Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

:AMA WisecolYimahalDunloplBraking Grand National Cross COuntry Series Round 9: Burr Oaks C O SC U T Y. .' , R S O NR , ,. .' (Above left) Scott Summers (2) scored a narrow win over Scott Plessinger at the Burr Oaks GNCC. (Above right) An exhausted Pless inge r mounted a serious charge late In the race to reel in Summers. (Left) Defend ing champ Fred Andrews (1), here leading Tomm y Nort on, finished third. (Right) Steve Hatch , co ming back from inj uries, ended up sixth. Summers holds off Plessinger By Davey Coombs Photos by Jim Talkington "I MILLFIELD, OH, AUG. 28 d idn't kno w he was co mi ng!" said Team Honda 's Scott Su mmers after crossing the finish line just a few bike lengths ahead of riva l Scott Plessinger at the Burr Oaks GNCC. "I knew he had problems at the beginning and was so far behind us that I kind of forgot about him. He must hav e been flying." Plessinger truly wa s. Th e factorybacked KTM rider from Ohio bent a rear brake component in the first 10 minutes of the more than two-and-one-half-hour race and completed the first lap more than four minutes behind th e leaders. But by going 110% for the next 150 minutes or so, Plessinger nearly completed one of the most miraculous com ebacks the Grand National Cross Country Series has ever seen . "I gave it all I had, but I just came up a little short," said an exhausted Plessinger as he rested un der Summers' big canopy tent. "What else I say? I was going for it." Summers ended up winning by just a few seconds over Plessinger with defending GNCC Series Champion Fred Andrews scoring th ird overall in the field ofnearly 300 off-mad competitors. Multi-time AMA National Enduro can 46 Ch am p ion Randy Haw kins and Tea m Kawasaki /Mirage's Tom Norton rounded out the top five overall. The trail for the ninth round of the GNCC Series was fast and fun, but dry an d dusty, w ith a nine-mile-long loop. Laid out by KTM's Jeff Russell and Tim Shephard, a pair of long time Ohio offroad stars, the course was not as technical as the one tha t ho sted the ride rs in the '93 series . However , passing was better , especia lly on th e wa ter-t ruck treated motocross sections. With ominous looking clouds gathering above the western tree line Summers tho ug h t it bes t to ju mp into the ea rly lead and make a break from the field . H owever, th e Honda XR600 rider fell four times and, instead of a sizable lead, he built himself a 47-second deficit. " It looked like it was going to rain, and I wanted to build a good earl y lead ," admitted the Kentucky-based off-reader, "I guess I was trying too hard, and I kept smacking myself into the ground." Plessinger was having more significant problems. After leading the initial mile, he bent his rear brake rotor and had ' t o go back to the pits, change wheels and go back out He was exactly four minutes down at that point. Andrews held the lead at the end of the first lap with the hard-charging Norton just 10 seconds back on his KawasakiKX200. "I had passed Fred a few times, but he kept pa ssi ng me back in the open fields," said Norton. "He put another 30 seconds on me when I fell in a creek on the second lap, bu t J must 've been pretty far ahead of third place since no one passed me. But Su mmers d id catch me at the end of the second lap ." Su mmers ha d rebounded from his first-lap jitters and climbed from eighth into second, passing the likes of Yamaha's Duan e Conner, Hawkins, Suzuki's Ste ve H atch and Kawasaki-mounted Doug Blackwell along the wa y. At one poi nt Yamaha-mounted Vet cl ass pil ot Ter ry Cunningham was a solid th ird ov era ll. Unfortu na te ly, TC often has trou ble with dehydration. He even tually fell off the pace and called it a da y afte r only a few laps . Duane Conner soo n dropped out with problems of his own. The Pennsylvanian had been battling heat problems earli er in the seaso n but now appears to be over that trauma. However, a case of the flu was too much to dea l with on a day like this. "With the heat and all the jarring around it was just too much for me ," admitted Conner. Summers eventually caught Andrews and took over the lead to start the fourth lap, but Andrews passed him back on the motocross track. As another Andrews-versus-Summers duel com- menced up front, Norton moved back to within 10 seconds of the lead duo. "An drews was starting to make some mistakes, and Summers and I were riding real good," said Norton. "We freight trained until the end of the fourth lap. That's when the lappers became a prob. Iern." And th at' s a ls o when Norton' s power disadvantage became evident. Ple ssinger was still more than two minutes behind after the fourth of what would be a six-lap affair, leading spectators and pit crews to count the former champ out Before he could even think about challen ging Summers, Andrews a n d Norton for the lead, Plessinger would ha ve to fi rst get around Hawkins, Blackwell and Hatch! And as he started the final 26-minute-long lap Plessinger was still an improbable sixth overall. Andrews took the white flag first with Summers stuck to his shadow. Norton lost close tou ch and then had Hawkins to dea l with. . "I k new that Hawkins was on ly about 10 seconds behind me, so I couldn't make any mistakes," said Norton. "But about halfway through the last lap a branch stuck straight into my cheek. I really thought I was cut bad when I felt the blood start running down my cheek. Luckily it wasn't (cut badly), but it broke my concentration for

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