Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

~ .INTERVIEW National Hare Scrambles and Cross Conntry Champion - Scott Snmmers !One champio • w t enough asn' O'l . ,....; By Kit Palmer Photos by Davey Coombs cott Summers got more than he barga in ed for. For the past five years, he had nothing on his mind but nabbing the AMA National Ch am pionship Hare Scrambles Series number one plate. . . In 1990, his dream came tru e when he clinched the championship in August, but for.Summers , the season wasn't over! He was also leading the Grand National Cross Country Championship Series, so another championship number-one plate was well within his grasp. And before the year was over, not only did he own the National Hare Scrambles title, but he also held the National Cross Country title. It was a very prosperous year for the 22-yearold racer from Petersburg, Kentucky. "In the National Hare Scrambles Series, I went from National number II in 1986,. to number nine in '87, to number five in '88, and to number three in '89. These were all odd numbers, so I started thinking that 1990 was going to be my year," said Summers. And it was his year. Of the two titl es Summers earned in . 1990, he feels that the AMA National Hare Scrambles Ch ampion ship means th e most to him. " I think the Nati onal Hare Scrambles is more prestigious, just because there are races out West, as well as in the East. and I think the motorcycle industry takes it a little mor e seriou sly; too. But the Cross Country Series is perhaps just as hard to win ." S ' On order to win the championship, I had to . beat Ed Lojak.J! 36 . When Sum mers says, " . . . just as ha rd to win," he indirectly means that in ord er to win the National Cross Country Cham pions hip he had to beat nine- time Cross Country cha mp Ed Lojak. In the history of the National Cross Co untry Series, no one other tha n Lojak h ad eve r' ca rrie d th e number one plate. " In order to win th e cham pionship, I had to beat Ed Lojak ," said Summers. " You beat Ed and you had th e championship, it was as simple as tha t. It 's tough to go in there and beat him , though. He 's got a lot of th e tracks dial ed, but Ed had a really bad year. He had a lot of problems, but you can never count him out. He did a great job winning last year after riding Husqvarnas for so long, then switching to Yamaha and still being able to win races ' - that's pretty impressive. You have to take your hat off to him. It's amazing to win nine championships in a row . He is just so consistent and he doesn 't make a lot of mistakes. He's also in great shape; he turns it on when everybody else is too tired (to do so). He always has the reserve and that's real important. " Even though Lojak was his biggest rival on the track, he was also his biggest asset. "I've learned a lot about how to ride from Ed. Like in the pas t five years, I've slowly caught up to the point where I can ca tch and ride with him And then he would just let me by. H would tell me to pass him because h didn't want me to rid e behind hi m becaus e I'm basically learning when I'm riding behind him. I've learned lot about riding that way, what to d and what not to do . Then I stane using his tricks on him. It was s , , . . . I started using his: tricks 0!1 him. It was so ~1J frustrating for Ed that I had him mentally bead' l frustrating for Ed that I had him mentally beat. So much of racing i~ in the mind. I've learned a lot, like I never . let anybody ride behind m. anymore. I either let them pass me..9J , I will pull away from them." .' ;w , Overall, .Summers couldn't hav asked for a berter year in the CrQ . Country Series. 5rl "In the Cross Country Series, the)! count your eigh t best scores out of the 12races, and I won seven races. I almost had a perfect seri es. There wasn't anybody else who had more than one win. I onl y had on e DNF all year long, which is prett y incredible when you rid e tha t many Nationals." Although Summers only won three rounds in the National Hare Scrambles Series, the championship came to him much easier than the Cro ss Country title . Summers' closest competitor in the Hare Scrambles Series was the defending champ, Scott Plessinger. But Plessinger was seriously injured near the halfway po int of the series in a National in Idaho and had to call it quits for the rest of th e year. "Scott and I were pretty mu ch neck and neck when he got hurt. We were almost tied in points. It was kind of a relief when Scott was injured; it was kind of like th ere wasn't as much pressure on me to perform. My strategy didn't change any after Scott got hurt; I still had to concent ra te becau se ther e were still a bunch of guys who could' ve won the championship. I would've lik ed to see Scott not get hurt, I would 've liked to have won the cha mpi onship fair and squar e. I really didn 't have that grea t of a year in the Hare Scrambles Series. I only won three races, but I guess everybody else had a worse series than 1. did ." Success didn 't come overnight Summers worked for it. "I think what made this year so successful for me, compared to last year, was that I took this year .more seriously than before. I also rode my bike more, and I learned from my mistakes in the past and tried not to make the same mistakes twice. I trained a lot more this year than I had in the past, and another big thing was that I didn't ride the ISDE this year. You know how much a headache preparing for the Six Days is, going to Europe and all, and the qualifier series is so time consuming. I di d ride the first qualifier in Oklahoma, ' but I was wishy-washy back then, and I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted to do. I think it was best for ine to stay home and concentrate on the Hare Scramble Series. Maybe next year I'll get dialed in for the Six Days."

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