Brandon Brown, through the wash before San Matias

The Quad75.com/S&S Motorsports Class 25 6A Team is pleased with this years results and poised for an even better 2010 season. After a bit of a rocky start at the San Felipe 250 in March, they quickly made some much needed changes to the program for the Baja 500 and clicked off a win.  In fact it was the first win ever in any pro class, dirt bike or ATV for Suzuki in the SCORE Series.

Next up would be the Baja 1000!  We acquired an 05′ TRX 450R that had minimal use and went to work.  We chose the 05′ TRX because we had vast experience with the machine and felt it would be our best bet for having a successful race in what looked to be the most brutal and technical Baja race in recent years.

Leaving no stone unturned, Kenny Sanford of S&S Motorsports tore the bike down to the frame and split the cases on the engine immediately after I dropped it off at his shop in Puyallup Wa.  “The quad looked to be in great shape, however for this race we couldn’t take any chances so we decided to start from scratch”  stated Kenny.  So long story short.  Over the course of the fallowing three and a half months prior to the race, Kenny meticulously built the quad from the ground up with the help of a long list of sponsors and co contributors.

The race machine turned out great!  After running it in a small local hare scramble the week before we left for the sake of shaking it down, we were ready to head for Mexico.  When we arrived in San Felipe to do our scheduled pre-running and finale suspension tuning a week prior to the race.  All went well and the bike was set up perfectly for the task at hand.

Come race day, we got off to a good start however shortly after we ran into a streak of small blunders that ultimately put us out of the running for the win.  Not to get detoured we all got our heads back in the game and started chipping away at the lead that the majority of the field had on us.  By the half way point we had clawed our way up to the second place spot.  At this point we fought back and forth with the 4A bike for over 250 miles for the #2 position.  We had a great battle going and left a pit on the coast with in seconds of each other until bad luck would strike one last time.  We ended up getting short fueled at that pit and ran out of gas 10 miles from any where.  We lost two plus hours getting this problem resolved, and made our way in to Ensanada with a very respectable 3rd in Class and 3rd overall ATV.  This set us up solid for the runner up spot for the series in Class 25.

We were incredibly happy with the results for the year.  “This was mine and Kenny’s first full year effort putting a program together in Baja…” said one of the team cordinators Brandon Brown “And considering we pulled off a win and second in the series points for the season.  We couldn’t be happier, or more poised for next season”.

This was definitely the roughest course that SCORE has thrown at the race contestants in a long time and we were completely pleased with how the machine held up, ran, and handled.  It all came together due to a lot of sponsors/ contributors that we would like to give thanks.

Special thanks to:  Bling Star for title sponsoring the team for the 1000, their pegs & aluminum products.  Kenny @ S&S Motorsports for working tirelessly to make sure we were riding the best quad possible at each event.  Sean @ TCS for taking the time and effort on a frame skid plate that should eventually become the standard in Baja.  Hot Rod Bill for an impeccable wiring system for the lights.  Trail Tech for the lighting and last minute back up lighting.  Mike Cafro for advice any time we needed it.  SCR Graphics for going above and beyond to make sure our program looked Pro.  Fox for unbelievable suspension.  ARS-FX for the suspension components that made the bike track better than anything we have ridden yet.  And Klim for making sure all the riders looked as good as the Bike!

A big thanks to the companies and people that supplied the parts and labor that make the puzzle complete: Bike: MotoSport Hillsborro, Tires: Maxxis, Wheels: Hiper Technology, Flat Protection: Tire Balls, Bars: Fasst Co., Clutch: Rekluse, Piston: Wiseco, Cam: Crower Power, Levers: Works Connection, Filter: UNI, Breaks: Galfer, Grips: Spider, Oils & Chemicals: Maxima, Plastic: Full Bore, Pipe: CT, Case saver & Sliders: UPP, Hand gaurds: Power Madd, Goggles: Scott, Cooling: PWR, Stabilizer: Precision, Tank: IMS, Athlete Supplements: Moto X Nutrition, The Cookie Lady, Paulina Nelson, Kelly Sanford, Big Frank and his crew, Bill Nelson, Brad Aboltin, Alberto (Chino) Wong, and the Fines Double team for their track side assistance when ever we needed it.

And thanks to all the riders that contributed through out the year; Rider Of Record: Nick Nelson.  Riders: Brandon Brown, Jorie Williams, Josh Edwards, Jason Greenhaw, Mike Bender, Shilo Strunk.

Please keep an eye out for the full bike build and write up in an upcoming issue of ATV Action Magazine!