Beau Baron
Pro Motorsports would like to thank the promoters, Elka suspension and the town of La Tuque, Quebec, Canada. This was a race like no other. Between the high speed racing and the gracious community of La Tuque this race has become our favorite.
After driving our equipment in to Canada and all the riders flights make it we took our three hour drive from Montreal to La Tuque. The first two days we prepped the bike in the cold, wind and rain. After hearing how hard this race is on equipment (we would find out soon) we doubled checked everything. For those of you that think champions like Beau Baron are princesses think again this guy is a work horse. For the first full day in the mud and the muck he was there helping us both days. Never complained and always suggested. We were all happy with the bike and are ready to race the next day.
Matt Hancock
It’s time to race beautiful sunny day. The first hour is qualifying to see where you will start at, when the race starts. We got an eighth place start out of 24. Not bad for our first time but we could do better. Remember this is the best Canada has to offer and they bring their A game.
The staging for the start commences. This race is a running dead start which means you have to run 20 feet to your bike clip your lanyard and kick or press a button to start your bike. Beau Baron starts the race and gets a bad start. After the first lap he goes from 20th to 8th on the first lap were thinking we got this! After the second lap the LED light on the handlebars rips out of the factory mount of the light. He tries to keep going but the light is beating him too much and he comes in to get it removed. He finishes his allotted time for his turn and turns the bike over to Matt Hancock. Matt gets on the bike and puts up some good times and brings it in with 2 hours to go and 1 lap and 4 minutes down from the leaders. Beau Baron knows what he has to do and gets on the bike. I hope for the best and hope the bike finishes. Before he gets on the bike he asks us to give him how much time he is down every lap. Luckily this organization has an online timer we can use to give this information (even if it is in French). I go to the wall and my crew chief and hero Brandy Baron is screaming (a good scream) lap times at me each time he comes around. The first time he comes around I give him 4:30 the second time he comes around I sign him plus 1 lap and you could tell he was not happy with that, at that point we were 8:30 down. I watched in amazement as lap by lap he closed the gap 30 seconds at a time till at 1 hour 50 minutes we were plus a minute up on the other teams. We had a plan, bring the bike in and check it over and then have Matt Hancock finish the last 5 minutes before the bike goes to impound for the next 4 hours where we can not touch it. It worked out well and we start 2nd for the night section of the race. The Yamaha and Cam Am team were super tough the Can Am team made it feel like Josh Fredrick was there and you were competing against him but he wasn’t and that was a sad feeling. I miss that guy.
Night descends on La Tuque and we’re rested and excited. Beau starts again and gets a decent start He rides flawless in the night with minimal lights and were off to a good start. After one hour Josh Edwards gets on and puts up some good lap times but you can see there is something wrong with the lights they are slowly going out. Beau gets back on and is going to put his hour in and things go from bad to worse on the lights they seem like they are failing one at a time. Beau Baron being the champion he is wants to stay out so he is following the Yamaha team and using their lights to light his way. Matt Hancock gets on and were down to one two light led and three lights on the eight light bar. Matt despite his best effort just can’t see and after four laps just can’t see the lights have all but failed and we are in the dark. Beau screams let me on I can follow them again and make more laps. So against my better judgement I let him go. After 6 laps he has no lights I have to bring him in. I can’t leave him out there in the dark. The other riders have figured out what he is doing and they are having none of it. They stay away from him. We pull the bike into the pits and can’t figure out what is wrong. It seems like the leds are just failing we check the harness we check the connections We borrow the light from the other American team of Eli Madero and ATV Rider Mag but we can’t get lights. We finally change the battery and we have lights! (yes I know should have been the first thing we checked) Beau gets on and puts up some great lap times but it is too late we are 6 laps down. We finish the race 6 laps down and discouraged but not done!
12 hours later it’s time for stage 3. We have slept we feel good about our chances were thinking of all our different plans were ready to win this race! Josh is on for the start he gets a good start he comes around for the second lap still doing good holding his own against fulltime pros. Another lap goes by and no Josh we wait for what seems like an eternity and we get word our bike is being towed in. Motor blown! We look it over and decide were not quitters we brought an extra motor lets finish this thing. We get the motor in after 50 minutes and it starts once and it sounds good. It starts twice and it sounds good. It won’t start again this race. Josh tried as hard as he could, before tears of frustration came I pulled the plug and called the race.
It was our end to the race…….
So you ask what happen to the motor. Far as we can tell, case failure. Everything inside the motor is pristine but a long crack from the front of the motor to the transmission. The only other time we have seen this is on motors that produce 60 + hp. This was a completely stock motor except head and piston. Which has lasted 1000 miles before, so we are not sure. What happened to the second motor not sure haven’t got that far yet, but does it really matter.Here comes the Thank You and you thought the story was long. Not in any specific order.
Pro Motorsports wants to thank Larry Hancock and LKH Farming and the Hancock Family for all their help. Without them our shop, racing and this race would not be possible.
Beau and Brandy Baron what a ride this was an experience I will not forget. It reminded me of why I fell in love with racing. Thank you so much for racing with us and all your help.
Town of La Tuque. Thank you for being very gracious hosts and meeting our every need.
Courses VTT. Thank you so much for having this race it was the fastest and most exciting race to see and compete in with so many different events, concerts and fans. Also a big thank you to Martin our personal official that stayed by our pit the whole race and helped us with the race rules. WHAT A RACE!!!
The people of Quebec Canada by far the nicest people I have ever met. I’m sure there are some bad ones but everyone I meet was upstanding and courteous.
Elka Suspension! This is the most upstanding company I have met in this industry. They met our every need and then some! A special thanks to Patrick Tellier for all his help and getting anything I needed.
Beau Baron’s sponsors, MAXXIS, Elka Suspension, Roll design for a great price on arms and parts. Sparks racing for that awesome Sparks exhaust that passed tech with flying colors. And all the rest which I don’t know all of them.
Our Sponsors MAXXIS,DWT, Moose Racing, Tire Blocks, Uni, Flexx, IMS, Quadtech, SSI, Powermadd, Worcs Connection thank you so much for your help and support again we couldn’t do it without you!
Eli Madero and team 603 for letting us borrow the parts we needed to get through the race when our lights failed and not getting upset when I didn’t put them back. Thank you so much.
PY Racing for all their help and parts we borrowed. Thank you PY.
My Personal thanks to everyone especially the riders who without question go out and ride as hard as they can for me!
Check out the cool pictures of all the riders signing the poster for Josh Frederick. Lov ya Bro!
WHAT A RACE!!!! Check out the pics. We’ll see you next year!