Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

~ OFF·ROAD Heslin the Desert Grand Slam Series: Rr-0u_nd_l ----, I Ty Davis had the overall win in sight, but he ran out of gas and had to settle for fifth place. Motocrosser Rex Staten (16) won the Vet Pro class after passing an out-of-gas Scot Harden. Dave Donatoni had trouble finding traction on the rain-soaked pavement section. hard for someone my size on a 250, but that's the way it goes." For desert racers more accustomed to dust than mud, the conditions took a lot of getting used to. "It reminded me of when I was riding the (ISDE) qualifiers," said KTM's Scot Harden, who was entered in the Over-30 Pro division. "It took me half a lap to figure out the mud but after that I was fairly comfortable in it." By the time some of the racers got used to the mud, they were already out of contention. "I think I fell down more than I was staying up," said Paul Pitts, who was getting his feet wet in the 250cc Pro class after a successful reign over the 250cc Experts. "My goggles fogged up and I couldn't see and my grips started spinnipg. It was just one crash after another." 14 Pitts hyperextended his knee in a fall before the end of the first lap and had to be content cruising to a four-lap, 12thin-elass finish. Hamel blasted past the earlier starters one by one until he caught Zitterkopf, who had a shaky hold on second place. "1 just didn't have it today - I was a spode," said Zitterkopf. "I fell four times on the first loop and once on the second. I just couldn't get going." Hamel took advantage of one of Zitterkopf's falls and grabbed second. He was just four seconds behind Davis on adjusted time when he rocketed past the pits at the end of the first lap. The rest of the top contenders were too close to call after just 17 miles. Zitterkopf and fellow 250cc Pros Derek Titus and Roeseler were all within 10 seconds of third on adjusted time, as were Open Pro Destry Abbott and Over-30 Pros Harden and Dan Ashcraft. The racing remained close throughout the second lap. Hamel cha~ Davis trying to close the lead and the later starters poured on the pace behind the lead pair, struggling to leapfrog towards the front of the pack. Roeseler and Ashcraft. moved up together until Ashcraft lost time in an off-the-eourse excursion that stuck his CR500 in a ravine. Derek Titus disappeared from the top five, reportedly as. the result of a crash. Scott Morris had to double back to pit row after he discovered a front flat on the pavement going into lap three, and 12Sec Expert David Ziegler discovered his Suzuki couldn't make two laps in the sticky soil when it ground to a halt a couple of miles before pit row. The heavy ground wasn't the only problem the racers had to contend with. "I had problems with my goggles getting covered in mud, then I got really excited and they got fogged up. I couldn't see a thing," said Hamel. Uke many of the racers, Hamel had the choice of riding blind or removing his goggles and leaving his eyes unprotected. He took his goggles off, but headed into the pits less than five miles later to pick up another pair. Hamel was hard on the gas as he headed into lap three. The stop for goggles had left him a minute behind Davis on adjusted time and the halfway point of the race was approaching. Zitterkopf had settled into stride in third, a minute behind Hamel, and Harden, Roeseler and Arizona racer Destry Abbott were neck 'n neck for fourth. "I'm really surprised with how weill was doing," said Abbott, who was riding Open Pro aboard a KTM. ''I'm not a really good mud rider and I did a lot better than r thought I would." The terrain became more tricky as the race wore on. Deep ruts began to form in some sections of the course and the mud got thicker by the minute. Andy Nelson described the course as "slimy and greasy" by lap three. "The course was so demanding you were full throttle everywhere trying to keep the momentum going," said Dave Donatoni, who was campaigning a factory-backed Honda XR628. "The only time you got hard pack was on the asphalt. You got a small breather there, then went right back into it." The heavy going upset Davis' plans for a wire-to-wire victory when he ran out of gas near the end of lap three, just shy of his first scheduled pit. "I thought I could go three laps not," said Davis. "I was out there trying to bum some gas when Hamel went by. I got just enough to get in but by then, I had lost all my time." Hamel dashed out of lap three at the head of the pack. Zitterkopf was two minutes behind him in second, Roeseler grabbed third on adjusted time when he headed into lap four in the number eight spot, and Over-30 rivals Harden and Ashcraft were all tied up for fourth. Rain began to fall as lap four got underway and it continued steadily all the way to the checkered flag. The mud got thicker, the pavement got slicker, and the farm roads turned into an "E" ticket ride. "They were really slippery - a mixture'of mud and cow manure," said Rex Staten, who was racing Over-30 Pro on a Ka.wasaki KX500. "You had to really pay attention. If you overshot a comer, there was a barbed wire fence waiting for you. It's not motocross, that's for sure." But the worse the conditions got, the more the racers seemed to enjoy themselves. "1 had a really good time," said Fritz Kadlec, who was racing for the first time in more than two years. "1 was afraid at first because I didn't want to hurt myself, but after a while I started to have a blast." Hamel gassed his KX500 again at the end of lap four and headed into the final lap three minutes up on Zitterkopf and five minutes ahead of Roeseler. But his KXSOO was starting to miss. "1 was crossing my fingers hoping the ignition would make it," said Hamel. "And other things started to go wrong, too. I had a really bad fifth lap. My goggles started to fog up again, I fell down once and I stalled the bike twice. I was getting worried." The final section of the 85-mile sprint saw things go bad all over. After racing at the head of the Over-30 Pros all day, Harden started to run out of gas with seven miles to go. "I flipped the bike over to get the gas out of the other side of the tank and I rode really slow," said Harden, but his KTM 300 came to a halt a quarter of a mile from the finish. "Two guys helped me push it in." Steve Pitts lost a shot at the Overr38 Pro win when his tank ran dry a mile short of the checkered flag; Donatoni's Honda ran out of juice four miles out, and Brian Schmuckle was slowed by an engine that kept trying to seize. John Phillips was dealing with a head full of stars after he went over the bars in a ploughed field and later plowed into a concrete wall, and Jim Gray was ready to call it quits after going five rounds with a new Kawasaki KXSOO. "It's the first time I've ridden this bike and it beat the crap out of me," said Gray. "It was really tiring trying to hang onto all this power for so long." The mishaps and miscalculations in the last 17-mile loop decided many of the class wins, but Hamel made it through unscathed. The 20-year-old from Boulder City, Nevada, completed the grueling five-lap race in two hours and four minutes - almost four minutes ahead of his nearest rival. "Riding the ISDE qualifiers finally paid off," said the Kawasaki/ Answer/ Dunlop/Pro Circuit/ Maxima/F&L/ Powerbar / Scott / R K / Sp rocke t Spec./Bieffe/NGK/Acerbis/Braking/ MXA/N Style/Scotts Scooter /Back

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