Compared to motocross riders and even GNCC guys, rally racers compete infrequently. However, that’s not to say they take it easy. Far from it! This year sees the rally elite racing even less with most of the major events globally canceled/postponed until next year in hopes that the current COVID-19 crisis plays out by then. So what’s a guy like Ricky Brabec to do?
This year started really well for him, of course, the Monster Energy Honda Team star snagging the Dakar Rally victory then adding the Sonora Rally win before the pandemic brought the entire world to a halt. As the months dragged on, sporting events gradually, carefully resumed play—with medical precautions in place.
Among them was Best in the Desert’s (BITD) American Off-road Racing Series, run primarily in the arid Nevada desert with its marquee event the Maxxis/Casey Folks Vegas-to-Reno (V2R or V-R). A point-to-point team race, V2R provides all participants the opportunity to undertake a high-speed dash from its southern start spot (Amargosa Valley this year, just outside of Pahrump) to the traditional finish in Dayton, south of Reno. The route offers quite a bit of the state’s diverse terrain, from the hot, rocky desert floor and fast dry lakes to choking silt beds and even up into the forest with elevation above 7,000 feet.
Brabec has two V2R wins—2014 and 2017—both times riding with teammates (Robby Bell and Joan, respectively). While officially entered with Kendall Norman, the plan all along was for Brabec to go it alone in his attempt to duplicate the unprecedented solo win Quinn Cody earned in 2010 on his CRF450X.
“I also wanted to solo in ’18, but then a cross-country rally got in the way of that so that was impossible,” Brabec remembered. “Finally, this year with the COVID, we weren’t even sure what was going on, then the next thing you know, Johnny [Campbell] says, ‘Hey, you’re soloing Vegas-to-Reno!’”
At 514 miles this year, riding V2R by himself would duplicate one of the longer days in rallies. Equally important to the advertising value a victory would earn, though, was the opportunity to begin an extensive (to say nothing of exhaustive) durability testing program on the same newest-spec CRF450 Rally that he’d won the Sonora Rally on. Like all factory teams, the rally program at HRC is in constant motion with engineers developing new parts or procedures year-round. With the American deserts being so convenient to the Johnny Campbell Racing (JCR) Honda headquarters, the team is responsible for much of the testing, and there’s no crucible like racing in the desert in the middle of summer to prove new parts and theories.
“This bike actually got shipped last week from [the HRC] workshop in Spain,” he revealed.
Racing a full-on works rally bike in a race like Vegas-to-Reno is unusual, mostly because they’re so rare and rarely raced in the US. The CRF450 Rally has both advantages and disadvantages. There’s its factory-massaged twin-cam engine with six-speed transmission giving it an estimated top speed of close to 115 mph, but the biggest good-bad feature might have to be the three fuel tanks, giving it a total capacity of nearly nine gallons! Over the course of the race’s 13 pits, Brabec would have to stop only three times with one of those being a full-service pit for fresh tires and air filter as well as gas.
“The rally bike holds a lot of fuel and people are saying, ‘It’s not fair, this bike goes fast, he doesn’t have to stop [and pit as often],’” he acknowledged before continuing, “A lot of people don’t realize when that bike is full of fuel, it weighs 90 pounds more than when the bike’s empty. When you have upwards of nine gallons on the motorcycle, it’s a completely different bike than when it’s empty. It’s a different bike from what you’re used to riding [in the desert] with a three-gallon tank.
“It definitely has its advantages, but then again, people don’t realize how heavy that motorcycle is when it’s full. It’s a different animal. You can’t lean over the front, either—you’ve got that big ol’ [navigation instrument] tower in the way. It doesn’t ride like a normal dirt bike; you have to sit back on it, you’ve got to steer with the rear end. It’s just a big bike.”
Despite the wild fluctuations in bike feel, Vegas-to-Reno isn’t a bad place for a rally bike, especially compared to any Baja race which is usually a far rougher course. And despite the handicap of drawing the 10th starting position, Brabec never gave up and kept moving steadily up through the pack until he came upon longtime race leader Skyler Howes who’d crashed heavily less than 40 miles from the finish.
After helping the defending race and series champ get back on his bike so he could ride to the upcoming pit for medical aid, Brabec resumed racing, secure in the knowledge that he was now leading clearly and en route to his third triumph.
But the V2R victory may have been the easy day for Brabec, who noted, “The first day of durability testing was Vegas-to-Reno. I went to [Lake] Tahoe on Saturday and hung out and Sunday we’re headed home and we’ve got to be at [the] Glamis [sand dunes Monday] morning at 8 a.m. We have two weeks of durability at Glamis and two weeks of durability at Barstow. That’s basically torture for the motorcycle just so we can test new product and new parts to see if they’re going to be reliable for the next Dakar.” (And that’s to say nothing of the personnel who’ll be facing temperatures forecast at 110–117 during that period near Glamis and only 10 degrees less in Barstow.)
So three races and three wins will likely mark Brabec’s competitive 2020 season. Just keep in mind that while he won’t be racing a lot, he’ll still be doing a lot of riding with the goal being a repeat performance in Dakar 2021.
A few months ago, we posted both a machine examination and, later, a ride review of the 2020 KTM 450 SX-F Factory Edition that DT Racing built specifically for Vegas-to-Reno.
The outcome?
The N33 of Axel Pearson, Tuffy Pearson, and Jeff Trulove were ninth off the line, a minute ahead of eventual winner Ricky Brabec, the early miles going well.
Unfortunately, according to team principal John Talarico, “Jeff was setting up to pass Kadin [Guard] and had Hayden Hinz in sight. Jeff blew the corner into four-foot grass run-off, but hidden rocks bent the [rear] sprocket and slammed the shifter so hard it was stuck in sixth [gear]. On the shift mechanism, there’s six little posts that the gear selector uses to shift. The sixth-gear post broke off, leaving it stuck in sixth.
“He bent the sprocket straight and rode in sixth to [the next] pit.
“I then took off the clutch cover, manually shifted [the] bike out of sixth [and] into fifth and changed the rear wheel, and they ended up seventh [Open Pro]. That took me about 25 minutes.”
On the other hand, the clone bike ridden by Nic Colangeli, Evan Kelly, and Sage Vincent fared much better and earned third, about 20 minutes behind Brabec and less than two minutes behind runner-up Nic Garvin, who soloed aboard his CRF450X.