Ducati Wins Its First 24 Hours of Glen Helen by One Lap

Twenty-four hours of racing, 76 teams, and the whole thing came down to one lap. Then a Husqvarna got pushed across the finish line by hand. Cycle News reports the 27th 3BROS Racing 24 Hours of Glen Helen Raceway had plenty of plot.

Ducati gets its first Glen Helen win

The Hero Racing team of Ciaran Naran, Cody Simpson, Ryan Surratt and Colton Udall ran 77 laps on a Ducati Desmo450 to take the overall. It's Ducati's first victory at the event. According to Cycle News, it also came for the newest off-road motorcycle manufacturer in the race.

Early lead, then a roadside stop

Naran grabbed the holeshot when the green flag dropped at 10:00 a.m. and led the first hour. Last year's winner Dustyn Davis stayed close on the Zip-Ty Racing Husqvarna FX350. Then the Ducati stopped trailside with a bike problem, and Zip-Ty moved to the front.

Behind them, the Dirt Bike Test Yamaha, with Trevor Hunter aboard, ran second. Tyler Nicholson's KTM held third for several hours.

Dusk, rain and a comeback

As the light faded and rain started, the Ducati team charged back and passed Nicholson's team for third. The Yamaha squad lost nearly a lap to fuel pump trouble.

Zip-Ty carried a 22 minute lead into the night. Lighting problems and unscheduled stops chipped away at it. A run-in with a lapped rider broke the throttle cables and the headlight. The team later found water and sand in the airboot, the intake piece that feeds air to the engine.

The push to the line

In the final hour the Zip-Ty Husqvarna stopped on track. The team pushed the bike across the line and still took second overall with 76 laps, three laps clear of the next team. Hero Racing finished a full lap ahead of them.

Getting a bike home on foot after 24 hours is a rough way to end a long day. Landing on the podium anyway is a decent consolation.

Class wins and the rest of the top five

• Third overall: Tyler Nicholson, KTM, 73 laps. His team ran nearly trouble-free and won Open Pro.
• Fourth overall: Danny Cooper, Honda CRF450RX, 71 laps. His team won Expert.
• Fifth overall: Kyle Wade, Yamaha, 68 laps. His team won 30+ Expert.
• Ironman class: Hayden James won with 53 laps, two ahead of Zane Frisk. Kevin Jansen was third with 41.

What to take from it

If you race or wrench for a team, this one is a checklist in disguise. Fuel pumps, throttle cables, headlights and airboots all made the story. The race went to the team that got through the night and fixed what broke, and a lead of 22 minutes proved to be far from safe.

For the rest of us, it's a good reminder that a new name on the entry list can win a long race. Endurance racing hands out trophies for lap count, and a trailside stop only costs you if you can't make up the time. Hero Racing did, and it left Glen Helen with a win by exactly one lap.

Source: Cycle News. Photo by Olav Tvedt on Unsplash.