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(Above left) SCotl Summers battled
through the heat to claim the
Heavyweight Four-5troke class victory.
(Above) Guy Cooper returned to the
series, winning the final motocross test
, and finishing fourth overall.
(Left) Chris Smith gets a little out of
shape on his way to a third-place finish.
(Below) Fred Andrews does some "finetuning" on his Yamaha WR250 . The
brutal event had a high attrition rate .
and concentrated on being smoother.
I'm happy with my times, but for me to
make up any time tomorro w, it's going
to have to dry up a little."
Chris Smith d idn't get his wish in
regards to the w eather, but he advanced
two positions, nonetheless, "I was like
the third guy out this morning, and
things were already getting pretty ruited out," he said. " I was having problems finding traction, so I knew by the
second time through it was going to be
a nightmare. The trail was so beat up
that 1 just concentrated on riding alongside of the trail, where there was traction."
Where Chris Sm ith foun d traction,
Cooper struggled . The form er 12Scc
National MX Champion had put together solid test scores on Day One and was
just on e minute behind Rodney Smith,
but Sunday's muddy con dition s put
h im off th e pace, "The trail pace was
pret ty tight out there ," said Cooper . "I
knew with th e tests coming lat e in the
day that I'd have to save myself. Ther e
wasn't m uc h road out there to ca tch
your breath, so yo u had to consistently
ride at 80%. 1 d on ' t think 1 had what it
takes to make up any time on the leaders , My grass tracks went okay, but my
bike was running a litt le flat on the low
end , and 1 had to use the clutch and rev
th e mot or to keep it from bogging off
the bottom. That really cost me in the
terrain tests ,"
Scott Summers finished fourth overall, and posted top-five times in the four
terrain tests, bu t fell off the pace in the
four grass-track tests. "I'm a little disappointed in m y grass-track times," said
Summers. "I'm not used to being able to
lean a motorcycle on its side at speed.
During a cr oss country race or a hare
scramble, you never get a chance to
develop that skill, because you'd run
right into a tree."
With Sunday's brutal course com- '
plete, the riders were lined up for the
final motocross test. Rodney Smith took
the holeshot in the 250cc moto, and held
the lead comi ng out of the firs t comer,
pulling ahead of Cooper and Ed Lojak.
But Smith was over-aggressive and
went wide into the second comer, giving Cooper the lead . Smith recovered in
third behind Lojak.
"I had trouble getting around Ed,"
said Smith. "He was jus t blasting me
with rocks, so 1 backed off a little until I
could pass him without risk of crashing.
Ed was in front of me all day, and 1
caught and passed him on three tests
already, so I knew I could put him
away."
Smith caught Lojak, but settled for
second in the moto. Still, he won the
overall with plenty of room to spare. a
Speedsvllle Nationa l Qualifier
Speedsvllle, New York
. Results: July 9-10, 1994
01 A; I. Rodney Smith (Suz ); 2. Fred Hoess (Hus) ; 3,
Chris Smith (Ho n); 4. Scott Summers (Hon); 5. Guy
Cooper (Suz); 6, Ed Lojak (Yam); 7, Jeff Russell (KTM);
8. Tim Shepa rd (Yam); 9. Du an e Conner (Yam ); 10.
Doug Jones; 11. Dave Faery; 12. Mark Avard (Hus ); 13.
KeUy Getz (Kaw); 14, Jel l Kirchner; IS , Vieto r Ely; 16.
David San ti; 17, Robb Grill; 18, Terry Bender; 19, Donny
Lingle ; 20, Denni s Murphy,
AMA NATIONAL CHAMPI ONSHIP REllA·
BILITY END URO SERIES FINAL POINT
ST AND I NGS · UNOFFICIAL (Best 6 of 8 .co res
count): 1. Ro dney Sm it h (166/4 wi ns); 2. Randy
Hawkins (136/2); 3, Ty Davis (94/ 1); 4. Danny Hamel
(91/ 1); 5, Da v id Rhod es (78); 6, Fred Hoess (67); 7,
Davide Tro lli (65); 8, Chris Smith (60); 9, Guy Cooper
(56); 10, Duane Conner (51),
B'IefII VI "
.'
r
giass track and ~ took me 12 minutes to get it
started. I could probablyput 'up w~h 20 sec': : '
.. i ••,
" onds ,ofstarting problems in exchange lor the ,
, .
' .' . , extra power; but not minutes, Tomorrow Irs,
.Team Suzuki's Steve Hatch 'sat out the event ' going back to stock, Before I installed the big,with an injury to his right ttiumb, thoughhe , .' bore kit t was actually 'trying to blow It up, I
expects to be healed by the JulY 24 Michigan ' put , 200 miles 'on the bike, trying to find ~
1
National Enduro. Hatch has been'plagued by :' limits. I'm not sure whars. going on. butI 'm ,
injuries throughout the ' National,Reliabili y changing ~ ba ck to a 250." . '
t
" ,' , , "
Enduro Series, and only completed four days'
'.
during the season, "Normally you need six Austranans Mark Avard and M~ Peacock
. complete days toq'ualify, bui I'm counting on competed at the Qualifier to prepare.lor l?ep- ,
S
:Itle injury c lause ," sa id , Hatch , Randy . tember's Tulsa I DE. Peacock sat out Day
Hawkins and Kevin Hines also missed the ' , ' Two due to heat exhaustion, but Avard·fin, :
round to prepare torthe Michigan'en,duro, '
ished 12th overall, and Said,'OWe came over,
a couple 01 months earlyto start preparing lor
'J eft"Fredetle hada 292cc kit bolted on his the Six Days, This was a tough event lor us,
Kawasaki KLX250 , but ran into mechanical " mostly'bec