Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

eOFF·ROAD m Best in the Desert Grand Slam Championship Series: Ronnd 3 ~~~~ The Ely Gran Prix ran th ro ugh the streets of Ely, Nevada, a former copper mining town dating [ro m the 1870s. Dan Smith (sho wn) took the overall win by 10 minutes. SCOll Morr is (N05) leads Carlos Serrano (P26) at the start. Serrano finis hed fourth overall to win Over- 30 P ro, wh ile Morris took sixth overall and third Open Pro. Smith cruises in Ely Gran Prix By Anne and Tom Van Beveren ELY, NV, MAY 19 an Smith smoked the competition at the Ely Gran Prix, racing 70 miles at the head of the pack to take the overall win o n his KT M by a comfortable lO-minute margin, Smith was number one on the star ting grid when the five-lap race bega n and the KT M 510 pilot never looked back. " I had a great race, no problems a t all," Smith said after the race. " I was out in front all the way, just cruising. " The Gran Pr ix was rou nd three of the rive-race series sponsored by Casey Folk's Best in the Desert organization, and the first race ever held in Ely, Nevada, a sma ll town 210 miles northeast of Las Vegas that da tes back to the copper mining days of the 1870s, T he race consisted of rive laps of a l-l-mile loop that began outs ide the town's railway station and included two mil es of city streets, The course. ran through an abandoned slau ghterhouse about a mile from the start, headed northeast to Baltimore Min e and then ran thro ugh the foothills before circling back to the pits, which were laid ou t along II th Street just north of the Ely Post Of£ice. An en thusiastic local crowd turned out to watch the two-part event, which D 34 bega n at 9:00 a.m. [or the 10 Pro entries, and at 12:00 p.m. [or the Sportsman racers . The Pro race started in nine waves, with a IS-second delay between each. The drawing for starting positions put Smith at the front of the nine-row grid and the KTM pi lot wasted no time when the starti ng Ilag dropped for the first time. " I got a good start position fro m the drawing," Smith said . " Being number one meant I had a 15-seco nd lead on everybody else and I went dust-free mos t of the way, until the th ird lap whe n I started catchi ng some lapped gu ys," Smit h made good time in the leadoff spot and stretched his 15-second starting ma rgi n to almos t two minutes by the end of his first trip around the l1-m ile loop. Danny Ande rson got the dro p on row two and was hard on the gas in second place at the end of lap o ne, wh ile Yam ah a YZ250 p ilot Carlos Serrano rocketed up from the sixth row to gra b th ird. David Port er elbo wed his way through from row seven to fourth overa ll on adj usted time at the end of loop one, and Jon Almberg was in front of the 125cc Pros in fifth . "The course was pretty neat, but it was so dusty it was almost im possible David Porter finished fifth overall and second in the 250cc Pro class. H ere, Porter rides through the doo r of an abandoned slaughterhouse whi ch was part of th e course. to pass," said SCOll Morris, who started back on row six. ..It was so tigh t you had to reall y get up o n somebody and that was hard becau se of the du st." Over-38 Pro Ken Maah s also ha d problems with the du st: "It was prett y bad orr the start and I slid out a few times. I'd end up over here and the course was five feet over there, but after the du st settled down I didn 't have any problem follo wing it. It was marked very well," said the KTl\l racer from Oregon . Danny Hamel lau nched a promisi ng charge fro m row three but his race was over just four miles into the course. " I picked up some wire and it wrapped around my stomach and legs," the KTM pi lot exp lained. " It gave me a horrible stomach ache and I just wanted to puke. We had to fix the bike because the wire brok e the fender orr and tore all kinds of stuff up and I went out agai n, but I started to get sick so I decided to call it a day," Utah 's Brandon Gerber pulled in for an early pit stop after losin g his rear brakes on the first lap and Greg Searle was back in the pits in record time after he melted the bib mousse in his rear tire. Over- 38 P ro class rider Tom Holmes was having problems with a different type of eq uipment : " I went around one of the really tight comers and the bike tipped over and did a sideways action on my knee that busted my knee brace right in ha ir. It happened o n the first lap and I was go ing to quit, But when I came in to the pits they kind of shoved me back o ut, so I just rode [or the finish." Smith was a lmost th ree minutes ah ead of the pack at the end of loo p two, with Anderson still ho lding on to second and Serra no leading the Over30 Pros in third. Port er and Almberg were followed through by Over-38 leader Maahs, and Brent Fox, Dennis Belingheri, jr., Scott Morris and J ohn Rudder rou nded o ut the tOP 10. "T he start was pretty du sty but I wor ked my way throu gh the pac k, JUSt pickin g people off. It was a lot of fun, " said Ru dder, who carne up from row seven. Rudder headed into the pits whi le the other racers went out on loop three. " I took adva ntage of pit ting early and getti ng some fresh goggles," the Cagiva pilot explai ned. " It worked well for me. Everyone else wait ed un til the thi rd loop and it go t kind of cro wded." Smith headed in at the end of loop three to find o ut how his race was going. " Dad said I had four and a half minutes (on second place) so I just cruised on in after that," he said. " I was having a good tim e - th e co u rse wa s. awesome." G A Act ionw ear 's Ge orge Antill agreed : " You really have to hand it to hi m (Folks). It was a bitch in ' course, the best I've ridd en in probabl y three or four years. It was tight and twisty, reall y techn ical, and you really had to be on your toes." T he top-three pos ruons were unchanged as loop four go t un derway, but the spr ints had started further back in the pack . Kawasak i KXl 25-mounted Belingh eri scrambled through to hold fifth place and was making time on l25cc class leader Alrnberg in fourth; Rudder had sho t up to six th to grab the 250cc lead; and Gerber moved up five p laces to claim ninth overa ll. " I thin k it could 've used a lilli e more rough stuff,' said KTM rider Gerber of the course. "T here were tOO man y roads in it for me, bu t that 's just because we're used to different ridi ng - we're from Utah. " The course got tou gher as the race wore on . "T he re are some rut s out there as deep as your wheel," said Over-38 cont en der Keith Pearson. " T hey're climbing up in between some trees so it's getting a bit tricky. " Mechanical problems were also taking a toll : Danny Anderson took time o ut from second overall ' to change an air filter on lap four , Porter lost time with a front fiat , and Searl e dropped out with just 13 mil es to go. "The bike quit," Searle said. " I kicked and kicked and kicked and got it started agai n, but it kep t on 'killing ' all the way round the last loop. It finall y 'killed' and I couldn' t get it go ing so I had to pu sh it in." Rudder an d Porter were battling hard for the 250cc hon ors as the final lap go t u nderway, bu t Port er didn' t know it. " I thou gh t he (Rudder ) was on a 125 for some stupid reaso n," said the Suzuki RM250 p ilot. " I passed him on the last lap, then I [ell in front of him and I couldn't get by him aga in. If I knew he was on a 250, I wouldn 't ha ve [allen; I would've concentrated a lot more and a lo t harder and I wou ld've stayed in front of hi m. I didn 't th ink he was in my class so I was just o ut having fun...· O ut in front, the final laps were

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