DAVIDBAILEYMX.COM

FEATURE STORY

24 HOURS AND IRONMAN
I just got off the phone with Ryan Morais who just completed the 24 hours of Glen Helen along with his teammates Brian Deegan and Greg Godfrey. He sounded surprisingly fresh. The trophy presentation was still going on in the background and the team of Ty Davis won it.

So as most of have probably heard, Travis Pastrana started the race and was running with the leaders until he crashed on the pavement section and ruined himself. He spent yesterday in surgery, but is already planning to race the Baja 1000 next month with Rick Johnson! Never a dull moment is TP’s life. Morais called me Friday after Travis tried to get him to go skydiving at Elsinore. The 3-days leading up to the 24-hour event included jumping out of a plane, go-karts, some riding at Cahuilla Creek after buying an RM250 and putting in some laps on a SX track. He takes winging it to the extreme. To bad his 24-hour adventure didn’t last very long. Get well Travis.

While Travis was on his way to the hospital, Morais, Deegan (who’s wrist needs surgery soon) and Godfrey soldiered on. Morais told me his lap times were the same as Ty Davis, which were about 15-minutes during the day and just over 20 minutes at night. He said he jumped the big tabletop at night every lap! He had to drop the front end extra low so the headlight would light the landing. I was pretty much at home sleeping in a warm bed while all of this was going on. Oh yeah, and it was raining last night.

Deegan toughed it out as long as he could until his wrist was too sore and swollen at around midnight last night, which left Morais and Godfrey to bring it home. Greg drank enough Red Bull for the whole team, but he did really well. They ended up 5th overall and Ryan put in enough laps (9-hours worth) that would have had him 2nd overall in the Ironman division. Way to go guys.

Speaking of Ironman, the annual triathlon world championship was held yesterday on the big island of Hawaii. For some reason the typical 25-50mph winds that usually break people during the 112 mile bike segment were non existent allowing for some fast times and a new bike course record. It was brutally hot, but that doesn’t slow you down as much as a 35mph headwind. My 3-year rival and former navy seal Carlos Moleda won the hand cycle division in 10 hours and 30-minutes flat! A new course record for the division by over 20-minutes! Nice. Every year at this time since my last race there in 2000 I get the itch to do it again. Hopefully that desire wears off in a month or two otherwise it could be a lonely summer for my wife…

db

IRONMAN swim start from ironmanlive.com.
Deegan lights it up. transworldmx.com