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eCROSS COUNTRY 1991 AMA Wiseco/Yamaha/Yokohama Grand National Cross Country Series: Round 10 e Defending Hare Scrambles National Champion Scott Summers scored the overall win. Four-time N ational En duro Champion Terry Cunningham was the runner-up. Summers comes on strong at Hardrock 100 By Davey Coombs "I 18 FAIRMONT, W SEPT. 22 V, guess I'm being protested for go ing too fast," said Kentucky's Scott Summers after he demolish ed the field at . the H ardrock 100 Grand Nat ional Cross Country Series event in West Virginia. A protest was filed by race runner-up Terry Cunnin gh am follo wing Summers' win , hi s thi rd of th e 13-race series. Cunn ingham and Kawasak i teamma te Duan e Con ners. wh o fini shed third overa ll, felt that the leader's lap times were too fast, specifi call y an extra o rdi na ry fourth lap th at saw Summers shave more than a minu te off his average lap tim es of roughly 25 minutes, 30 seconds. Cunni ng ha m po inte d to a specific rock section wh ere a rid er m ight be abl e to cut 30-to 40 seconds off by going around the slow. tig h t sectio n. Ironicall y, Cunning ham a nd Conner eac h admitted having taken the sho rt cu t at least o nce. G NCC Series organ izer Dave Coombs called th e shortened path, " A problem from the start." " When we laid out th e trail , we didn 't realize that you could see th e swit chback," said Coombs. " Whenever that happens people are going to see the cu t sooner or later." The cu t was blocked off on the fifth lap alter two o f th e lead ers were witnessed taking advan tage of th e un cut path . Summers strongl y contended that he was not one of them . " I understand where the cu t was but I did not take it," said the two-time National Hare Scrambles Ch ampion. " It 's not my style to do th in gs like that . .I' ve always felt that if I can ' t win a race fair a nd square, th en I better work harder befor e the next o ne. As for those gu ys protesting my tim es, let's un load th e bike s and do it aga in . I owned th at track today. " Indeed he did. The rocky and dry eig h t-m iles-per-la p trail ยท suited th e Honda XR600 of Summers just fin e. Where other rid ers had difficulty with dri ed creek beds and stone -covered logging roads , Summers used th e weight and power of his ma chine to glide through the rocks at top speed. As for hi s fast fourth lap , Summers said that it was the first lap in whic h he did not have bike dam age. " O ne mil e into the first lap it was the front brak e caliper breaking compl et el y ' o ff aga i ns t a tree '," sa id Summers on his early woes. " I musr've cras hed th ree times tryi ng to get back to the pits, And then when I got there , Fred (Bramblett, Summers' mechanic) was goi ng to ha ve to take the cali per off the spa re bike, so I went another lap with no front brak e. Then I bent the back brake ped al! By th e tim e I finally go t everything straig h tened o u t it was the fourth lap, and I was read y to go 110%." Summers' fir st problem actuall y occurred in th e second turn. As Cunnin gham ga the red th e hol eshot in front of Darryl Conner and T eam ATK 's Ed Lojak , hi s teammate Duan e Conner cra shed. Su mme rs and yet a no ther Kaw asaki rider, West Virgi ni a's up-and-com ing woods star Doug Blackwell , were forced through th e inside banners whil e tryin g to avoid the fall en seri es po ints leader, The event referee, Russ Bennett , immediately ru led that the situa tio n was unavoidable and tha t neither rider wo uld be pen al ized as a resul t of the incident. The Hardrock 100 course features the sing le steepest climb o n the ent ire G NCC circui t. Halfway th rough th e first lap Cunningh am elected to try the easier alte rna te route rather than risk ge tt i n g stuc k o n th e three-l evel , q uarter-mi le incli ne, whi ch was lin ed by hundreds of spectators. Summers ma de a successful attem p t and passed fellow cha lle nge r Sco tt Plessin ger in the process, At th e to p, Su m me rs pulled in beh ind four-time Nati onal Enduro Ch ampion Cunn in gh am and the n took over the lead