Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/127187
Multi-time ISDE gold medalist Jeff Fredette. from Illinois. took first place in the 200cc class aboard a Kawasaki KDX200. .Scott Summers. riding a Honda XR600 four-st,:oke. captured his second consecutive National Championship Hare Scrambles victory. Kurt Hough (left) and Fredette accept their awards following the race. Hough finished second overall and first place in the 250cc class. AMA National Championship Hare Scrambles Series: Round 4 Summers soars to Moonshine victory By Merle Acord CADIZ, KY, APR. 9 For the second week in a row Scott Summers powered his Honda XR600 four-stroke to an unprecedented second overall victory of the series. Summers, after six . 13.5 mile o laps a.nd an elapsed time of three hours and 32 minutes won the West Kentucky Trail Riders' 5th Annual Moonshine.National Hare Scrambles with a seven-minute-and-52-second margin over Team Kawasaki's Kurt Hough. The Sportstown USA o( Radcliff, Kentucky/SuperTrapp/Scott USA! Bridgestone/Bell/PJ - I/Tsubaki/ Hallman/White Brothers/Sprocket Specialists-backed Summers started off in third place behind Terry "T.C." Cunningham and Ed Lojak at the end o( the first loop. "I got hung up in. those little saplings on the uphill right after the barrels on the first lap," said Summers. "Not bad, just a minor. screw-up, but there was a big knot of riders right behind me all trying to get through the barrels at the same time, and when I got going again, I was way back there (ninth place). I kept passing guys until I caught Scott Plessinger; I saw Ed Lojak pull off with some kind of problem but I still hadn't seen Cunningham. I got around Plessinger but then I nailed a lapper and Plessinger passed me back. I got around him again when .he pulled 0(£ with a flat tire. "I still didn't know where Cunningham was and these trails are wide open and fast, the kind that T.C. likes. I thought he was.still out front and that kind o( worried me. On the second loop my dad told me Cunningham was having suspension problems and had slowed down and I had passed him in the pits. "At the start of the third lap I had a 30 second lead on Hough and I felt good. I just rode as fast as I could from then on and stayed out o( trouble." Team Yamaha's Ed Lojak, who thrives on pressure, may have had the ride of the day finishing sixth overall after being down almost 20 minutes at the end o( the second lap. "The cable came out of the throttle slide," said Lojak explainin~how he lost so much time after leadmg most o( the first lap. "I don't know how it happened. I. haven't had the carburetor apart for the three races and nothing broke, it just jumped out some way. But, the bad part ... I didn't have a screwdriver in my fanny-pack and I couldn't get the carburetor apart. I finally borrowed a screwdriver, but I had lost so much time." Team Kawasaki's Cunningham also had troubles. He took over the lead when he passed Lojak in a semidry creek bed half a mile before the barrels at the end of the first lap. "I don't know exactly what happened," said Cunningham. "The bike was working real good and I (elt good then the shock went away. It was like the oil was breaking down. That was too bad because I'm going to compete in both the National Hare Scrambles and the Enduros and I need the points." Team Green/Sinisalo/Dunlop/ Scott Goggles/Bell·Ray/White Bros/Pro-Circuit-sponsored Hough accomplished his second overall and 250cc A class despite a sprained thumb and pulled ligaments on his left hand. Hough did a get-off at the Louisiana National last week, spraining his thumb. Hough continued to ride by gripping the . handlebar with the palm of his hand but that exerted excessive pressure on the ligaments to the little and ring finger. The ligaments responded by ~ swelling, leaving his hand with minimum grip. "Plessinger passed me on the third lap," said Hough. "and I was already getting tired, but I knew I had to stay with him. After Plessinger dropped back I just kept on going. The course was getting rutted out which wasn't too bad during the early part, but in the later laps, I was tired, and instead of riding the edges or on top of the ruts I was hitting all of the bottoms and that wasn't I much fun. Anyway, this second place is better than the third I got last week, so I'm getting better." Team KTM's Mark Hyde finished third overall and second in the 250cc A class but had intense riding experiences at both the start and the finish of the race. Of the 350 riders that signed up, the Open and 250cc