Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

~. HARE &H UN» AMANational Championship~H_&H S_eri_es:_Ro_un_d_ 0 _ 5 ~ Defending National Hare Be Hound Champion Danny Hamel scored a seemingly easy victo ry at the Las Vegas HBeH. • Hamel wins agam By Anne and Tom Van Beveren PIOCHE, NV, M 3 AY four-hour dash through the min in g areas north of Las Vegas put Kaw asaki 's Dann y Ham el an im portant step forward in hi s bid to repeat as Nat ional H are Be Hound Champion. With a DN F early in the series, every fin ish has been crucial for the Kawasaki KX500 pi lot, who has been locked i n a too- cl o se-to- call batt le wi th Kawasaki KX250 team m at e Larr y Roeseler. But with o nly two rou nds left in th e best-five-of-seven -races com peti tio n , Hamel 's latest victory cou ld very well be the clincher. " Un less Danny doesn 't fin ish , I think he's got (the o verall cham pio nship)," Roeseler conceded on the fini sh line. " I' m no t go ing to quit - anythi ng can happen to Danny and there's still two more races, but he can get seconds an d th irds now and still mayb e do it." Round five of the Nationals was a poin t-to-po in t organized by Casey Folks' Best in th e Desert Or ganization. The race started j ust off the main street in Pioche, a historic mi ning town 175 mi les north of Las Vegas. It wove back and fort h th rough 135 mil es of mo stly virgin terrain and fini shed in the middle of Caliente, a historic railroad town 25 miles to th e sou th. Pioche's tiny streets were bu stl in g as more than 170 en tran ts prepared for the 9:00 a.m. start. The rid ers lined up class by class for the timed start, the two-abreast order with in the clas s determin ed by a d raw in g . To p National contenders were in a separate drawing at the front of the pack,but those who didn' t pre-enter by mail were relegated to th e regular dra win g with the rest of the ir class . T his pu t Open Expert Garth Sweetland on ro w 10 of the two-bik es-every-30-seconds start, Kawasaki KX250 pilot Scott A 22 Morris on row 18, and defending Over30 National champ Paul Ostbo all the way ba ck on row 29. Folks was unsym patheti c. " Best in the Desert says too bad to you gu ys," said Folks. " T hey knew about the draw in g. I advertised it and everybody kn ows it's done th is way. It's fair and it's safe, and it helps to protect the env iro nm ent so we can keep hav ing races. People who co mp la in are whin ers a nd criers. T hey sho u ld kno w better. " ATK's J ohn Rud der had the front row to h imself when th e start ing light flashed gr een for the first tim e and led the way down the short openi ng stre tch of pavement into a hard-left corne r. Don G ri ewe's fou r-stro ke Husq varna o ut-powered Hamel 's Kawasa ki KX500 on ro w two and Roeseler 's 250 edged Paul Krau se's Kawasaki KX500 off ro w three. Team G reen's Ted H unnicu tt broug ht up the rear of the Na tio na l's grou p in ro w four, and the O pen Expert class bega n with row five. Hamel started charging the moment he cleared the first corner. He pa ssed Griewe a mi le int o the cours e and was on Rudder's heels by the three-m ile mark, but it too k six more miles to get past him in the th ick d ust and take over the lead . Griewe swep t Rudder to claim second, and Roeseler foll owed clo se behind but the du st prevented him from moving up any further. The visibility was even worse for the lat er starte rs. " It was reall y' twis ty up in the trees in the first sectio n and th ere was no breeze," said Sweetlan d. " It was reall y hard to make up any time wh en you cou ldn' t see." T he first 36-mi le section was tight, virgi n ter rain a lmo st all the way. Endless sw i tc h backs thro ug h th e bu shes proved to ugh for "Hunnicutt, wh o lost hi s brakes almost rig h t off the start. " It's a brand new bike. I didn 't change the original flu id in the rear and " brakes went away about five the miles into it. My fault ," said Hunnicu tt. KTM 's Scot H a rd en st r uggled throu gh the first section with no brakes an d event ua lly retired, and even Ham el was not immune to problems on his way to pit one. He picked up some loose wire in the rear wheel 25 miles into the race and had to stop to un tangle the bike, but still managed to hold the number one position. "I had just go t it out when I heard the next bike comi ng," said Hamel. Ham el was more th an a m inute ahead of the competition as he coasted in to the first pit and ope ned the throttl e agai n on h is way to pi t two at the 65mile mark. Gr iewe was still han ging o n as hard as he could in second. "I wanted to stay as close to Hamel as possible, but that wasn't always too possible," said Griewe, who was stru ggling with forks that kept topping ou t. " Even with out the for ks, he was j ust beating me. He was in front of me and tha t's all there was to it." Rudder, Roeseler, Krause and Hunnicutt were