Tough Time In Mexico for
Team Alba

Feb 25
SCORE Round 1
San Filipe 250

Wayne Matock interview, 3/4/05

We talked to Wayne Matlock, Team Alba ATV racer to find out what his experiences were with the San Felipe 250 Desert race this past weekend. Here's what he had to say:

Wayne, how was the course?

WM: The course was extremely rough, but fun.

That's what I heard; somebody told me there was about a gazillion miles of whoops or something like that…

WM: Yeah, the track was a total of 240 miles, the first bad section was probably right around 70 miles of just solid whoops and rocks.

Oh man, that had to put your suspension to the test!

WM: Yeah, because there was really no place to get off the course, because it was all cactus!

Well, I guess you could have put those tire balls to the test and see if they work!

WM: (laughing) Oh, we had a couple of different lines here and there through the cactus!

So, what was the rainwater situation like? I heard there was a lot of rain down there the last couple of weeks…

WM: It ended up being more hype than what we actually saw. by the time we actually got down there and riding, there wasn't any water on the track at all.

So tell us about the start of the race, how did it go when the smoke bomb went off?

WM: We took off second.. In the pro quad class we start 30 seconds apart, and by mile 3 we had overtaken 1st place. At mile 30, when my partner Chad Prull handed me the bike, we had about a four and a half minute lead. I took off and rode all the way to mile 61, which was the first pit. I didn't know we had a 4 minute lead when I got on the bike, so I was riding as hard as I could. We put gas in the bike, took off, didn't put a wrench on the machine; just kept going. By the time I we got to mile 130, I handed the bike back to my partner, and sat and waited. 2nd place came through about 16 minutes back.

That's not too bad! But then there was a problem, right?

WM: Actully, we ended up making it down to mile 196, and Chad came through and pitted there. At that point, we had a 26 minute lead. We made it about 4 miles farther than that, to about mile 200, and blew up.

Oh man, that's unfortunate. How much farther did you have to go?

WM: Approximately 40 miles.

Oh, that's a bummer. Well, better luck next time! We're going to put the wrenches on that Team Alba LTZ and get it ready for the next time around.

WM: Oh yeah, we've got a race this weekend, so it took us about 4 days to get the motor back together.

That's good to know. Where's the next race going to be?

WM: Actually, just a Grand Prix race down in Mexicali, a local race. Then I have a national next weekend. Round two of the National Hare & Hound Series.

You won the first round of that series, didn't you?

WM: Yeah, I did. That was a fun race!

Well, we'll try to repeat as winners again. Good luck next time!

Race Report : Geoffrey Walters