Kendall Racing / XX Army Second at Best in the Desert Parker 250
Trent Kendall & Joe Ramos Second at BITD Parker 250

Las Vegas, NV (1/15/2014) - As the 2014 Season starts, the Q11 Kendall Racing / XX Army team of Joe Ramos and Trent Kendall switched their efforts to riding a lighter KMS Performance / Lone Star Racing Honda TRX 450 for the shorter races and keeping the Big Bore Honda 700’s for the longer races.

Apparently Parker is in the cell phone Bermuda Triangle because we had a hard time keeping everyone’s cell phone time set to AZ time.  Some of us got up a bit late and others way too early, but everyone managed to get where they needed to be in time for the start.  The 1st pro motorcycle was off at 7:30am.  We had drawn the first starting position for the pro ATV class and we had about 15-20 bikes in front of us.   Joe Ramos leads the pro quads off the start because the team believes he has X-ray dust vision.  He was able to set a great pace and passed about 4 dirt bikes in the wash in the 1st 15 miles.  Joe makes it to the midway pit in first place and hands of the Q11 Yuma Mortuary/KMS/Moose racing TRX 450 to Trent Kendall. 

Trent Kendall & Joe Ramos got off to a great start in the 2014 Best in the Desert Season by earning a second place finish at the Parker 250

Trent makes it to the main pit after passing a few dirt bikes and battling a little arm pump.  The Q11 quad finished lap one with a 2 minute lead on corrected time over the Q1 team of Dave Scott and Danny Prather.  Joe gets back on Q11 at the midway pit still in the lead.

Joe makes short work of the high speed section after midway and gets over the canal crossing maintaining the lead.  Joe then comes in hot to an uphill sharp right hander with big whoops and gets bucked off sending Joe and the Q11 bike on a gymnastics contest through the desert.  Joe does a full front flip onto his back and rear-end , knocking the wind out of him and sending the Q11 bike on its side. Joe regains himself, locates his lungs, and gets the Q11 machine rubber side down.  The quad fires up and he gets moving again but not at race speed.  Luckily, although down for a few minutes Joe was not passed but the Q1 and Q83 teams were not far behind.  Joe is focused on getting to the main pit about 30 miles away to give it a once over for any damages.

Still in the lead Joe is headed to the scoring loop on the asphalt section when the Q1 machine sneaks up behind and passes him on the pavement.  The pass instantly gets Joe back into race mode.  Q1 with 2013 BITD Champion Danny Prather and Q11 start off the 3rd lap less than 1 second apart and put on a hell of a show for the people at the start/finish line ripping though there, just shredding up the race course.  After a while Joe can no longer see through the dust and he thinks to himself about the crash earlier and decides to kick it down as he was injured and does not need to risk another crash.  Q1 started the race 5th off the line so on corrected time they are now beating Q11 team by 5 minutes. 

 As Joe approaches the main pit he gets passed in the python by Q83 Cody Mitchell. The XXArmy main pit crew gets Joe in and out of the pits in front of Q83 Cody.  Q11 exits the main pit physically in 2nd position but the injured rider cannot keep the pace and Cody gets by him before they get to the midway pit. 

Joe hands the quad off to Trent approximately 3 minutes behind the Q1 and Q83 teams.  Trent is able to make up some ground and he passes Q83 Colt Brinkerhoff a few miles from the finish line.  Colt was on the side of the course trying to get his machine restarted.  Trent knew the Q83 started 3 minutes behind so he hammered down to finish as quickly as possible in hopes of making up the lost time.  The Q11 team ended up taking 2nd place finishing 6.5 minutes behind the defending champs on the Q1 CT Racing Honda.

The Q11 team will be competing in the entire Best in the Desert season along with select SCORE Baja races and the Arizona Off Road Promotions desert challenge series.

The Q11 team wishes to thank their sponsors:
Yuma Mortuary, Moose Racing, KMS Performance, DFR Racing, Spider Grips, Fasst Flexx bars, Pro Armor, Odyssey batteries, 4wdlights.com, United Distributing, Spy optics, IMS Racing Products, Kenda Tires, WARP Off Road, Napier outdoor truck tents, Wolfsnout, and 100% Goggles

The Q11 team needed a good finish to start off the year and have a lot of people on the team to thank:
Lavar Kendall, Adam Barnes, XXArmy racing, Jamie Ramos, Kristie & Kathy, Darren & Mary Kate Mattice, Danny Flower, Jersey Mike Zelenka, Rich and Verna, Norm & Amie Graham, Les Hutchinson, Chris Wilson for the freeze out gear and radio

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