all near the head of the pack, and were pushi ng hard to stay ahea d of later starters who migh t be closing in o n adj usted time. Sweetland was doin g his best to close the gap bu t the du st made life even more difficult as the pace started to pick up in sections two and three. "There was no break. I was in du st clear unti l the third section ," said Sweetland. " You had to work so hard because you couldn 't see that by the time you broke out of it, you were worn out - used up." Out in front, th e faster terrain was right up H am el 's a lley. "T he second sectio n was prett y fast - the wh ole th in g was prett y fast and it had some neat sandwashes. I think I pull ed a little bit of time there," said Ham el. Ham el was a minute and a half ahead of Griewe as he cleared th e second pi t. Roeseler had fall en back a little from hi s pit o ne positi on side by side wi th Gri ewe's big thumper and was now a minute and a half behi nd him in third. " I just kept making mi stak es - trying too hard," said Roeseler. " Between (p its) o ne and two was real fast and I didn 't feel comfortable, and then I cras hed. I didn 't like that a t all. It was just th e way I felt. My stomac h wasn 't right and my bike _ didn 't feel really ba lan ced in the highspeed stu ff." Rudder and Krause were neck 'n ' neck for fourth , which put Krau se a mi nute up o n ad justed ti me, and H unnicutt ambled into the pi t in sixth, for getting that on ly pi t one was subject to a 25 mph speed limit. " We changed my brake flu id in pi t one whi ch helped a lo t. It p ut me do wn a couple of minu tes, though," Hu nn icu tt said. O pen Expert KTM rider Dar yl Folks reached pit two in sevent h overall, with Ka wasaki KX500 pi lo ts Dave Ondas and Kurt Hintz close beh ind. Sweetland stormed in to th e pit in 10th , just over 10 minutes beh ind Hamel on adj usted tim e. Kaw asaki pil ot Dan Richardson had worked thro ugh to the front of the 250cc Expert start and was alm ost tied with Ru dd er o n tim e, with Utah's Ed Sore n sen n ot far behind. Ch an ce Maughan wa s a head of th e l2 5cc Experts, less than 15 minutes behind the Open class lead ers, and Idaho' s Cu rt is Dice led the Over 30 pack, but was look ing back over hi s sho u lder, as Paul Ostbo was making inroads on th e earlier starte rs. T he terr ain ope ned up even more o n the way to pit three at the 98-mil e mark. H amel contin ued to charge and Roeseler cont inued to suffer. " I fell between two and th ree and Krau se and Hunnicutt pa ssed me. I stopped there becau se I felt terr ibl e, and then I ju st "cru ised in to th ree and regrouped." Passin g his teammate wasn 't the o nly exci tement Kraus e found on hi s way to pit three. " Between two and th ree I ran across four wild horses and I' ll tell yo u wh at , th ey can o utru n me. It was sure neat to wat ch them haul across th e desert ," said Krause. H am el had his share of excitement, too. "T he third loop was a lot of virgin tr ail. It wa s kind o f scary goin g through the sage brush . There was no beat en path so you cou ld n ' t see where th e rock s were," Ham el said. " I had to go reall y slow and conserva tive." But Ham el' s versio n of conservat ive riding still had him o u t in front, as he clea red p it three and headed int o the last 37-mi le dash to th e finish lin e in Ca lie nte . Griewe was still hold ing o n in second, Kra use was thi rd, and Hunni cutt, R oesel er a n d Rudder foll ow ed in short order. Rudder, already tir ed fro m a grand prix the day befor e, was pacin g himself carefu lly, but the lon g course started to tak e a to ll on ma ny 6f th e riders. " It was a dema nding co urse bu t tha t's w hat N ati on al s are a bo u t," said Hunn icutt. " It was a long tim e on the bi ke and in the last I 0 miles I was really start ing to po op o ut." Bill Fullmer pooped ou t com pletely when a back flat in the last loo p made hi s big Honda u nma nageable, Greg Searle surv ived a head -on fifth-gear coll isio n with a " TV -sized rock," and Ch an ce Mau gh an disappeared from th e head of the l25cc ranks, leavin g Ka wa saki -m ounted J on Almb er g "stru ggling to keep KTM rider Mike Palmer at bay with no front brak e. " No t mu ch was going right for me," said Almberg. " I preferred th e first half of th e course becau se it was a lot more technical but aft er yo u get tir ed the last • part is reall y nice." Palmer was glad to put the first section behind him. " I fouled a plug on the starti ng line and then up through the trees I'm not really good," he said. " I started to pick it up in the second loop but I lost my shifter half way round the third loop. I could still shift but I had to get my boot way up in there." The small crowd at the fin ish caught sight of Hamel just before I p .rn. He dashed down the final rock y hill and

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