Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

I TERVIEW By D avey Coombs hen Fred Andrews rolled up to the start line for the first Grand National Cross Country of the year in Gainesville, Florida, he probably felt a little like a fish out of water. Woods-racing regulars are a close-knit group, not eager to accept flashy, ... unpr oven motocrossers into their folds . Andrews proved that he was at least a force to be reckoned with when he won that series-opener but, in a way, tha t only made things worse; if there's one thin g off-readers hate worse than unin vited guests, it' s getting beaten by them on their home turf. But nine months later, when Andrews had won four ro unds an d cl inched the title with two races rema ining, the off-road set finally began to ac cep t the friendly Yamaha rid er. Andrews was no longer a motocrosser, he was a woods racer - and a good one. Did you ever think that you would win the cross country title in your first year of woods racing? No, I can't say I did. When I rode the first national of the year in Florida, I was only doing it to see how I would do and what would happen. I ended up winning the race, but I was still up in the air abou t what I was going to do this season. I was thi nking that maybe it was tim e to try some thi ng else. I ta lked to the people at Yamaha about riding the off-road series a nd the y so unded like they were willing to help, so I decid ed to cha nge directions and foll ow the cross country series. I was getting a little old for pro motocross, bu t woods racing is somethin g that I could do for five or six more years. How lon g did you race motocross? I raced for 15 years, the last 10 as a professional. But I was also into woods racing. In the off-season, I would ride hare scra mbles back home in Ohio and just play-ri de in the woods. My family has a couple of motorcycle dealerships in Ohio - one in Salem and the other in Canfield. We sell all four motorcy cle b rands. My parents (Phil and Nancy) didn' t have their ow n dealership until 1983. Before that, my mom worked at a d eal ership and my dad rode for the same one. It took about 10 ye ars befo re they got to where they owned a shop. I guess our whole family has alw ays been motorcycle-oriented . • Your brother Joel is also a pretty good racer, isn't he? He really is. Originally, he was the on e tha t wanted to be the serious ra ce r and I wa s the one who just wan ted to hang out and have fun. I never though t tha t I would be racing motorcycles for a livin g. But Joel hurt his knees really bad at a local race in the early 1980s, and my dad had all these bikes laying around, so it was my tum to give it a shot. How did you do as a professional motocrosser? Well, I never won a national or anything, but I earned national number 17 twice, number 18 twice, number 24, number 39 last year, number 44, n u m be r 47 and number 89, so I guess that's pretty good. I also did pretty good as an amateur coming up. I was r iding th e 100 class at Loretta Lynn's Amateur Nationals, and going in to the last mo to it was between Jeff Stanton, Donny Schmit and myself. Whoever won th e last moto would win the championship. I wa s leading the whole race until the last lap, actually the last comer, but I fell down and they both got by me. My dad was so mad when I got back to the pits that he loaded my bike and we headed home, but I was still dressed in all my riding gear! . 8 AMA GrandNational Cross Country Champ_on_r_ _An _ _s-'-i _ F ed _drewAs a pro motocrosser, you prob ably form ed some opinions abou t w oods racers over the years. How close di d your expectations come to what woo ds racers are really like? A lot of things abou t woods racing and woods racers rea lly surp rised me. For ins ta nce, I never though t that they would go th at fas t for three -straight hours . It als o seemed to me that they would take a break here and there, and then really go for it at the end . I found ou t this year tha t yo u have to go just about as hard as you can from start to fini sh, because every on e else is go ing 100%. Training-wise, I really don't do anything different now than what I did as a motocrosser. I still go out and ride motocross a lot during the week because it's hard to go out and practice in the woods and go fast. You can practice certain things in the woods, but you can't just go out there by yourself on a Wednesday and ride that hard for that long without being pushed. Another difference between the two is that woods racers are alw ays thinking more about where they're go ing, and looking for different lines. In motocross you don't have to look so m uch for lines, because the tracks a re a li ttle shorter and thelines don 't change so much. You have to do a lot more thinking in the woods because you don't get an hour of practice before the race, the lines ar e alw ays changing and you have to know where everyone else is. You just never know what's going to happen in a woods race. How do your rivals in woods raci ng d iffer from those you used to have in motocross? In cross country racing I'm pretty much at the top level, but in the other sport I w asn 't. The gu ys at the top of the mo tocross results are really busin ess- ' like and p retty serious , b ut the guys below that, where I was, were all pretty friend ly with each other . No one was going to take another gu y out or hurt him just to do it, because w e w ere friends off the track. I think the woods guys are a lot like that. Did you feel like the pressure was on you to win this year? Wouldn't your motocross friends have gotten down on you for getting beaten by a bunch of trail riders? on a tank of gas . That's stuff that I'm still learning. Do you think that kind of knowledge comes from knowing a particular track or area so well, or is it j ust a "trail sense" that wo ods riders de velop over the years? hill and they all came out ahead of me. It wasn't that big of a deal, just one of those things that comes wi th experience. As far as looking for lines on the main trail, like where to cross over some rocks or which line to use up a steep hill , I think I've always been pret ty goo d at pickin g up stuff like that. I'm not at a big disadvantage in that respect. Your family and friends seem to really enjoy the woods races now. Everyone comes a day or two early and there's practically a tail-gate party atmosphe re around the Andrews pits. My family has been with me my whole career, and it will probably stay that way for as long as I race. They' ve gotten me to where I'm a t right now, and I enjoy having them at every race to help out. In this sport you have to have a good pit crew, so it gives them a chance to be more in volved than they ever were before . These races are like a family affair for us and it's much better for my dad's bike shops than my motocross career was. We sell a ton of bikes to people who just ride in the woods and now they see us coming to these races and supporting this part of the sport. In the pro motocross nationals , I was racing all over the country every weekend and there would only be a handful of people who'd ever heard of me at the bike shops. The cross country races all are reasonably close to where we live (Salem, Ohio) and to the people who might visit our shop. As for coming to the races early, I "}'m a W()()~S racer I came into woods racing this year with nothing to lose and everything to gain. Maybe that's why I was able to do so well. Each race was like a new expe rience for me, so no matter ho w I finished, at least I got the experience for the future. These othe r gu ys have been at it for years n ow, riding th e same tracks and learning li ttle thi ngs li ke which line to use on a certain part of a course, or exactly ho w far the y can go fI()W!" I think that it's a combination of both. We had a race in Elkins, West Virginia, in October, where there was a section tha t we had go across a ridge and then drop down a hill. The old trail from a few years ago went straight off the hill, but this year it went around a bend and then met back up with the old tra il. I was leading the race on the first lap and I followed the normal trail. All of the othe r guys knew that short-eut over the _

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