Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/127775
"OG,randNationalCross,Country.Series Round 1: Ocala Motorsports Complex FF.-R A OD , . ,,A A M ers! a lap around the Ocala motocross track. Right behind the former GP motocrosser rode fellow ex-MXers Ty Davis and Guy Cooper. Filling in some of the next few spo ts in tra ffic were Summers, Plessinger, multi-time enduro ch amp Rand y Hawkins, o ff-ro ad newcomer Keith Joh nso n, and '94 enduro champ Hatch. At the far end of the pack was yet ano ther motocrosser - '93 GNCC champion Fred And rews - who could not get his Yamaha to ignite on the first kick. Midway through the first lap Cooper took over the lead from his Suzuki teammat e Smith. A ha rd-charging Summers also went around Smith, who had problems reading the arrows. "I felt good and I was riding good, " said Smith of his early lead . "I actually got the holeshot and I tried to make a run for it. I got away from Guy for a little while, but then 1ran into some problems reading the trail and they all caught back up ." (Left) Scott Summe rs wanted nothing less than a win at the GNCC series opener at Ocala. An Ocala win has always eluded the multi-time champ, but, finally, Summe rs got his way, outdueli ng Ty Davis at the end . (Below) Davis leads Summers late In th e race. Davis could not hang with Summe rs In th e wood s and woul d sett le for second overa ll. By Davey Coombs OCALA, FL, MAR.5 or the last th ree years th e Ocala Grand N ational Cross Country series op ene r has hung like an albatross around the neck of Scott Summ ers . It 's th e one race on th e GNCC schedule that the charism atic Kentuckian could never quite win after putting himself in the d river's seat each time. So in 1996 Summer s en tered th e Ocala race w ith a w in-or-die attitude that he felt w ould ge t him to the on e place tha t wou ld make him happy durin g D aytona's Bike Week - the winner's circle in Ocala. And after nearly three hours of fierce racing wi th Kawasaki's Ty Davis, Suzuki's Steve Hatch, Rodney Smith and Guy Cooper, plus longtime GNCC rivals Scott Plessinger and Fred Andrews, Summers erup ted from the central Florida woods on the last lap with a sizable lead and a big fat smile, th e Ocala race win finally in hand. "I've been workin g really hard, and ' it's dep ressing when you spend so much time preparin g yet you don't win races," said Summers, who is backed by American H onda, Answer, Yoshimura, and assorted other spo nsors. "It feels really good to finally win this thing after coming so close the last few years . 1 ju st didn't get tired at all and that' s the difference. Mayb e I wa n te d th is wi n worse than these other guys." The closes t of those other gu ys was Da vis, th e defendin g Oca la champion who was in control of the lead ' position for much of the event bu t came up with a little less than wha t Summers had at the end. When asked how long it ha d been , si nce he had lost a st raight-u p duel, Davis answered, "It's been awhile. I've had a really good run, and this is the first time that I lost a race like thi s in qui te some time. I ha ve to give Scott credit - he really rode that thing hard at the end ." In just four years the GNCC seriesopening Ocala race has become one of the biggest events on the off-road calenda r. While not officially tied in with Motorcycle Week, th e race is now th e F premier happ ening for woods riders during Daytona. Four curre nt AMA Natio nal off-road nu mber-one pl ate holders th e GNCC' s Scott Plessinger, Hare Scrambles tou r lead er Scott Su mmers, Reliability Endu ro champ Rodney Smith, and Enduro star Ty Davis -we re on the first row of 27 Pro-class pilots, along with numerous other top woods racers. A total of 427 riders entered the Racer Productions-organized event, hel d at Ocala Motorsp orts Park. The race was nearly th ree hou rs lon g and took place on a 9-mile circuit designed by Jeff Russell and Dave Coombs Sr. The trail was fairly tigh t for Flori da, with plenty of sq uare-edged ruts, whooped-out st raights, and short clim bs and drops aro und an old limestone quarry. By the end of the d ay, with so many bikes making laps, the trail was extremely rough. Team Suz uki's Rodney Smith grabbed the holeshot from the rest of the pack as the Pro line kick-started to life and began The first-lap train of front-runners was led into the scoring barrels by Cooper. He was followed in short order by Summers, Smith, Davis, Plessinger, Hatch and SCR Yamaha's Doug Blackwell. Holding on to eighth at a deficit of just 24 seconds on the lead er was Andrews, who was making remarkable p rogress through th e fiel d after his faulty start. Farther back came Johnson, a pre-race favorite after his nearupset ride at Ocala in 1995. 