upon descending the hill. Summers comp leted the first lap in 26 minutes, minus h is fro nt brake. Cunn in gh am cra shed before the scor ing barrels and came through in sixth , 90 seco nd s behind th e lead er. In b etween Cunn ingham and Su mmers were Plessinger, wh o had fallen 20 seco nds back from th e four-stroke Honda, Conner, a recovered Blackwell , and ATK open bik e ace Frank Keegan. Conner soon overtook Plessinger for the sho tgun position, and a sh ort tim e later Plessin ger dismissed himself from the race all togeth er. " I jarred m y back a t work o n Friday ," said Plessin ger, wh o had been on a three -race winning strea k coming into the northern West Virginia race. " It didn't reall y bo ther me until I tried to ride today . I was going fast at first, but the pain was just too great to continue. ,. After th e seco n d co m p lete la p Summers made a five-minute long pit stop as Bramblett strip ped the broken front brake sy ste m a n d affixed ano the r. During th at time Conner, a soo n- ro -re ti re Pl essinger, Cunningham , Blackwell , Keegan and Lojak motored by. A sho rt tim e lat er 200cc A class p oints leader T om Norton ca me th rough on his way to an other cla ss victor y. Nort on has man aged to move away from series-lo ng riva l J on es in the last two races and has pos itioned himself to clinch the tit le. Massachusetts' Nor ton bettered the Kawasak i KX l25-mou nted J on es by four minutes while occupying the sixth overa ll position. Yamaha-mounted Michael Burk ran third at the finish and nin th in the overa ll ca tego ry, his best-ever GNCC effort. In th e 'Four-Stro ke A class Harvey Whitaker turned back his nemesis Gary Roa ch to earn the top trophy on the da y. Wh itaker made the Hardrock Climb o n th e opening lap whi le Roach failed. Ohio' s Roach would spend the rest of the day trying to overco me the erro r, but Whitaker cut a smooth path from start to fini sh o n hi s big H onda XR600 and was never headed. West Virginia 's Rick Parsons was third at the fin ish. Once h is bike was fixed, Summers set o ut on what would lat er be deter mined the fastest lap of th e day. He sliced th rough the cha llengers in the first five mil es of the -rocky trail and was soo n shadowing Conner's leading Kaw asak i. H owever, once th e pair exited the woods to register the lap, Summers sto p pe d again for fuel. Within a mile he was back on Conner's fend er and soon cap tured the lead for good . His fifth lap measured two dozen seconds slower th an the previous one. C onner, wh o has been making a valiant effort to maintain his points lead even after being diagnosed with an advanced case of mon onucl eosis , tr ied to stay with the new leader but was soo n for ced to abandon the pace. After th e fifth lap Summers was on e minute, 53 seco n ds a hea d . Cunningham seemed to sort out h is ow n early woes and was beginning to mak e progress on his teammate's runner-up spot. Just befo re th e white flag came out he passed Conner but refrained from tryin g to attac k the long-gone leader. Comi ng through sho rt ly after th e Kawasak is were the ATKs of Keegan and Lojak . It;s been a long year for eigh t-time series cha mp Lojak , but at the Hardrock everyth ing held together for the ATK406 pil ot and he fini shed a solid fifth o vera ll. Keegan , for his own part, upstaged his teammate with another fin e performance, earn ing hi s third stra igh t to p six overa ll fini sh with a fourth-place sho wing. Further back J eff Murgel was turning back T ommy Harris to earn a hardfought Vet A class win . The Hondamounted Murgel took advantage of a failed first-lap hillclimb by Yamaha WR250 rider Rick Kresic to charge into first. He an d Harris dueled the rest of the way but Murgel enjoyed a comfortable lead 'at the finish. Third-place honors went to Connecti cut's T im Hopey. In the Junior A cla ss, John Vincent guided hi s big WR500 to the victory after passing riva l Dave Santi on th e last lap of the three-hour long run. Yamah a -m ounted Donald Bigl ey pl aced third. The Senior A class leader was J oe L oj ak , wh o ' a lrea d y wrapped up