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eOFF ROAD e AMA National Championship Hare & Hound Series: Round 4 "1 need to win one more after this and I think that pretty much gives me the championship," said Hamel, obviously tired after his duel With Davis. "'If I can do that, I don't think anyone else can beat me." H any event in the series had stacked. the cards against a Hamel win, this was it. In its five years as a National, the Shawn Gerber Memorial Hare &; Hound, hosted. by the Sage Riders, has earned a reputation as one of the more demanding events on the calendar. This would normally have been to Hamel's advantage but this year's race fell the morning after Hamel completed a fourand-a-haH hour race in 9O-degree temperatures at the SCORE International San Felipe 250 and caught the Kawasaki KX500 pilot with tendinitis in his right wrist from pre-running for the Mexico race. But Hamel's never-say-die attitude had him on the starting line anyway, alongside 170 other racers at the Uttle Sahara Recreation Area south of Salt LakeOty. Despite perfect weather the week before the race, Mother Nature turned. her back on the weekend's racing activities. Threatening gray clouds kept the race area dark and gloomy but did not bring any rain to help lay the dust. Strong, gusty winds turned the silty pit area into a blinding sandstorm and the only moisture that fell - a rain of stinging hailstones an hour after the race !'egan - did nothing to help. The banner dropped. for the first of the three starting waves at 10:15 a.m., after a IS-minute delay to accommodate some late-arriving National contenders. A slower than usual reaction to the banner had Hamel pouring on the pace all the way through a sand dune section- started. and my bike wasn't in gear, so I got a really bad start," Hamel said. '1 just rode really hard through the dunes. They're easy if you watch the person in front of you and just pick them off one at a time." The person in front when the dunes came to an end was Kawasaki Team Green's Davis, aboard a Kawasaki KXSOO. "I was leading at the bomb, but I heard somebody behind me pressuring me," said Davis. "I figured it was Hamel. I was going ballistic trying to get to the trail so I could dust him out." With nothing but a cattle guard between hi.ni and the pink and white ribboned trail, Davis slowed for one critical instant near the six-mile mark. "The cattle guard was on an angle to the road and I knew he wouldn't try to pass me there, but in that split second that I backed off, he got me," said Davis, shaking his head in disbelief. The gutsy pass put Hamel in the number one spot and as the ribbon began to follow the silty trails through the trees, there was nothing that Davis could do. HI had to eat his dust the whole way," Davis said. '1 couldn't see a thing and that pretty much decided the race." As'the Amateur/Expert wave headed. east into the first of the tree loops laid, the racers began to settle into position. Colorado's Jim Gray was a promising third at the bomb, ahead of local 250cc Expert Dustin Headman and Kawasaki's Larry Roeseler, who had teamed with Hamel in Mexico the day before, was charging hard despite an internal battle with the flu and sore ribs, which needed to be wrapped in two kidney belts and an ace bandage. Paul Krause's first race since knee surgery last October got off to a slow start. The Kawasaki KX500 racer flattened his front tire in the sand dunes and had to dash back to the pit for repairs. He got back on the course just in H ] Danny Hamel scored his fourth-consecutive National Hare &; Hound win and remains undefeated in the series thus far. • our In arow or arne By Anne Van Beveren 20 DELTA, UT, APR 18 na touch:and-go dash across 90 miles of northern Utah, Danny Hamel survived a .race-long battle with Kawasaki teammate Ty Davis to take the I checkered flag at the Utah National The hard-fought victory, which saw Hamel score the win less than 10 bike lengths ahead of Davis, gave the 20-year-old from Boulder City, Nevada, a four-forfour record in this year's seven-race series and puts him well on his way to ta1cing his third National title in a row.