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/127193
Scott Summers piloted h is Honda XR600 to his third overall win this season, f in ishing three minutes ahead of Lojak. Ed Loja k he ld the lead several times during the three-hour event , but at the end he was second overall and first in the 250cc A class. AMA WisecojYamaha National Cross Country/ Hare Scrambles Championships: Rounds 5/8 Summers rolls to WinterPlace 100 win By Davey Coombs FLATTOP, WV, MAY 21 Kentucky' s Scott Sum m ers raced to h is third AMA Na tion al win of the season with a controversial victory a t th e Win terPlace 100. T h e H onda XR 600-mounted rider battled with Team Yamaha's Ed LOJ' ak throughout the three. hou.r ra ce, a cornb i n ed National Cross Country/Hare ' 14 Scrambles even t. The Sports to w n U SA/S u p erTrapp/Brid gestone/Bell/Tsubaki / H allman /Whit e Brothers/Sprocket Specialist-bac ked Summers posted a three-minute lead on Loj ak in pi cking up the overa ll victory. H owever, the race was not decided for so me time after th e chec kered flag fell. A ro test b th e runner-up concern ing ~ mi ssel arrow on th e sp ecial-test secti on was followed by a co unterprotest from the Summers crew involving a similar mi ssed corn er by _ .. LOJak . The. sItuatlo~ .was resol.ved ~~en ~oth n~t;rs , rea lizing a possible Jo!nt dlsquah!lcatlon Irorn th e event , withdrew th eir respective charges. . The co ntroversy . settl ed, the top Iive overall remamed as posted. Summers was .th e overall winner, followed by LOJak, th e 250cc A class winner, and North Carolina's Steve McSwain, the Cross Country Series ' overall points leader. P lacing an impres siv~ fourth overall was Ohio Yamaha r!der J eff Ru ssell , the 125cc A class winner, Ru ssell crossed th e line just three seco nds ahead of P irelli /Hi -P oint/Yam ah a-b a ck ed Sta n Lojak, runner-up in 125cc A a nd fifth overa ll on t.he day. The six-rni le WmterPlace 100 co urse t!'iced throu~h th e Win~erPlace Ski Resort and It.s surrou nd ing a re a . Slo pes w er~ i n cor pora ted th roughout .the 'trail! making for a fa~t and, a t times, 9uIte steep course. WIth nearl y 300 nders o~ hand , th e sh orter-than-usual lap tlm.es mad e for so me heavy lapped traffi c for the lead ers throl!'hho~t ~heh thr~-hour run. ~ven WIt !l 0 t e bi es the track Itself .remam ed du st-free, three weeks of ram had preceded th e sunny weekend t h a t greeted th e co m petitors. , The riders lin ed up on one of the resort's low er slo pes for a ma ss start accordirig to class. The 250cc A rid ers left the line first with ho leshot master' Kevin Brown leading th e way. Loj ak stayed close through the opening paces before going past Brown to lead everyone into the first lap check. Scott Plessinger held third on his T eam Green-backed KX250, but less than a lap lat er the Ohio rider was out of the running with a sp ent set of rear brake pads . Behind Plessinger ca me Summers and McSwain, both of whom started o u t in th e second row of Open A rid ers. For several laps th e leading bi g bike duo paced one a no the r alo ng with Lojak before Summers mad e a break in lapped traffi c and lost McSwa in for th e rest of th e aftern oon. Shephard was holding third in th at cla ss a nd would do so u n ti l th e c heckere d fl a g . Keith Rod gers foll owed for a class fourth whi le BT R acing v'w iseco vG earbacked Tim Coombs rod e to fifth o n th e da y. Loj ak wou ld be trail ed in the 25 0cc A ratings by Brown , Ada ms , Reyn aud a nd Kawasakimounted Patrick Smith. A sho rt ways back came an exci ting three-man fight for th e 125cc A 'class lead . Ru ssell a nd Loj ak were trailin g Ge ne Onail through th e early laps as th e tri o pulled away fro m th eir ri val s. Once into th e lapped traffi c th e threesom e began pi cking up 250cc A and Open A pos it ions a nd were soo n into the top 10 overa ll. After the fifth of II laps Russell began to stretch his lead sligh tly, havin g br ok en th e draft of Onail and Lojak wh en that pair too k more time in th e pits. Russ ell 's lead a t that po int was 40 seconds over Onail, whci was being, shad owed byLojak. Team Green 's Jeff Fredette was also in th e fra y bri efly but dropped off of th e pace to preserve his 200cc A clas s lead. Fredette' s winning m a rgin o ver divi sion runner-up Michael Burke would measu re more than five minutes. Yamaha-mounted Brian Stanley, a loca l favorite, was th ird on the day . On the second lap of th e race a rela tively minor in cident occurred whic h would hav e great input on the post-race contro versy. Coming into sigh t of th e approximate ly 1500 specta to rs ga the red at th e m ain lod ge/ race headquarters, Lojak took a sbo rt inside line through a wooded sectio n in ord er to get past a pair of lappers on th e main trail. Lojak would use th e sam e line at least twi ce during th e course of the event and Summers would follow him through th e approximately 20-foot cu t o n the very next lap as the two dueled for th e top spot. On th e next lap Summers' offtrack excursion on the motocross course took place. Double arrows were placed on the edges of severa l jumps in a construction area. After having taken o ver th e top spot from Lojak, Summers missed one of these mounds directly in sight of Lojak. " H e slowed down and looked like he was go ing to go back," said Lojak, " Bu t wh en he ' saw me I think he decid ed to just keep going in order to stay o ut front." . Summers did keep going, and for th e next four laps th e two riders swapped the lead position numerou s tim es, "Too many times to count," said Loj ak . Further back Honda riders Carey Stump a nd Harvey Whitaker were engaged in a battle for th e FourStroke A class win. The two rid ers wou ld register a lap more than the . rest of th e class and in the end it wou ld be Stump holding on to the top spo t. Whitaker was five minutes ' back in second with Tracey Warrington th ird . With just four laps to go in the l 25cc A d ice the Dunlop/Scott Tsubak iz FlvlF-b a ck ed Ru ssell seemed to slow. " 1 didn 't know th at Lojak and Onail were still that close," said Russell in the winner 's circle, ' "So I started slowing down a bit because I was getting tired." Tha t gave the chase team a cha nce to Catch up and on th e ninth lap Onai l led the set into the barrels. , Russ ell was back in con tro l a lap later and began to pull another slight lead , but o n th e last la p Lojak made a dash for th e win and caught Russell with less than three miles to go . T he pair bu llied th eir way through the woods in the sprint for the finish , a nd in the end it was Russell by three seconds. Onail faded a fu ll minute off of th e pace for third while Jeff Austin a nd Brian Walker went fourfive. , In th e Junior class Mike Frazee pi cked up hi s first win of the season after lead ing several of th e other National events. Four-r ace winner Buren H amrick was on th e disabled list for the run and Frazee took adva ntage to pick up the win. Adam Cadle rode second with Kurt Bowman leading Jaisson DeRoche across the 1in e for fourth. The finish of the event was rather uneventful for the overall leaders. After making a mid-race break from Lojak and McSwain, Summers sped away towards the checkered flag, cloc king in three minutes ahead of Lojak. McSwai n was another six minutes behind. Summers' post-race champagne, however, was prel uded . by the aforementioned controversy. After Lojak filed hi s claim concernin g the missed arrows Summers took