Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

Kevin Brown (2 ) jumped int o the early lead ahead of Ed lojak (behind Brown) and Steve McSwain (5 ). De fending National Cross Country champ lojak gets the checkered flag as well as the thumbs up in the series opener in North Carolina. AMA WisecojYamaha Grand National Cross Country Series: Round 1 Lojak lands Sand Flea 100 victory By Davey Coombs Photos by Gary Plessinger SANFORD, NC , MAR. 12 T eam Yamaha's Ed Lojak began his quest for an u nprecedented-eighth consecutive Grand National Cross Country Championsh ip with the overall win at the 1989 series 10 opener in Sanford. The 28year-old Pen nsylvan ian over- I came a furious challenge by " Team Green 's Scott Plessinger on the extremely difficult Sand Flea 100 co urse to win by 60 seco nds. T hei r three-hour battl e for th e overa ll lasted until less than a mi le left in the race, wh en Plessinger hung up his KX250 in a rutted-out rav ine as Lojak sprint ed for th e checke red flag , Roundin g o u t th e top five overa ll were Dunlop/Smith/ P ro -C ircuit/Right Racin g-backed Kevin Brown, Open A win ner Steve McSwain , and Ohio WR250 pilot J eff Ru ssell , YZI25 rider Gen e Onail was the top 200cc A rider o n th e day wh ile Pennsylvania 's Tracey War rington accou nted for th e FourStro ke A clas s win. KTM 's Dick Burl eson was tops in th e Sen ior A class a fte r a co n vinci ng seventh overa ll effort. North Carolina ' s o w n Burch Hamrick led th e rest of th e classes with th e 33-rid er Junior divi sion win. Honda-mounted Richard Faria won th e Open B clas s, whi le Ohio's Eric Sau er bettered 49 other riders to score th e 250cc B victory . Other Amateur class winners included BT Racin g's Brian Patterson (200cc B), KTM pilot Louis Dearman (Sen ior B), local favorite Walter McLean (Four-Stro ke B), Mary land's Bruce Triplett (Super Senior) and Illinois' Lawrence Hayes (Masters). The onehour Minicycle event was captured by YZSO rider Josh Lojak, The best description of th e Sand Flea 100 course may have come from the winner him self; Lojak called it " pos sibly the most difficult track I ever rode." Six weeks of on-again offaga in rain in the tarheel state turned the underlying red Carolina clay into an unforgiving muck that swa llowed motorcycles wholesale. The Devil 's Ridge Riders ' club that organized the event would spend the day setting up a lte rn a te routes through the infinite number of bogs that saturated the co urse. Of the 275 riders th at started the three-hour race only II completed all five laps. Hol esho t art is t Kevin Brown pi cked up where he left off last season by placing his CR250 at the end of the start stretch in front of the other 29 250cc A and Open A riders. Trailing in short order were Lojak, McSwain , BT RaCing/Scott/ Wi seco /MC R 's Dav ey Coombs , KTM ' s Mark Hyd e, Pl es singer , T eam Green 's Robbie Neeley and H usqvarna pilot Barry Gaston. Left in last on the starti ng line was Russell , who needed several extra kicks to get his ride running in the dead engme sta rt. Joining him near the back of th e pack were defending Open A series champ Scott Summers and last year's Blackwat er 100winner Tim Co ombs, both st ru gg l i n g through a vin e thi cket encounte red as th e cro wd funneled int o th e first tight woods sectio n. Brown would lead for the first quarter lap before McSwain moved his Honda aro und him for th e lead. Alread y the lead rid ers were beginning to find th e going tough in the numerous deep, tree-lined ravines that dotted the course throughout. Two of th e day 's first casualties, howev er, fell ou t of contention on an open stretch. Neeley tangled with another rider just before entering the woods and crashed hard on h is KX250. Fellow T eam Green pi lot Terry Cunningham was also at the scene and would drop out of the race while trying to ensure that the other riders were not seriously inj ured. McSwain was the first ride r to the lap one clock point, leading Brown by half a minute. Plessinger rode a tig ht "third with Lojak in tow ." Davey Coombs rode fifth overall, followed 20 seconds later by R ussell and KTM rider Duane Conner. Ro unding out the first 10 were Yamaha YZ490mounted Tim Shephard, Ohio's Joel Jenkins, and North Carolinian • Farrell Smith. . Furth er ba ck Burleson was employing his enduro credentials to move through the field after starting out in th e second Senior A row. The KTM 250 rider hit the barrels four minutes off of McSwain's pa ce in the 12th overa ll position. ATK riders Paul Michel s and Tom Meyers kept co mpany with the leading Senior earl y, but Burleson 's ge taway would be co mp lete by the end of lap two. After five laps Burleson crossed the checkered £lag a convinci ng sevent h o vera ll, a little more th an a half hour behind Lojak's tim e o n th e rugged co urse. Michels and Meyers followed in th e class rankings with Joseph Hull and Yamaha rider J oe Lojak rounding out th e top five. As the leaders engaged the co urse for the second time it was clear that th e course was not holding up to the massive number of bik es. Every h ill becam e an adventure as th e paths took on the look of a never-ending slot-car track. Soon th e rider s would be stretching the widths of th e circu it in search of alternate lines , some sections growing more than 100 feet in width. When new leader Lojak and P lessinger made the completio n of lap two, their first lap tie of 32 minutes had been extended by five minutes; their last lap of the race measured approximately 38 minutes. Coming through the barrels Lojak led new number two Brown by j ust two seconds with Plessinger breathing down the runner-up's neck. McSwain had dropped 30 seconds off of the pace while Russell sat in fifth three mi nutes down. Co nner was another three minutes back in sixth while Davey Coombs pulled out of the race with a bent front disc. In the 200cc A class O nail and " YZI25 rider Stan Lojak held the lead ground after one lap, clocking in just seven seconds " apart. Lojak would inherit the lead o n the next lap and actually mo ve up int o the seventh overa ll position, and by the thi rd lap he extended his lead on Onail to nearly 10 full minutes with KT M rider Robert Tominello, last year's 200cc B champion, and Pennsylvania 's Buddy Norton trai ling. Lojak climbed as high as sixth overa ll by th e end of the fourth lap, but before he could complete the fifth and fina l lap, his machine faltered in a mud-

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