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;C WisecolYainahaIDunlopIBrakin .GNCC5eries .. R u d7:Laurel Ridge National R S COUNTRY:--·.··':.··:·.·· o n OS : :A MA reat Su mersda (Left) Three-ti me champ Scott Summers rebounded from a prev ious week 's inj ury to win the Laurel Ridge Nationa l. (Above) Scott Pless inger gave Summers a run lor Iils money. The two riders battled to the fi ni sh with Summers com ing out ahead by a lew leeL By Dav!!y Coombs LAURELVILLE, OH, JUNE 4 eam Honda's Scott Summers overcame a re cently inj ured arm to notch the overalI victory at the hot . an d dusty Laurel Ridge National near Laurelville, Ohio. Summers, piloting an XR600 Honda four-stroker, held off Team KTM's Scott Plessinger by just a few feet to record his se cond Grand National Cross Coun try win of the season. "We're pre tty p leased w ith the result: ' said Summers. "My arm wasn't completely broken in two - it was just a hairline fracture. Even though I couldn't ride for a while, I kept my training up and worked really hard to get ready for the hot races like this one." Summers needed every bit of strength he had to hold off the eq ually fit Plessinger at Laurel Ridge. T 4 "It was pretty close, almost too close:' said Plessinger, who won the last close round over Tom Norton . "I should've wo n this one, too. I guess I just took the wrong lines in the last couple of turns." Summers and Plessinger held a comfortable advantage over the rest of the field, though third overall Duane Conner was still pleased with his placing. "Things worked out a little bit better for me this time:' said Conner. "I was surprised. My plan was to save as much energy as I could and just finish - at tha t point I wasn't even worrying about finishing in the top three. But after the halfway mark I felt good and turned it up, which is just about the time I'm usually starting to feel tired." Summers is trying to reclaim the cross country overall championship that he handed over to Team Yamaha's Fred Andrews, a title that Summers held for three years running starting in 1990 . Andrews has led the '94 series since the third round, but the usually consistent rider made a rare - for him - and costly mistake at this round. On the second of eight laps, Andrews crashed at speed and suffered a mild concussion, causing him to register his first DNF since March of 1993. "I was trying to get around Doug BlackwelI and I couldn't see a thing," said Andrews, who lost the series lead to Tom Norton as a result of his pointless day. "I tried going out around him and there was a downed rider in th e middle of the trail that I d idn't see until the last second. I went over the bars and banged my head pretty good." Nonetheless, Andrews remounted and tried to catch back up, only to come to the shocking realization on a downhill that his brakes had disappeared. "The brake line was b us te d and I slammed right into a tree a nd went down agai n. I just said, 'The heck with it: after that. It was too dus ty for me. Besides, we found a hole in the radiator later on. I probably wo uld no t have finished anyway." Un til his Laurel Ridge mishap, Andrews had finished in the top three overall in each of the first six nationals this season. The surprisingly consistent Norton, who has been a top five rider at every GNCC round this year, took over.as the series .points leader folIowing a fourth overalI rid e at the Laurel Rid g e run. Choosing to compe te aboard a Kawasaki 10<125 against the bigger bikes of alI the o ther titl e co ntenders, Norton's power disadvantage was at a premium in the dust of Ohio. The Laurel Ridge trail bosses were the Ely brothers, who designed a welIreceived but unfortunately dry track. A recent spell of dry weather had the rid-