GOFF ROAD
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8
68th International Six-Days Enduro,- - - -
rou nded o u t the
top five and stil l
had all their
teams intact.
A cons tan t
dow n po u r of
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~~ rai n greeted the
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",
rid e rs o n day
four, a n d it w as
a nother d a y o f mud
bogs and swamps . The temperature also
dropped into th e low 505, makin g it
downright miserabl e for the riders. The
course was the sam e as day three's, but
run in rev erse. Two loops were on the
agenda, but as th e weat her and trail
conditions deteriorated, and since all of
the rid ers were running la te to the
checks, the organizers decided to shorten the day to just one loop .
"We didn't know they were going to
cancel the second loop," said Ty Davis .
"But it was so miserable out there that I
already had it in
my mind tha t I was
goi ng to quit after
the first loop. If we
had to go out there
again, I would've
wound up stuck in
some mu d hole out
there and spent the
night there."
"No way I
would 've gone
another loop, " said
Rodney Smith. " It
was miserable."
N ot a si ngl e
ri d e r zeroed the
course onday four,
but Dutch r id er
Ge ra rd Jimmink
ca m e close. H e
o nly los t one
minute (60 route
points) on the day.
In compar ison, Ty
Dav is lost 12 minutes (720 points);
Rodney Smith and
Steve Hatch e ight
minutes
(48 0
poin ts) , a nd Fred
Hoess 10 minutes
(600 points).
Holland 's reign
a t the top of th e
leaderboard wa s
s ho r t-li ved. The
day after taking
ove r the lead,
Dutch Trophy rider
Corne Oorschot
was forced to call it
quits when hi s
Kawasaki "blew up." By the end of day
four, only two teams had all of their Troph y team rid er s sti ll running - Poland
and Ireland. The Polish Trophy team riders sud denly found th emselves ou t in
front with a comforta ble points lead over
Irelan d. Holland had drop ped back to
thir d, and Finland, wh o had also lost a
ride r on day four, slipped back to fourth .
With two days left, it was clear what
the Po lish Trophy team had to d o to
wins its first -ever lSDE - keep all six of
the ir rid er s on the trail. At this point,
special-test times meant nothing for the
Pols, but ge tting all six of their rid ers to
the finish meant everything.
Day five was perh ap s the"easiest" of
the week, although one particular 150yard mud bog in a corn field on the first
loop kept thin gs inter esting. All of the
remaining Trop h y-team riders got
through the bog okay, but the Club riders struggled.
The Poli sh Trophy te am ac complished what they had to do - they kept
a ll th e bik es runn in g . By d oin g 50,
Poland ma intained their lead over the
Irish team.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
For Poland, the hard pa rt wa s over.
Day six wo uld consis t of a short 27-mile
trail that led the riders to the traditional
e vent-end ing final MX special test ,
which was located a few miles northwe st of Assen in a small town ca lle d
Norg. The MX test wo uld decide little,
though, since most of the team and individual s tand ings were 50 spread out.
The few seconds ga ined or lost in the
MX test would mean little to nothing in
the overall standings.
An estimated 6000 flag-waving sp ectators turned out for the final MX special test, where the riders were split into
two main groups. All the World Trophy
and Junior World Tr op hy team rid er s
competed amongst themselves, as d id
the Club team riders, and eac h o f the
two groups were brok en down into the
six different classes /motos (125, 250,
500, 350 Four-Sroke and 500cc FourStroke). All of the Club riders completed
(Above) Rid ers plowing
th roug h mu d holes like
this one we re a com mon
sigh t al ibi s yea rs ISDE. II
rained almosl every da y.
(Left) Spaniard Isid re
Esteve Pujol, aboard a
Span ish-bu ilt 80cc GasGas, motors around
hapless Swedish World
Trophy Team rider Peter
Hansson. The Swedish
Trophy team, winner of
last years ISDE in
Australia, fin ished in last
place in Ho lland, with
only two Trophy leam
riders still running at th e
finish. (Below) Randy
Dubois was one of only 17
(out of 37) American riders
to finis h the event,
their motos before th e Tr ophy ri d ers
took to the track.
In the Trophy gro up, the 125ee class
was won by Austrian rider An thon y
Vicker s, ab oard a TM, w hile It ali an
Paolo Fellega ra powered his Yamaha to
a mot o v ictory in th e 250cc d iv ision.
Am erican hopefu l Rod ney Sm ith wa s
mired in the pack after a poor start and
finis hed eigh th -fast es t am ong the Troph y team riders.
Czech rider O ta kar Kotrba topped
Swede Kent Karlsson in the 350cc Fou rStroke class, while Belgian Joel Smets
used his GP experience to win the 50Dec
Fou r-Stro ke d ivision over Czec h rider
[aroslav Katrinak.
In the last moto of the day, American
Ty Davis gave the U.s. contingent someth in g to cheer ab out by wi nning the
500cc class over Dutch rider Gerard Jimmink.
When all of the points were tallie d,
littl e had changed in the Trophy team
ca tegory. Poland ha d no p ro b le m s
hold ing on to its lead ove r Ireland, finishing w ith a 6989.83-point advantage,
33082.89-40072.72. Thi rd with 48743.15
points was Holland, while France and
Great Britain rounded out the top five.
Ju nior World Trop hy Team di vision
In the four-rider Junior World Trophy Team d ivision, for riders 23-yearsof-age and under, there wa s little to get
excited about for those rooting for the
Sta rs and Stripes. The U.S. team , made
up of lSDE ro ok ies Pat Ga rra ha n and
Josh Whi taker , a nd "vet erans" Chris
Sm ith a n d Scott Mc Laughlin , was
kn ocked ou t of con ten tion on th e first
day w hen Wh itaker lost con trol of his
KTM 250 and threw it aw ay into one of
the many water-fill ed can als that lined
some sections of the course . Whitaker's
KTM was comple tely su bme rge d and
his ride was over not lon g after it had
begun.
