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ยท OFF~ROAD '. . .A National C ionshl Hare &H series MA ham aund Round 1: Soggy Dry Lake elro s on By Anne Van Beveren Photos by Tom Van Beveren LUCERNE VALLEY, CA, JAN.23 a n n y H a me l began this year's National hare and hound series by breaking one of his card ina l rul es for successful desert raci ng. The three-time Nation al cha mp missed his trail after the bann er d ropped and, for the firs t time in as long as almost anyone can remember, the Kawasaki KX500 pilot was not in fron t when he reached the bo mb. "I got a good start, bu t 1 lost my trail b ec ause 1 hadn ' t ri d d e n it tha t fast before, and Ty Davis passed me at the bomb," said Hamel. "I always try to be in fr o n t a t the bomb, an d it ' s rea lly important in a race like this wh en it's so dusty." The silty conditions in the starting area east of Bessemer Mine Road , coupled with a still morning that left dust hanging motionless, made a good start critical for the three-loop course laid ou t by AMA District 37's Desert M.e.. Hamel pulled out all the stops to make up for his mistake, and swept past h is Kawasaki teammate to re take the lead less than a mile past the bomb. He kept the pace going all the way and had turned the dust-free number-one spo t into a three-and-a-half minute margin by the time the checkered flag fell. "Once 1 got the lead, 1 knew it would be okay," said Hamel. "I knew that Davis would be in my dust and it would be holding him up, so 1 just kept riding really hard." The first round of the season's sevenround National series drew 450 racers to the starling area near Soggy Dry Lake. The 10 a.rn. banner drop was delayed for 15 minutes while Roger Ansel, Amateur Competition Manager for the AMA, D Utah's Mark Lundgreen retired at the end of loop one after he clipped a rock before the halfway point in the loop, and Senior class racer Art Cossio called it quits after a fall that broke his clutch lever. Ignition problems forced Bill Maxim, title-holder in the Over-40 Expert divi.sion, to call it quits just five miles off the start, while Rex Staten ruined the start of a lifetime when he had to stop to let his KX500 cool down after it seized at the end of the bomb. For the first time since the eight-yearold series began, Kawasaki ace Larry Roeseler opted to help out in the pits rather than chase the series title. "We're here to make sure that Hamel and Davis win and the others (Team Green racers) do well. We'd like to see eight out of the top 10 be green," said Roeseler. "I'm going to be part of it still and it gives me an opportunity to talk to more people - th e kids and everything." At the end of the first 40 miles of hard-on-the-gas racing, Hamel was two minutes ahead of Davis as he streaked down the valley in a long nbbon of dust and charged into pit row. Mark Lundgreenwas shaking his head when he hit pit row in th ird overall; the numberthree position passed to Pa ul Kra use when the KTM550 racer dismounted and began inspecting his injuries. Richardson cleared pit row a minute behind Krause in fourth; Jeff Capt brought his factory-backed Honda XR600 R th r ou g h in fif t h, a head of KX500 racers Dave Ondas and Ted Hunnicu tt, and KTM's Greg Zitterkopf led the 250cc Experts in eighth. Loop two's 33-mile circuit around Bessemer Mine was al most as fas t as loop one. (Above) Danny Hamel (1) didn't get one of his patented holeshots, but It didn't matter. He scored the win anyway. The defending champhas won every National H&H race since the opening round last year. (Right) Ty Davis negotiates one of the many rocky sections that have made Luceme Valley famous. Davis, Hamel's teammate, finished second overa ll. p resented Ha mel with an awa rd fo r his wi n in last ye a r's h a re and hound series, and then su rprised th e 21-year-old ra cer by naming him AMA Am ateur Athlete of the Year for 1993. The top racers in the field were closely bunched on one end of the starling . line when the race finally began. Hamel and Davis were at each others' throats the m inute th e ir motors roared to life, and Kawasaki teammates Ted Hunnicutt, riding a KX5OO, and . Paul Krause, als o piloting a KX5OO, and privateer Dan Richardson, on a Honda CR500, were close behind. The first loop was a fast 4O-miler that " ran southeast to the edge of the Lucerne Valley riding area and then doubled back to the pits through Victor Pass. The open terrain, coupled with the blinding dust, took a toll right from the start. KTM's Scot Harden was forced to retire when he hurt his leg crashing over a rock wide open in fifth gear, and Joey Lane crashed out of 15th overall when he hit a rock at 70 mph and went over the bars just.eight miles into the race. " It was a little triangular rock that stu ck up about six inches," said Lane, w ho broke his wris t. "Tw o other guys hit the same rock while I was there." "The course was pretty neat. The problem is, to get to the neat sections, you had to ride all the roads and all the whooped-out trails across the valleys," said Davis. "It's neat through the tight sections, but then you're pounding through the whoops again. " Davis was one of a number of riders