Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

.> . ENDURO···. . AMA National Championship Reliability Enduro Series Round 2: McArthur Two-Day ISDE Qualifier da y. "I had just caught Rodn ey when I hit a hard ~ut and all of a sudden the bike acted like it had a broken powervalve or a smashed pipe. It just totally lost power. [ even had to help the bike up a couple of hills . I finished the test the best I could and rode on to the next check. I thought to myself he re comes the monkey again. I'll be lucky to even make it through the day. At the check I looked the bike over and couldn 't see anything wrong. When I started the bike up aga in the problem was gone." Hawkins third tes t of the day went off wit hout any problems . Hawkins later said, "I though t maybe it was a frea k thing that wo ul d n' t rep eat itself. But it came back during the grass track. I had to shu t the bike off and restart it." Du e to his m isfortune Ha wkin s, who wo n the eve nt last yea r, had fallen off the pace to fourth overall, 123 seconds behind Hatch. "We can 't seem to find anything wrong with the exhaust system th at coul d be causi ng the bik e to lose power so tomorrow we're going to try rejetting. " Da y two p roved to be no better mechanically for the five-time Nati onal Enduro champ. Hawkins' bike suffered from the same problems repeatedly du ring the first three tests. But remarkably, the muddy trail conditions caused by the ra in and an underst and ing of what mig ht be causing the intermi ttent power loss seemed to wo rk in Haw kins' favor. He won the first two tests even though he was plagued by the sa me mecha nical pro blems . "I thi nk we have it pinpoin ted to a timing problem," said Haw kins on Sunday. "Ap parently when the rev limiter cuts in un de r load it's causing the ignition to short out. When it hap pens I just get on the br akes and stall the engine. As soon as the eng ine comes to a stop I kick it over an d the bik e run s fi ne again." Hawkins wen t on to win his class's three final test s to take third overall away from fourth-place fini sh er Chris By Steve Berkner 36 MCARTHUR, OH, MAY 27-28 hen the rain began to fall just mom en ts befor e the s ta rt of day two, Team Suzuki's Steve Hatch seemed to be the od ds on favorit e to win. After all, the defending National End uro Cha m p io n had won all four special tests the d ay before w he n ridin g cond ition s were idea l. Those efforts had rew arded himwith a 35-second lead over teammate Rodney . Smith. With the rain and deteriorating trail conditions, the enduro ch amp seemed to have the event all but won. In his ow n words, he onl y needed to "stay out of trouble" to clinch it. As it turned out, Hatch d idn 't stay o u t o f tr ou bl e, as Smith turned th e tables by taking charge of the situa tion and overtook Ha tch's lead to score the win b y jus t o ne scan t second o ver Ha tch. "I really had a lot of trou ble getting through the test yesterday without faIling a nd that ' s w ha t cos t me," sai d Smith who showed just w hy his is the . defending National Reliability Champion . "Ma r k Hyde reminded me this morning tha t I was in 18th pl ace las t year (afte r day one) an d went out an d won day two to move into the top five overall. So I knew I could do it. But when it started to rain, I though t I had a better cha nce to catch Steve because I've always been a good mu d rider." The rains continued to fall as Smit h rod e the firs t test of the day. "The first test we n t oka y," said Smith. "I had no real problems. But I fell twice during the seco nd test and [ started to doubt my strategy." Even with the fall s, Smith' s times were respec table . He only lost four seconds to Hatch during those first two terrain tests wh ich were won by Suz uki 's Rand y Hawkins. Smith and Hatch, who both r od e Suzuki RMX 250s in th e 126cc/Open class, swa pped second and third pla ce finish es respectiv ely. Smith said, " Afte r the tw o crashes I didn 't thin k I even had a chance to catch Steve, so I backed off a little and tried to have fu n." Smith's new ap proach came as the rain sto pped faIling . His new s trategy becam e his forte where in the final three tests he mad e up 40 seconds on Hatch by winning the last terrain, grass trac k and final motocross special tests. The former mot ocr osser tu rned off-roader said, "With my p roblems earlie r in the d ay I' m real su rp rised that I wo n the overall. I' m sure my mo to cross skills made the difference. The grass track and final motocross really paid off." Even up to the final mot ocro ss the Califo rn ia nati ve was unaware th at t here was o nly a nine-seco nd gap between Hatch and himself. Smith said, "Duri ng the final lap of the motocross I ran into lapped riders and backed off a litt le to avoid tr ouble. Knowin g now that [ only beat Steve by one seco nd [ guess I should've tu rned it up a little." Hatch was gracious in his concession s peech. "R odn ey rod e ju st aw esome tod ay," sai d .Ha tch . "I guess it comes d own to the old saying that every second cou nts. I reall y only made one mistake and that came during the ' grass track at the end of the da y. I came into the last comer of the test thinking it was (Left) Rodney Smith came back from a 35second deficit to win the McArthur, Ohio , Two-Day ISDE Qualifier. (Below) Steve Hatch held a commanding lead after day one, but in the end, came up one second short, fi nishing second to Smith. a sweeper, like it was the day before. I got caug h t goi ng in too fast and dum ped the bike wh en (the comer) had been cha nged to a hairp in. I was like 10 ya rds from the e nd so I just sta rted pushing the bike for the finish line. "My weak spot d uring qualifiers has a lways been be in g too aggressive," ad ded Hatch. "So coming here my plan was to ride sma rt and shift early. It worked yesterd ay . So today I tried to stay with the same ap proach. Right after th e second test we heard that Rodney had fallen during that test, so I decided to stick with the plan and stay out of trouble. But I guess hindsight is always could've, would've, sho uld've." Finishing third overall behind his offroa d Suzuki teamma tes was Hawkins . Co m pe ti ng . in th e 0· 125cc class, Haw kin s turned in a ver y resp ectabl e ride even though his bike suffered from igni tion problems. Hawkins was taken ou t o f overa ll contention on d ay one when hi s RM125 began ex perie nci ng problems. "It first happened during the second test," said Hawkins halfwa y thr ough the

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