Baja Testing!

Road Trip

I just got back from a quick road trip to meet up with my Baja race partner/team mates to test our race bike suspension and lighting system. The suspension testing went very well with Bob Bell of Precision Concepts suspension. He makes the bike work like most people wish their bikes would work. The guy has so much knowledge and experience he never ceases to amaze me. If you ever want to ride something as close to a “works’ bike as you can get then have him do your suspension for you sometime, amazing!

We also had to test the lighting system since this bike will be used for the Baja 1000 which requires riding through the night to cover 1000 plus miles. The lights worked very well and allowed us to ride the bike at scary fast speeds into the night. It was not a perfect test session as we ran into one problem when the lights and battery on the Honda CRF-X 450 started to fail after an hour or so of use. Bob spent the next hour and a half trying to discover the cause of the malfunction. He traced everything down from lights to connectors to fuses and finally discovered a loose ground wire.  Bob told me the late Bruce Ogilvie always said, “That is why we test”.  A very professional attitude. I am glad this guy is in our corner!

The trip down to the southern California desert and back was a blur with driving two days, sleeping about 6 hours and testing the bike. I recruited Doug as a co-driver for this jaunt to get him out of the house and to help me drive. Doug as you may remember if you have read the “3 Amigos” story is becoming better known as Senor Kirby. Doug had a mishap and is currently sporting a removable cast on his foot from a local practice day on the motocross track. So I asked him if he was up for a trip and he was more than happy to take a ride to the southern Calif desert just to get off the couch and out of the house.

We had a great time, learned a few things and boy did I get to listen to some stories on the drive down and back. You have to remember Senor Kirby is 70 years young and has been around the corner a few times!  I heard stories from motorcycles to marriages and everything in between. Some of them might have been what I like to call “whoppers” but I don’t doubt that they really happened. I will have to tell you about them sometime in a later story. But it sure made the trip go fast! Thanks Senor Kirby.

Good Times!

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