JOHN BURR 6 HOURS OF GLEN HELEN

The John Burr Cycles 6 Hours of Glen Helen took place Sunday with over 70 teams  tacking the 9.5 mile course. The Dirt Bike staff, along with former AMA Motocross Champion Gary Jones, designed the course, which used Glen Helen’s two motocross tracks in addition to the Lucas Oil Stadium and the Glen Helen Regional Park. Riders faced everything from high-speed pavement to tight single track. This is strictly an amateur event with no pro purse, and that creates teams that are odd mixes of different skill levels. This year in particular it wasn’t usual to see experts teamed up with novices. As far as the overall victory is concerned, it’s tough to beat two seasoned experts. That’s the recipe that Nick Garvin and Nick Stover used to win; two of the very fastest riders were on the same team. Stover, in fact, was one of the first riders to turn in a lap time under 17 minutes, where most teams were covering the same distance in over 20 minutes. That raised eyebrows at first, until it was apparent that the Nicks could go that fast, lap after lap. Both riders are training for the National Hare Scrambles series and did marathon stints of two hours followed by “short” one hour turns on the bike.

There were other riders who turned in lap times that fast, but they couldn’t do it for the entire race. The Husky team that Charles Jirsa put together had Mitch Anderson and ATV champion Beau Baron on board. Anderson, in fact, led the early laps and Beau, as it turns out, is just as fast on two wheels as he is on four. That was enough for a solid second place, only five minutes out of the lead. The Kelly Gelhaus, Rick Pratt, Rowan Trefzhis team was third overall, ahead of the Nathan Winn/Benny Breck team, which was a more typical intermediate-and-expert combination. The oddest couple of all was Pro motocrosser Ryan Dudek and L.A. Police Chief Charlie Beck, who had lap times varying between 17 minutes and 25 minutes, depending on who was on the bike. The chief held up his end of the team well enough to finish 8th overall and win the family class.  And as always, the Ironman class was one of the biggest groups, with 17 entries. Kyle Wade was the toughest man, and finished with a lap lead over Mike Bauldry. The toughest woman, on the other hand, was Holly Breck, sister to Benny, who was the third-place Ironperson. For more results, go to www.glenhelen.com.