Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

·RELIABILITY ENDURO.··.. . Final Round: Speedsville National Qualifier :' .A National Cham MA pionshipReliability Enduro Series . S.III.wor I oat By Steve Berkner SPEEDSVILLE, NY, JULY9-10 ust two weeks after clinching his second consecutive .National Reliability Enduro Championship, Suzuki's Rodney Smith scored his fourth overall victory of the year at the series finale, proving his mettle in what many called the toughest Qualifier of the year. . "Even though I've already won the reliability series," s aid Smith, "we decided to keep the Speedsville event on o u r sch edule so I could get a good workout and climatize to the hea t before the (hare scrambles series) resumes next week in Missouri." Smith got his workout, as Saturday's temperatures were in the low 90s, with the humidity near 100%. These conditions, combined with' a tight 100-mile schedule that only gave the riders a few minutes' rest at each check, took route poin ts fro m all but nine of the event's 112 Day-One riders. A Saturday night thund erstorm turn ed Sunda y' s 125 miles of trail in to a grueling survival run, with a whooped-out, muddy, rutted trail that caused a 75% attrition rate. "Yesterday we had to deal with the heat , but had pretty good trail conditions, " sai d th e American Su z uki / Thor / Bieffe / S m i th / F M F / Ra c e Tech /Pro Taper / Uni/ Alp in es tars / PowerBar / Acerb is /Motion Pr o /Dun10p /DeVol /B el-R ay / M o to- Pu m p/ Wiseco / CTi/ End ura-sponsored Smith at the end of the event. " It was all you could do to make it to the checks with a few minu tes to spare. After last nigh t's rain, things really deteriorated. Today we had to deal with extremely wet conditions. 1 guess 1 got what 1 was looking for. They really put us through a work- J (Ab ove) Rodney Smith backed up his champ ion shi p with an overall win at the series finale. (Below) Fred Hoess prepares to laun ch his Husqvama 125 into special test. The form er ISDE Top Ame rican fi nished an impressive secon d overall . a out here." The course consisted of two identical loops each day . Saturda y featured an approxima te 20-mph speed average, while Sunday's longer course averaged 18 m ph. After comp leti ng the course, th e riders were checked in to a fina l imp ou nd, where they were staged for the final moto. Finishing the ironman event in sec- Tulsaw -up arm ---'----" he q uick trail pace, technical trails an d long special. tests of the sPeedsville . event were no acciden t, according to trail boss Ray Davis: "We laid this course out with Tulsa in mind. We've got just over 100 miles on Saturday and about 125 miles on Sunday . Ninety-five percent of it is trail We've got four special tests each day, with two sepa rate terrain tests late in the day. We've ribboned off over three miles of grass track that will give the riders the closest thing to a European grass track that they'll ever find ." . Most riders seemed pleased with the course; despite (or perhaps because of) the difficulty, "For the top riders, it was a good trail pace, because we had to keep up the pace to make it with just a few minutes to sp are," said Chris Smith. "But that 's wha t we expect. I thought the club did a real good job here . The tests were very technical, just like an ISDE is supposed to be." "I like gru eling events, because it keeps you focused all day," said Scott Summers. "It seems like you make the big mistakes when the events are easy and your mind starts to wander. But I think the Ithaca Dirt Riders had the right idea of making the event tough. It was pretty grueling. It was kind of miserable for the riders, but it gets us prepared for the Six Days." "(Sunday ) was a lot like (the ISDE in) Holland, where it was all you could do just not to get stuck, especially in the tests," said Fred Hoess. Six-Days veteran Jeff Fredette concurred: "Holland ha d its tough sections, b ut this was far tougher. With the mud, it just pounded you to death. You had to just concentrate and stay in the groove and keep rolling. In Holland, they gave us a break at the checks. Here, we had no breaks. It was a lot like a National Enduro, with no resets. Saturday, the heat was just always in your face - a lot like the Tulsa Six Days is going to be." T 36 ond was Husqvarna em ployee Fred Hoess, who challeng ed Smith throughout the two-day event. The two riders turned in top-three finishes in all four of Saturday'S special tests . Competing on an RMX250, Smith topped three tests and finished the da y with an elapsed time of 2658 sec ond s. Hoess rode his Husky 125 to a win in the remaining test and tied Smith on one of the others. Going into Day Two, Hoess only had to make up a 12-second deficit to take the lead from Smith. The muddy conditions on Sunday pro ved to be the difference , when Hoess fell off Smith's pace. "With the rain, today's terrain tests were really tough for the 125s," sa id Hoess af ter Day Two . "The ruts and mud were brutal. You had to ride out of contro l just to keep pace with the 250s. With all of that power-robbing mud, if you picked the wrong line, yo u got hung up and really lost time. During my first test toda y, I really went for it and put together probably my best terrain test ever, un til I crashed hard near the end of the test." Smi th won the test and picked up another 19 seconds on Hoess, wh o pos ted the second-fas tes t time . Hoess fell back 43 more seconds on the last terrain test and went into the final moto over a minute back. "It's tom up out .there," said Smith. "In the sections that we rode yesterday, w e n ow had to d eal with standin g water. In the new sections, things got so tom up that there were ruts everywhere. The first time thro ugh the new terrain test, it was just slippery, but the second time through you were lucky to just get thr ough it. They added a few minutes to today's schedule, so we had a little more time to work, but ne ver more th an a couple of minutes." . Takin g third ove rall honors was Chris Smith, making it two 125 ride rs in the top three positions. The Honda rider finis he d fifth on Day One, 30 seconds behind Guy Cooper and Scott Summers. "(Saturday) went all right, but I don' t think I rode aggress ively enough," said Chris. " At firs t I had trouble ge ttin g traction in the tests, so I toned it down

• Cover