10 HOURS OF GLEN HELEN

Two weeks prior to the rescheduled 3-Bros 10-hour Endurance Race at Glen Helen Raceway, I had started to prep my race bike and asked some close friends of mine to team up and go race. Unfortunately, they were unable to race. At that moment I made the decision to race the full 10 hours on my own in the super mini as an Iron-man.

A fellow teammate, Hunter Ray, from Las Vegas allowed me to borrow his KTM 105cc as a backup race bike. Three days before the start of the race my mother drove me down to Glen Helen Raceway. I haven’t been to Glen Helen since I was about 8 years old racing my KTM 50cc. This was my opportunity to test and finalize preparation on both race bikes 32 | DIRTSPORTSWORLD.COM

and get to know the infamous track. As I was riding the spare race bike, I realized I had some suspension issues in the rear. I got the sag set properly, but something felt off. Ty Davis, who organizes this race, offered to help rebuild the shock the next morning. I am so thankful for his help. That same night Jon Kilbourne, with Dirt Days and Dan with Perry’s Motorsports had fabricated a custom light bar plate for me.

Saturday race day came, and I was wondering “what did I get myself into”! I had a small problem with my throttle cable and had to replace it hours before the race. My Las Vegas teammates and parents had my back. Everything worked out and I was ready for the big race. David Schmidt from TBT Racing visited me, looked over the bike, gave me some pointers and told me the bikes were ready to race. Once I was all geared up and ready, my mother took my night bike, the Kawasaki 85cc to impound. focused on my goal¬– finishing. My start was okay, and I came out of the first corner in second place. By the end of the first lap, I was in a solid 3rd place for my line. The race course was approximately an 8.5-mile loop. Coming into my first pit around 90 minutes into the race I felt great and didn’t feel like I was pushing myself.

Four hours into the race the sun was setting, I switched to my night bike with the light bar and got my Task Racing helmet light situated. My very next lap, I went over the bars and crashed coming down a hill in the back section. This caused my light bar to come off the mount. I ran the rest of the lap with the light bar in my left hand. I came into the pits and my pit crew found a similar replacement bolt that broke and snapped. We replaced it, then took off to continue another 3 hours of the race.

By the 7th hour, I really started to feel fatigued and drained of my energy. I got off the bike, ate food, re-hydrated and took a good 5-minute break. I told myself, I’m gonna finish. The last three hours I took 2-3 breaks that lasted around 1-2 minutes. My pit crew told me 3 times, I only had one more lap. When I saw the checked flag, I knew i conquered my personal goal and I thought to myself, was that really ten hours?

The final result was 2nd place in Super-mini Ironman and 7th place in the Adult Iron-man! A special Thank you to Ty Davis for putting on the junior race and helping me out throughout race week along with a huge thanks to my Las Vegas pit crew: Matt Canepa, Destry Stewart, Mason Decunzo, Ryan Marshall and their parents.