Ensenada, Mexico – The FMF/Bonanza Plumbing/KTM Team earned 3rd overall at the 44th Annual running of the Tecate SCORE/Baja 500.

The 7X KTM team had a stacked line-up of KTM’s top athletes competing for the win at the SCORE/Baja 500. The team was headed by Kurt Caselli. He was joined by Mike Brown, Ivan Ramirez and Marc Coma.

The team started 7th off the line with Kurt Caselli behind the bars. He quickly passed the bike off to Ramirez who was scheduled to ride until mile marker 97. Unfortunately, within the first 15 miles of the race course, Ramirez suffered a hard crash going over the bars. He was able to recover but the bike had suffered some serious damage and the team lost approximately 8 minutes to the front runners before it was back in riding condition. Once repaired, Ramirez finished his stretch of the race and then handed the bike over to Brown.

Brown was able to gain some ground on the two top teams. He actually caught and passed the 2nd place JCR/Honda team and began to pull away. Unfortunately, a few more miles down the course, the bike suffered a mechanical issue and Brown had to receive technical assistance. The team tried a few tricks to solve the problem but unfortunately it reoccurred a few more times on the race course and the KTM team fell back to 3rd position.

Once the team arrived at pit 7 the KTM team figured out the issue and was able to solve it as Coma took over. He rode a mistake-free race to the finish. He gained a lot of ground on the front runners but unfortunately they had lost a significant amount of time with the technical issue and he was unable to close the gap on the front two teams. Coma crossed the checkered flag in 3rd position.

“It was unfortunate that we suffered a mechanical issue,” commented FMF/Bonanza Plumbing/KTM Team Manager Antti Kallonen. “Luckily, we know what caused it and we can correct it for the next race. The 3rd place result drops us in the series points standing but we are still focusing on coming back and running up front for the SCORE/Baja 1000 event. We have a great line-up of riders and have high expectations for that race.”

Next Event: 45th Tecate SCORE/Baja 1000 – November 14-17, 2012

Overall Results (Top Five)
1.    Robby Bell, David Pearson, Steve Hengeveld – time: 9:11:33
2.    Colton Udall, Timmy Weigand, David Kamo – time: 9:12:31
3.    Kurt Caselli, Mike Brown, Ivan Ramirez – time: 9:18:39
4.    Kendall Norman – time: 9:49:38
5.    Jim O’Neal, Scott Myers, Ricky Brabee, Morgan Crawford – time: 9:54:05