye were in and out of the pits several times with minor problems. The Zip-Ty team of Dalton Shirey, Blayne Thompson, Justin Wallis was in the mix as well, all within the same lap for the first five hours.

The amateur teams that were packed with pro level riders were the Caselli Foundation team, Charles Jirsa’s team and Brandon Krause’s team. All had interesting stories. The Caselli Foundation was put together by Quinn Cody to perform some bio-physical testing. All the riders were equipped with monitors to test the effects of fatigue. After each session, the riders were tested in terms of reaction and cognitive function. The results will be analyzed with the hopes of making racing safer for riders in the future. The mainstays of the six-rider team were Ivan Ramirez and Eric Yorba. That team eventually found its way into the top five. The Charles Jirsa team was the very definition of an amateur effort. Charles works for Husqvarna North America, but this team was unrelated to his job. Charles built the bike and Mitch Anderson put together team team, which included ATV champion Beau Baron.  And then there was Brandon Krause, who put together a vintage Kawasaki KX500, and recruited his father Paul as well as National Hare and Hound Champion Ricky Brabec. to ride. The bike wasn’t finished until a few minutes before the start, and unfortunately, it was an early DNF with transmission trouble. The team continued on Brabec’s KX450.

In the early hours of the evening, the race for the lead changed direction. The JCR team suffered a piston failure. While they rebuilt the top end, the race continued with Ox firmly in the lead. Second place turned into a battle between Precision Concepts and John Burr, with the Jirsa team sneaking into fourth by daylight. That was the finishing order, with JCR eventually catching back up to fifth. The Caselli Foundation was 10th overall. The two ironmen in the race were Kyle Wade, who finished 44th and Brian Adams, who was 47th. For more results, go to www.glenhelen.com.

Pit speed were closely monitored this year. Team JCR and Ox were this close four hours into the race.