Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

~ OFF ROAD Best in the Desert Grand Slam Cham~ionshi~_Se_rie_s:_Ro_u_nd_l _ start and it slowed me down," said Team Green 's Greg Zitterkopf, who was two and a half minutes back in th e 250cc Pro class. " I got by the first two guys in m y class okay but when I started catching up to the 500s, that was really hard." Mark Morris was also having problems ge tti ng around th e competition. " I had some problems on the first loop trying to pass people. I thought th e grou n d m ight be faster than two wheels, but when I go t dow n here I found o u t it wasn 't ," the 250cc Pro joked. • Loo p o ne 's tig h t, technical terrain was put to good use by many of the riders. Over 30 Pro, Darin Cartwright elbowed his way forward from an 11th row start and, way back in the middle of the pack, Scott Glimp made mincemeat of the Over 25 Experts. "I had a good ride going," said G limp. "I started last and caught everybody by the 20-mile mark. That was a fun e section. " Team Kawasaki's newest member, Danny Hamel, made a winning debut aboard his new green machine. , Garth Sweetland rode a "rather uneventful race" and finished second overaIl. Hamelstrikes gold By Anne Van Beveren Photos by Tom Van Beveren JEAN, NV, JAN. 1 8 a n ny H amel turned gree n into gold in the Gold Str ike World Cha mpionship Har e & H ound IX. T he new Kawasaki recruit dominated th e 118-mil e event from start to finish . He was mor e than one mi n ute ahead a t the end of the first 40 mi les and kept the lead all the way to the D ·10 checkered flag , more than four mi nutes ahead of hi s near est rival. " I just went o ut and rod e my ow n race," said the KX500 Open Pro cla ss racer , who parted co mpany with KTM after t h e Au stria n man ufac t u re r announced fin ancial problems la te last year. " I concentrated o n ri di ng smoo th and I never had any problem s all da y." Nearl y 200 riders turned out for th e race, wh ich was sponsored by th e Vacation Vill age H ot el and Casino. The first racers left th e line a t 9 a.m. and with two riders every 30 seconds, it was almost an hour and a half before everybod y had left the starting area on the o ld highway just south of the Gold Strike Casino in J ean. Hare & Hound National Champion Hamel drew row two of the sta rti n g gri d and blasted off the line side-byside with Kawasaki teammate Garth Sweetland. The new recruit was leadin g the way at the end of the first quart er-mile and he was hard o n the gas when he disappeared into the first of the race's three loops. , The o p en i n g sprint ca m e to a sudden halt .just two miles into the co u rse when lead-off rider Destry Abbott went down hard in a fast wash. Hamel and Sweetland stopped to check on th e downed rider, then rode on to inform workers at the next checkpoint, but the next pair off the grid wasn't taking any chances. " He was out cold wh en we got there," said Daryl Folks, wh o left the line with Scott Morris in the n umber th ree slo t. " I stayed with hi m while Scott went back to get th e ambula nce." The rescue cost th e duo more than 10 minutes and Morris seized his new KX500 three ti mes in the das h back to the sta rti ng line. Abbott had come to, by th e ti me assistance arrived. " He was up a nd - talking but he d idn 't know where he was. I ma de him th ink abo ut it for a wh ile a nd he started to come right," said Folks. Abbott eventually recovered enough to rid e o n , bu t his pit crew took him off the bike at the end of the first loo p when they discovered he had no recollection of the crash. Ha mel passed David Ondas, the . rem aining front ro w starter, on a dry lake abou t 10 mil es o rr the start and settled in for the rest of the 41-m ile opening loop. Sweetla nd battled past Ondas in to the number two position and ATK's T y Davis sta rted working up from a fifth row start at the back of th e Open Pro division. Desp ite bl ustery winds that made condi tions co ld and mi serable for the spectators, the later starters still had to struggle through thick clouds of du st. "The dust was really bad off the Out in the clear air at the front of the pack, Hamel agreed. "I liked the first loop best. It went up in the mountains where the dirt was wet. The gound was frozen in parts and you had to be really ca utious. You had to break through the ice to stop. If you didn 't and you hit the brakes, you 'd just keep on going." Hamel was three minutes ahead of Sweetland when he dashed into the pits at the end of loop one. Davis cleared I the loop in third, a minute and a half I behind Hamel on adjusted time, and; Ondas raced through in fourth. Zitter-; kopf headed the 250cc Pros in fifth, just 13 seconds behind Sweetland on adj usted time, and Cartwright was another 13 seconds back at the front of the Over 30 Pros. John Braasch joined the Kawasaki charge and put his KXl25 at the head of the l25cc Pro class, nine minutes behind Hamel on adjusted time. and KX300 pilot Bi ll Maxim reigned supreme in the Over 38 division. "At the first gas they told me I had a 10 minute lead so I backed off," said Maxim. " My bike's getting old and my bod y's getting old, so I slowed down. I go just fast enough to ride and have fun . .. and win." Hamel was on the gas again in loop two. trying to stretch out his lead so none of the later starters could catch him on adjusted time. The high-speed terrain provided a change of pace from the mountains in loop one, and not all of the racers liked th e contrast. "I discovered I didn 't have a 500(cc) in the deep sand," said Zitterkopf, who was trying a KX250 on for size. " It made a big difference on th e rocky powerline road that lasted about half the loop, too. I didn't enjoy that part. " Cartwright didn 't enj oy th e fast roads either, " I scared myself really bad in the second loop," he said. " I was going down a straight road a nd I hit a rock I didn 't see. I was go ing 80 miles a n hour with o ne knee on the seat a nd my head all the way over the bars resting on the fron t fender . How I saved that one I'll never kn ow. I was reall y luck y t he bik e kept goi ng straigh t. There were huge boulders a ll alo ng th e side of the road - I would've been hi story." . Loop two too k a toll o n many of the top hopefuls. A rear flat halfway through the 36-mi le section kn ocked ATK'sJohn Rudder out of a three-way battle with Mark Morris and Suzuki pilot Darren Sanford for second in the 250cc Pro class. The l25cc Pros los t time ' to the bigger bikes in the wideopen sections and RM l25 pilot Pat FuIlmer fell and broke his clutch lever. Bu t the loop was right up Hamel 's

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