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- - - - - - -- - - - - -- - - - - - - - - eHARE SCRAMBLES - -- - - - - - - -- AMA NationalChampionship Hare Scrambles Series: Round 4 .~ Even a painful knee injury couldn't stop local favorite Ron Naylor from winning the Shasta Dam GP for the sixth time. Naylor strikes again at Shasta Dam GP By David Ben da/Reco rd Searchlight P h oto by Mike Teegarden REDDING, CA, APR. 21 hor tl y after the National Shasta Dam Grand Prix, ATK's Ron Naylor sat in his pit area grimacing in pain. With his knee iced and propped up on a stool, the 28-year-old local favorite looked more like a casualty of the 10th Annual race than a man who had just won the event for th e sixth time. Despite tearing ligaments in his kn ee two weeks ago at the Cadiz , Kentucky, National, Nayl or , wh o lives in Redding, grabbed the lead just over two miles into th e race and never lost ' the number one position, scoring his first National Hare Scrambles win of the year. ATK-backed Naylor crossed the fini sh line approximately two minutes ah ead of his nearest rival, defending National Champion Scott Summers. " O n th e last lap, my knee was hurting so bad that a couple of times it almost brought me to tears," Naylor S 20 I said. " I was doing all I could just to keep it steady and hold on ." "I didn 't think his knee would be a problem," said Honda 's Summers. " This is a pretty easy course. It 's not too physically demanding. This has been Ron's race for so many years; everybody else wh o comes her e ends up racing for second. "The.second-place fini sh will help me a lo t because I have a solid lead in the series," co n tinued Summers. " Basically, I ·Iost the battle, bu t I'm winning the war. " Finishing the race just over two minutes behind runner-up Summers was Team Green 's Greg Zitterkopf, who finished abou t the same distance ahead of local AMA District 36 racer Eric Mashbir. Naylor's brother, Don, rounded out th e top five overall , finishing 30 seconds behind Mashbir. Ron Naylor, who was hoping to race the event on a four -stroke, found himself st aying up late Saturday getting hi s 406cc two-stroke ATK ready . to co mpete. " I was ,planning on riding a fourstro ke - that's what I wanted to ride ," said Naylor. "But I had taken my fourstro ke apart and was having a new sleeve put in the cylinder, but I never got the parts back in time, so I was up until midnight the night before the race getting my two-stroke ready - I was bu ilding a new engine for it. I never even got a chance to ride it; I basically started it up for the first time just before the race. I was worried there's always something you forget to do, but aparently I didn't forget anything and the bike worked great." Rain on Sat urday left the 30-mi lea-lap,« three- loop course muddy and slick for Sunday's race, and the 270 riders blasted o££ the start line in three separate waves beginning at 10:00a.m. After the first wave of Experts took the green flag, Naylor shot into the lead about two miles later, while the r eigning champ, Summers, was mired in the middle of the pack. " I was second o££ the line," said Na ylor . " T here's about a two-mile pavement section o££ the start. I was seco nd all the way up the pavement. ' I took over the lead about the two-anda-half-m ile mark. As soon as we got into the dirt, the guy ah ead of me kind of spun out and I took the lead." " I had a terrible start," said Summers. " I was in 20th place after we rounded the first turn." However, well -known for his excel lent mud riding abilities, Summers picked o££ riders one by one and started moving up through the pack. " I generally do well in the mud," said Summers. " Ron just knows this place too well." " I knew Summers would be battling me the entire day," said Naylor. "He's the best mud racer in the United States. This is my kind of course, though, but it's a lot better when it's dry." Once he had moved into the lead, Naylor tried to build up a comfortable .margi n· as soon as he could. " I knew it was going to be muddy, but down at the lower elevations it was pretty good conditions - good traction - so I just pushed as hard as I could for about the first half a lap. I figured I had a little bit of a lead built up, so I kind of took it easy the rest of the lap." As Nay lor completed ' the first lap and headed into the pit area, he soon found out that he had perhaps taken it a little too easy. "When I pitted I was kind of surprised, because just as I was leaving the pits Greg Zitterkopf.hadjust pulled into the pits," Naylof explained. "I only had about 30-35 seconds on him, so when I left the pits I rode real hard again for about 15 miles or so, and I built up my lead to about a minute and a half, So I just took it easy for a wh ile, beca use the course was getting a little muddier and I wasn't really too concerned with Greg because I figured the muddier it got, the tougher it would be on him. Then I started worrying about Summers." Nay lor's concern for Summers was a legi ti mate one, as Summers moved into second place during the second lap after passing Californian Zit terkopf as well as Mashbir, Don Naylor and Tony Hendon. However, Ro n Naylor managed to defend his lead. "I maintained about the same lead over Summers as I did on Zitterkopf," said Naylor. "On the third lap , it (the course) got even muddier yet, but still not real muddy as far as East Coast terms, but out here it was fairly muddy. I stayed ahead of Scott through all the sloppy sections, and the last five miles or so it was fairly dry so I figured that I would win." Which he did. "I'm really happy I did so well," said Naylor. " I was kind of skeptical that I would be able to even race up here beca use of my knee. But since this race is a little faster and doesn 't ha ve the deep ruts like so many of the races back east, I was able to race." Nay lor finished the race in two hours and 34.12 seconds, while runnerup Summers crossed the finish line with a time of 2:36.49 . Zit terkop f recorded a 2:"9.30 and Mash bir a 2:41.30. Mash bir was close ly followed across the checke rs by Don Nay lor (2:42.2), who was also closely pursued by Cu rt Wilcox (2:43.05). Desert racer Dan Richardson (2:44.42) finished seventh overall j ust in front of AT K teammates .WiIly Musgrave (2:45.00) and former National Hare Scrambles Cham pion Tony Hendon (2:46.08). Ron La Pointe (2:48.53) rounded out the top 10. Scoring 12th overall was another former Nationa l Hare Sc ram b les Cham p ion , Australian Geoff Ballard (2:49.59). Ballard, who hap pened to be in tow n on business, bo rro wed a mo torcycle from Su mmers to compete on. m Resul ts 0 / A: 1. Ro n Naylo r (AT K); 2. Scott Summers (Hon); 3. Greg Zitterkopl (Kaw): 4. Eric Mashbir: 5. Don Naylor (ATK ); 6. CUrl Wiloox; 7. Dan Richardson {Kaw); 8. Willy Musgrave (ATK) : 9. Tony Hendon (ATK); 10. Ron LaPointe: 11. Doug Noell ; 12. Geoll Ballard (Hon): 13. Harvey Whitaker (Hon ); 14. Todd Damrow; 15. Shawn Doddington; . 16. Colin McDonald; 17. Donald Franklin; 18. Jell Irwin; 19. Steve Leivan: 20. Brad Holcom.