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RMOTOCROSS 16th Annual MX Grand National Championship I Robbie Reynard (67) swept three classes, Here, he leads Craig Decker (75) and G~ Rand (77) in the Super Mini (12ยท18) class. Reynard, Lusk dean upat Ponca City By Ken Faught PONCA CITY, OK, AUG. 6-11 t the track they were called janitors, riders who cleaned up in their respective classes. But if you ca ll Robbie Reynard or Ezra Lusk janitors, you ha d better follow it up with Grand Na tional Ch ampions as well. Excl u din g a second-place moto finish by Reynard, the duo won every A 10 moto of the minibike' and motorcycle classes to claim the ir respective titl es ' during the Coca-C o la-s p onsored National Motosport Asso ciati ons anctioned event . Reynard, from Moore, Oklahoma, earned his title by winning both motos in the 80cc (12-13) Stock class and th en finishing with a 2-1 tally in th e Modified class. Bainbridge, Georgia's . Lusk did one better by topping all eigh t motos in th e 125 and 250cc Stock a nd Modified classes , a feat never before accomplished at Ponca City. This year's four day even t also saw the beginning of a rejuvenation process for a race that had 2251 en tries in 1983, a figure that has sin ce plum- _ meted to less th an 850. Spectator count thi s year was estima ted at 7000. " We are trying to offer th e riders everyth ing th ey've been asking for ," said NMA President Ron Henricksen. " We nearl y doubled laps run in every class and ha ve made severa l design changes to th e track ." H en ri ck sen 's co m me n ts se emed heavily su pported by th e maj ority of riders, wh o felt it was one of the best NMA events ever. NMA's p lan included severa l modificati ons to the 1.3 mil e course modifications that were intended to ease passing on th e tra ck, a maj or compla in t of the riders at past GNC races. The maj ority of th e hi gh -speed course, however, remained unchanged. Dependin g o n th e class, riders circulated th e track between 8 to 12 laps per moto. For the professional riders that meant 96 laps of racing during a four-day period. And with lap times just under the 2-minute mark, that added up to around th ree hours of pro raci ng. Part of th e event's success this year was a ttribu ted to Mother Nature. With . the excep tio n of 100-degree temperatures during tech in sp ection and practice, whi ch was held on Tuesday and Wedn esday, tradi tio na l thunderstorms on ly dam pened three of the 69 motos run. T ho se motos came at th e end of th e .first day of raci ng, whe n ra in turned the track into a quagmire of axle-deep mud. This year's Pon ca City event was , ho wever, unusual in the fact that the NMA eliminated the 80cc (12) Expert class because of low rider turnout over th e last few years. Instead they subdivided the class int o age groups: 1213 and 14-1 6 year-old, combining skill levels of Novice, Interm edi at e and Expert riders a mo ng the two age divisions. This pl ayed a maj or ro le in the crown in g of the overa ll Minicycle Grand Nat ional Champion - a title traditionally given to an Expert 12 class rider. NMA, howev er, didn ' t want to leave th at to just the older, 14-16year-old compe titors. So they decided to pick the rid er with the lowest points accumulated in th e 80cc Stock and Modified cla sses among all 12 to 16year-old 80cc riders. The remaining classes were run in the traditional manner: each class ran a two-mote format with the exception of three classes that were split into qualfiers due to an overflowing . number of class en tries. In these classes the riders rode two run-offs, allowing the top finishers in the qualifiers to transfer into a final. Overall finishing po siti on points were carried into the final where points again were awarded - the rider with the lowest amount would be declared the champion. The competitors, with the exception of foreign riders who came from Japan, Australia and Chili, had to qualify during NMA regional events which were conducted throughout the year. The foreign riders were granted exemptions from th e ' qua lifying requirement. None of the foreign riders, however, were a threat for either the championships. For Reynard, diplomacy didn't real ly seem to matter. The Team Green/Fox! JoJo/ All Sports Dynamics/Dunlop/ Scot t/Renthal /CTi/Bell /Tsuba kii NGK/Pro-Circuit/Donnie Hansen MX Academy / PJ I-backed rider walked away from the field in the first 80cc Stock ( 12- 13) class moto, leaving behind Jason Partridge , Robbi e Skaggs, Andy Bowyer and Bill y Gunman. The second moto, which was run on