Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

would give the U.S. its first-ever ISDE , Trophy Championship - or at least that's what many people had thought going into the event. Things s tarted off well enough for the U.S.T ro phy team. At the end of day one, the Americans sat in third place behind Italy an d France - an d we re sti ll well within striki ng distance. Unfortu nat ely, all that changed when Russell' s KTM 350cc four -stroke suffered electrical problems during a Day Two terrain test, of all places. Russell was also late to the n ext check, incu rring several rou te points and dropping the U.S. team to eighth in the stand ings. But all was not lost. A day later, some of the other top Trophy teams lost riders which shot the U.S . team back up to fo u r th by Da y Three. The ro lle r-coaste r ride for the' U.S. team continued on Da y Four. Consistently fast special test times throughout the day gave the U.S. team hope of perh aps mov ing into the top three, but those hopes aga in vanis hed when, Summers cras hed out of the event just a few m iles from th e ba se camp. The fourstroke ace had br oken his ha nd , and that was the fina l blow . , "I h ad just finished th e last grass track and was a few miles from the pits wh en I hit a ro ck I didn't see:' said Summers. "I broke two bones in m y hand a n d bru ised a co u p le of ribs." Befor e the mi stake, Summers had been running third in the H /W Four-Stroke d ivision. Not everything went Ita ly 's wa y at Tulsa, as the Junior World Trophy class' top honors went to Sweden. Australia was a surprising runner-up, wi th th e Netherland s thi rd . Italy had been in the hunt for a sweep earl y on, leading until one of their riders dropped out on Day Four with a broken foot. The U.S. hopes of a third Junior World Trophy titl e en d ed practically before their engines got a chance to warm up on the first day. Before reaching the first check, Brian Garrahan had a slow-speed crash that it was enough to break his wrist. The injury required a trip to the hospital where he underwent surgery to ha ve the bones set. Garrahan's departure left teammates Danny Hamel. Vincent Davis and Chris Smith to fend for th emse lves from there on out. This year's overall individual winner was Frenchman Stephane Peterhansel, whose smooth and fluid riding style carried the Yama ha rider to his third career overall ISDE win. Second overall went to Finnish fou r-s troke ace Kari Tiainen w ho finished just .92-of-a-second ahead of Giovanni Sala . Tiainen also captured the H /W Four-Stroke class w in; Sala was second in the H/W division. Pu tting in a re ma rkable L/W classwinning ride aboard a 12Scc Gas Gas was Great Britain's Paul Edmondson, w ho finished fourth overall. And rounding out the top five and earning, for the second year in a row , the unofficial title of "Top Am erican ," was Kawasaki's Ty Davis. As mentioned earlier, th is y ea r's even t wa s held on privately owned lan d at the John Zink Ranch, and p erh aps the two m ost commonl y use d words (at leas t p rintable word s) that ri ders used to described the overa ll course were "long" and "rocky." Nin ehour days were the norm, and the combination o f warm temperature s a n d seemingly endless miles of rocks saw riders dropping like flies durin g th e first day of com petition. Many DNFers flat -out admitted that the trail was just too brutal for them to carry on . Temperatures cooled off h alfway into the event, bringing a fair am ount of dust-stopping rain, something the riders had wished for on the first two days. Bu t, by the third day, most of the top off-road veterans were still plugging away and had settled into a steady, ISDE -finishing (Above right) Italian Amaldo Nicoll , shown here changing a tire during a day-end work period, wo n the U ghtw eight FourStroke class. (Right) Ughtweight winner Paul Edmondson leads Nober Lichtenberg thro ug h a stream. (Below) Rodney Smith (left) and Guy Cooper chow down.

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