Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
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~ OFF·ROAD AMA WisecolYamahalDunlopGrand National Cross Country Series: Final Round ! Scott Su mmers scored the overall win in h is fin al ride of the season with the n umber-on e plate. ... rl H OJ ~ OJ u OJ Q Summers era end nahi hnote so By Davey Coombs Photos by Jim Talkington GREENVILLE, TN, NOV. 14 eam Ho nda's Scott Summers had one more chance to rid e with the number one pl at e that he's carried for three- s tra ight years, and th e four-stroke pilot extraordinaire went out on a h igh not e with the overall w in at the Dallas Ricker Sports Co mplex. The 26-year-old Kentuckian out-paced Suzuki's Steve Hatch, the '93 AMA National Enduro vice-champion, and KTM facto- T 10 ry rider Sco tt Plessinger, .runner-up to Summers in the '93 AMA National Har e Scra mbles Series. ''I'm h appy to end this series with one mo re w in, bu t it's not really the same as w inning the war," said Su mmers, w ho a lso won the final h a re scra mbles nati on al of the year. "I did the b est I co uld th is season with all the things that happened - injuries, bad luck, whatever . It felt gr eat to win toda y but it doesn' t make up for not winning the title for the fou rth year in a row ." Yamaha rider Fred Andrew s clinched the championship a t the 11th round of the series in West Virginia an d did not attend the fin al race in eas te rn Tennessee. Rounding ou t th e top five overall were Team M ira g e ' s Tom No r ton and Canadian Suzuki p ilot Blair Sharpless. Finishing six th overall of the da y was loca l motocross hero Mike Brown, formerly a member of Team Pea k/Pro Circuit Honda 's 125cc s upercross juggernaut. Class winners included Sharpless in the 250cc A group, Yamaha-moun ted Shawn Brell in the Open A class an d Pennsylvanian Rob ert Bennett in th e 200cc A d ivision . Like Sharpless, Brell and Bennett both achieved top-10 overall scores en rou te to their respective class wins; Brell wa s a series-hi gh eighth overall while Bennett directed h is Kawasaki into the lOth overall position. This was the cross country tour's second stop of the year a t the track. The race was originally scheduled for mid March, but was cance led w hen a freak weekend snowstorm (d ubbed "the Blizzard of the Century" in this part of the United States) left the area u nder two feet of snow. The GNCC Series organizers d ecided to reschedu le the race for the e nd of the year in hopes tha t inclement weather would not violate the race twice in one year. The move paid off, as the event was graced by a sunny and unseasonably warm November day . The course - tight and rocky for the most part - measured close to eight miles per lap ; the race covered nine laps and lasted close to three hours. To no one's surprise, Dou g Blackwell, the Team G reen -backed holeshot artist, captured th e ea rly lead as Summers, Plessinger, Hatch, Yamaha's Jan Hr ehor and the res t of the Pro class competitors filled out the ea rly chase group. Doug Jones , fro m Dalton, Geo rgia, w as towards th e front early but su ffered a major endo wh en he cau ght a stu mp on one of the downhills. He dropped out of the race a short whil e later. Brown, who will ru n number 92 in AMA pro motocross next yea r, was not used to the d ead-engin e starting procedure, in which riders sit quietly on the starting grid until the refe ree thr ows a green flag, sig na ling the start of the race. All day lon g, Brown was a con tender on the en tire track, and his highly-regarded M X skills made him the s tar of the motocross portion of each lap . Bu t at the en d of the first complete circuit, Brown was still back in fifth as Summers led Plessinger, Czech import Hrehor and Blackwell into the first scoring area. "I took a different strategy into this race than I normally do," sa id the American Honda/Oakley/Bridgestone /Hondaline/Powerbar /Wiseco / Alpinestars/Specialized/Throttle Jockey /WhHe Bros./Tsubaki/Camelbak/Arai/Answer -sponsored Summers. "I went all-ou t at the begi nning rather than holding back until 1 need ed to go faster. I found my rhythm early and just rod e my own race after tha t." Summers was also tryi ng so me thing different wi th his eve r-relia ble XR. "For the first time ever I decid ed to use a different motor than the s tock one. I used a 599cc eng ine, w h ich is over-b ored to 78 /1000. I wanted to test the motor in race condition s so that I will kn ow in the future which type of engine will work best depending on tra ction and the layout of the course." Summers cred ited his mech anic Fred Bramblett and Forward Motion's Eric Gorr for ge tting the new motor together. By the end of the second lap, which measu red ex ac tly 20 m inutes on h is mechanic' s stopwa tch, Su m mers was well in con trol of th e race. Pless in ger held seco nd o n th e MSR /Duralu be/ Arai-backed KTM, while Brown made a push up into the thi rd overall