'Davis was back up front at the end of th e second la p. Fo llowing by a bike length each were Suz uki's Cooper, Smith and Ha tch. Several seconds later came th e GNCC triumvirate of Plessinger , Summers and Andrews, then Blackwell, Johnson, Hawkins and Yamaha's Tom Norton.' Davis and Smith would have been the leaders on the score sheets after the third lap had they not gassed simultaneously just a few yards before the finish. Instead, the record shows Cooper and Summers, , who did not stop in the pits, as the leader s, followed b y Davis, then KTM 's Plessinger, Smith, AYR / An swer / Pro Circuit /Smith's Andrews, and then Hatch. Now more than 20 second s back was Blackwell, the first of the lead pack to drop off the pace and lose sight of the rest of the front-runners. "We all took turns le ading," sa id Smith of the middle race. "Someon e would get up front, make a mistake, and someone else would take his place. I led about four times in two laps. It's good to lead a little w h ile, but I w ould have rather led at the end." . When the race entered its second half, the ultimate leaders sta rted to establi sh themselves. After four laps Davis sprinted through the team rigs that lined the op en start area with Summers soaking up hi s roo st, and Smith in turn in th e shadow of Summers' big Honda XR "sixsomething." Plessinger, Andrews and Hatch we re right there, too, but at this point Hatch made a tactical error. Rather than 90 with th e sprinting leaders, he thought it best to hang back with GNCC regulars Ples singer and Andrews and follow their leads. . "Righ t after gas I had Andrews and Plessinger in front of me," said the 26year-old Hatch. "I thought, 'Okay, these guys do this all the time, so maybe they , know something th at 1 don't know .' We'll all cool it the last two laps and then floor it - see wha t happens. So I rode with them one whole lap until 1 saw Plessinger get water dumped on him. I knew he was getting hot and it was time to rev it up . Scott pulled over and let me by, and I was trying to get him to go with me bu t he was about done." Andrews also waved Hatch by, but with two laps to go Hatch was suddenly a full minute behind Davis, who still led a close Summers and Smith. '1 was just too tired," said Andrews. "It was just a rough day and I'm glad it's over with." Actually, it wasn't quite over for And rews at that point. Moments after s aying those words, he wo uld have to go to the hospital for an intravenous drip as a result of heat exhaustion. Fortu na tely the Yamaha rider felt we ll enough two days later to ride in the Alligator Enduro. At that time And rews added, "I'm satisfied with fifth at Ocala wi th so many fast guys there, bu t 1 should've done better. I just ran out of fuel." "You know, I felt grea t after the tw ohour mark, but then 1started gettin g real bad stomac h cramps," sai d Plessin ger, who has never far ed w ell at Ocala. "I would go in spurts, but then 1 would just cramp up again. 1 was ridin g with Fred and Steve, but then 1just pulled over and let Steve by, becau se 1 knew 1 was holding him up. 1had a terrible second-to-last ~ap ,;md 1 just rode around trying to fin- ISh. Cooper was now out of the front-running group as well after having the handleb ar on his Suz u ki vibra te loose and roll back into his lap . Slowed considerably by the awkwa rdness, Coop er finally made it back to the pits f or some fixing, but lost any chance of repeating his own Ocala win from back in '94. "I knew 1 would be good for abo u t fou r laps, so my ba rs came loose right when 1 need ed them to," joked Cooper after the race. 1 just was n't in shape to go the who le distance. 1 had fun racing with those guys ." When the white flag came out Davis and Sum mers were all alo ne out fron t, Smith having lost his d rive in traffic. "I hit a tree on the fif th la p a nd it ju st knocked the w ind out of me," said Smith. "I let Scott and Ty get away from me . Once you lose that lead pace it's tough to catch back up. We were all three moving