Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

.i' " _ .~ , ; . ~'; ~-, ..... ~. ~r.··~ · r ·H E.& O N ··· Round 2: Vacation Village Hare &Hound . AR ·H U O · '.Best in theDesertS State Series ilver .~ " ~ ~ • ~ ,,' Z.tterkopf two for two I By Anne Van Beveren Photos by Tom Van Beveren JEAN, NV MAR 12 , M' s G re g Zitterkop f to ok charge of the Vaca tion Village World Championship H ar e & Hound the minute he left the starting line in Jean, Nevada, 30 miles south of Las Vegas. Racing a KTM 550 ins tea d of h is usual 250cc mount, Zitterkop f pulled out a two-min ute lead by the end of the first 30 miles and stretched it to as much as four minutes on his way to a wire-towire win over the 190-strong fie ld , despite running out of gas twice, sticking his throttle wide open and flipping off the bike. HI thought I'd lost it a few times. This wa sn't the easiest wi n I've ever had," said Zitterkopf, who admitted th a t he was glad to see the end of the 107-m ile even t. "The course wa s really rough really choppy. It was a lot more techni cal than I thought it would be." . The win gives the 29-year-old racer from Chino, Cali fornia, a two-for-two record in the Silver State Series - which is organized by Casey Folks' Best In The Desert - and pu ts him well on the road to victory in the five-race Nevada series. The event began at 9 a.m. on an abandoned road behind the Gold Strike Ho tel and Casino, and the large field mad e an imp ressive sight as the bikes left the line, two at a time every 20 seconds. Riding in the Open class put Zitt erkopf near the fron t of the s ta rti ng line-up, and th e KTM pilot po wered off the fourth row, down the short section of pavement and into the first silty comer. KJ The Open Pros were followed by the 250cc, 125cc, Over 30 and Over 38 Pros, and a large contingent of Expert racers . The Amateur class brought up the rear. Zitterkop f made his mov e early, as the 38- m ile first loop headed north tow ards Las Vegas, sweeping past the earlier starters to take the lead by the 15mile mark. Fu rthe r ba ck in the pack, d ust from the silty terrain was making the race miserable and hold ing up traffic, despite a st ro ng wi n d o u t of th e north. "Two or three times, I had to follow people becau se th e course was going righ t into the wi nd . There wa s nothing you could do ," said Honda CRSOO racer Dan Richardso n, who started dead last in the Open Pro d ivision, w ith 13 bikes between him and clear air, " As soon as we turned sideways an d go t a crosswind, it was okay." KTM 550- mou n ted Todd Hoy was hard on the gas, making his presence felt as soon as the green light flashed for his row. Paul Krause was pushing his Kawasaki KXSOO hard right off the start and KTM 250-racer Dest ry Abbott got the drop on the rest of the 250cc Pro field, but not everyone was happy with their opening section. "I didn't have anything going in the first loop," said Hond a-mounted Tony Bergman. "I sto pped a few times to fix a (Abov e) A month and a half after lopping Ihe series opener, Greg ZllIerkopf backed II up with a win at Ihe second round. (Righi) Desp ile a poor starling pos it io n. Dan Richardson sn ared Ihe ru nner-up po silion on his openclass Honda. "I don't choose w hat I ride. (The 550) is what my boss, Scot Harden, wanted me to ride tod ay," said Zitterkopf. "It was a go o d choice for toda y. (The course) had som e pretty fast sections." Wit h Danny Hamel - w inner of the last two Vacation Villag e Hare a nd Hounds - out of the picture while competing in East Coast events, the race was wide open as Open Pro hopeful s like Paul Krau se, Garth Sw ee tl a nd , Da n Richard son and Scott Mor ris followed Zitte r kop f in to th e first of the race's three loop s. few things, like ta ke the ta pe off my hand s because th e circula tion wasn't ge tting right to my arms." Utah's Ma rk Lu nd gree n w as also having trouble getting into the swing of things. "The first loop, I just cou ldn 't get it together. I crashed a few times," said th e KTM 550 pilot. "I had done some suspension mods and they didn 't work very well." One of the fas tes t star ts in the race was turned in by Utah racer Brandon Gerber, but the Hu sky WXC610 racer's performance went completely unnoticed because he started wa y back near the end of the Expe rt field, mo re than 80 bikes from the head of the pack. "Husky wants me to ride in the FourStrok e cla ss and (Best in the Desert) d idn't ha ve a Four-Stroke Pro division, so that 's where I ended up," said Gerber, who en te re d in the Four-Stroke Expert division. . Zitterkopf stret ched out a comfortable lead as he rode trouble-free around loop one. Behind him, KX500 racer Scott Morris had lost time fixing a derailed chain, and Krau se w as pushing a front flat he had picked up 10 miles off the start. "It ~as really dusty out there and I took a coupl e more chances than I normally would. That 's why I got the flat," said Krause. "It's hard enough to pass a slow rider in the d ust, when you 're racing with a bunch of good guys, passing is a lot harder," But po or vis ibili ty wa sn 't the worst problem caused by th e loose terrain, Mil e after mil e of sa n d p lay ed havoc with th e racer s' expec ted ga s mil eage and the almos t 4D-mile length of the first loop d id the rest. Zitter kopf ran out of gas late in the loop and barely mad e it to the fi nish, while 125cc Pro hopeful Stephen Tichenor had to retire when his Suzuk i RM125 's tank ran d r y three miles from the pi ts. "I got about 32 miles and it ran out, so I put my pint of gas in, but then it ran ' ou t aga in a nd that was it ," said Tichenor. "It was so sandy it ate my gas up . It was san d dunes and san d washes the whole way around the first loop ." Zitterkopf cleared the pits at the end of loop one with a two-minute lead on ad jus te d time over H oy and Team Green KX500 ra cer Garth Sw eetland. Richa rdson's cha rg e from the back of the pack had worked him up to seventh in the physical stan dings and fourth on adjusted time, a hea d o f KTM r acer Daryl Folks, whil e Abbott's charge had him in front of the 250cc Pros by more than a minute, in fifth overall on adjusted time. Scot Harden 's KTM 300 led the Over 30 Pros out into loop two, with Jeff Martinez, Charlie Kline and Fred Willert a minute apart in a battl e for the 125cc Pro lead . Gerber was 35th in the ph ysical stand ings when he clea red the first pit and his progress went unnoticed by a lm ost everyone excep t his pit cr ew, who knew that he had passed more than 45 riders to get there. The 31-mile second loo p was a hit . with everyone excep t Garth Sweetland, who had to nu rse his bike the last five miles after his wa terp ump broke; Paul Pitts, who got a late start tha nks to a flat tire on his ATK 604; a nd Bren t Bush, wh o holed his case on a rock mid way through the loop. "Loop two was really pre tty and a lot of fun," said Krause, who was pushing hard to ma ke up the places he 'd lost changing his flat in the pits. "We we nt up in the hills. The ground was wet, there were waterfalls a nd the course went in and out of the trees. It was not typical desert race stuff." The highlight of Zitterkop f's second . loop w as a m otocr oss-tight secti o n through a deserted ranch. "I was really su rp rised . You 're out in the middle of nowhere, you mak e a right turn and here's a ranch w ith gates and cattle guards and everything, up in the forest," said Zitterkopf. "The course went right th rough the corral. It wa s an awesome experience . You don 't realiz e how lucky you are to see pieces of hi sto ry like this that the average person never gets to see." A not quite trouble-free ride put Zitterkopf four minutes ahead of the com-

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