Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

FoIl owing th e event, Cooper said: "Th ings went really good today, I didn't fall anywhere. Yesterday I fell quit a bit es p ecia lly in the terrain te st s. Because today's trail sections were identical to yes terd ay' s it made it easier . You knew wha t was arou nd every corne r. It's like riding motocross where you try to use the first cou ple o f laps to ge t a feel for th e cou rse . On ce yo u know wha t's out there, it's easier to pick it up when you know what' s ar ound each corner." DAY ONE An 8 a.m. start brought 50 ISDE Letter-of-Intent rid ers to th e sta rting area. The one-m inute starting allowance went s mooth ly for all th e riders excep t for Sport Cycle Yamaha's Du ane Conner. "It just never started," Conner said. "I kicked and ki cked until it became app arent that the spark plu g w as fouled . So I ch a nged th e plug but not before dr opping 20 (pen alty points). This is the only Qualifier that I'll run this year, and it doesn't do my overall score any justice starting off like this ." Conners late start dro p pe d him fr om s ix th t o se ve n th overall at the end of the first day. Conner' s misfortune was dwarfed in comparison by Ch ris Smith's blunder. Smith was effectively disqualified from the event when he missed the first check "I didn't even know I missed it until I saw th e overall scores, " Smith said. "The first check was located back at Pare Fe rme and was al so designated as an alternate gas. When I rode int o the area, I went directl y to ou r pit area and gassed. I then rejoined the course on the other side of the pits. I didn't even realize I had rode around the check. "It's almos t embarrassing. Here I am on (this year's) Trophy Team and I go and m ake a mistake like this. I guess you can never take anything for granted. You can be su re that this will never happen again." Smith's DNF removed h im fo r th e overall picture, bu t he did not let th e weekend go to w aste. "I' m still going to ride this even t like an d ISDE Qu alifier. My results may be a the bott om of the barrel, but I'm goi ng to rid e it for the practice." Smith's s pecial te s t t ime s wou ld've p laced him in seco nd overall for th e da y, o ne second a head of H awki ns . Competing in th e Hea vyw eight 2Stroke class, Doug Blackwell and Mike Lafferty finis hed fourth an d fifth overa ll for the day. Blackw ell said: "Tod ay went Brieflv··.:~ . - .' (Above left) David Rhodes won the lightweight Four-Stroke class on a KawasakI. (Above) Yamaha 's Doug Blackwell finished second to Smith in the Heavyweight TwoStroke division. (Left) KTM's Mike Lafferty Increased his chances of earning a spot on the U.S. Junior World team with another solid performance. real smooth for me. I didn't h ave any problems and I sta yed up in all the tests . I try to think of it as we're all go ing to run into some problems . It ' s h ow we overcome them that counts. The tri ck is to balance that o ff with being on th e gas." Kevin Hines had an admittedly bad d ay even though he carded a sixth overall. "Th is poor motorcycle," he sai d after impounding his bike. " We just put together this CRE 150 for this event. It was supposed to be a sort of a break-in race for it. It's bored and ported, and we mad the mis take of putting in pump gas instead of our race g as at on e o f th e checks. We h a d five gas cans in the truck and one of them turned out to be pu mp gas . It was pinging so bad I al most didn't w ant to go on . Then I blew a fork seal and had to deal w it h that as well. I basically jus t rode it to the end so tha t we could get some time to wo rk on it. We'll try aga in tomo rrow." DAY TWO Rodney Smith's 35-second lead was almost cu t to 15 seconds even before he started his bike at the beginning of da y two. Sm ith' s race mechanic and ISDE su pport rider Mark Hyd e said: "I wasn't where you use your,physical strength'and rea.soninq to accomplish atask or adrivinq task. Which test your driving skills. Itwas 'a real iron' man test of your mental. phySical and driving . . h David Rhodes made his Qualifier debut 'tbis . skill.". Greece won the event.wit Hoessand : year on a Cycle.Gear-prepped and.stroked Cameron taking second. . Kawasaki KLX330. "I'm still getting used .to . riding four-strokes again," he .said. "I haven't ISDE Qualifier newcorner.andJumor Trophy raced one'since 1993. But the bike is working . team.candidate Mike LaHertY said: "I really ' great. My only problem has been getting time came into the first two rounds of the series not to ride this year. I haven't ridden a race since knowing whatto expect: I've learned a Iot the Coalinga National Enduro last February. . since then. In Texas. we basically JUSt rode the and I'm presently recovering from carpal tunnel event. Yesterday. Alan Randt and I jumped .up surgery on my riqhtwnst four weeks ago, So . and we rode with Rodney and Guy. I knew 'far, I can tell you that the operation was a sue. . they had the speed to go fast in the MX test. cess; Ihaven't had any numbness in'my h;mds ' but Iwas surprised at their'speed in the terrain 'at all." .. tests : We all went into this one test and I was starting to Catch Rodney. All of a sudden he . .Fred ' Hoess showed up after sitting out. last stu m~led and Iwent by him thi~king. look out. year's Qualifier Series and the Polish ISDE. . nowIm In front Th~ ,ust as q Ulc~ly, he .~atch- . "It's been about sixmonths since I've been on . es me and blows by. Im thinking . whoa. Boy, a bike," said Hoess. "I took some, time.off to ' 'I've got a lot of respect for a rider with th~t compete in the Camel Trophy Challenge held .muc. diversity., He's incredible to watch a~d h in Borneo, Ken Cameron andl representedthe . .that s what I didfor' the rest of the test . Its U.S . in the international two-driver, iO-team also been my first competitive motocrossever. .field where we all co mpeted In rdent lcal fy ' I, was rea.1 nervous going o utt he re torun . prepped Land Rovers. "It was a 23-day event . against Rodney and Guy.,But after the parade .that's iriuch like the ISD,E. complete with daily lap. Lcould s~e it was.n t 'going to be hard. ' transport sections and 'speclal task ' tests. : Compeung ln this type of off-road event really . Here. your tested ,on either a physical tes t. gIVes, u ~ .enduro guys another look at .how to . go fas~ able to be here yes terday when Rod ney worked on h is bike a t the end of the day. This morning he told me that there had been oil leaking from the clutch side of the motor. We figured it was the clutch-eover O-ring that was leaking. So we tore it down and replaced it during the 10 minute work period. "Iro nically, after going through th e w hole replacement process, we noticed that the O-ring from the oil fill cap was missing and that's what w as leaking. We barely made it to the start on time. For a two-day event like this it wasn't leaking bad enough to take the time to replace the clutch cover O-ring. but we didn't want to take any chances, and besides we wanted the practice." Even though potential bottleneck situation s w ere hopefully e liminated by the cou rse's re-routing. some heavy traffic di d occur in the special tests. Blackwell explained: "Traffic was really bad in the tests today . A lot of riders were passing us in the (tra ns po rt) sect ions to try an d stay ahead of the ir time schedules in ca;;e they ra n in to bottl en ecks. But w hat they did w as make it h arder for all of u s, because w e had to p ass them back in the timed tests. It was real frustrating." Blackwell's frustrations, along with a b etter all-aro un d d a y two by Ke v in Hines, saw Hines move ahead of Black- well to fin ish fourth ov era ll. "Things went ju st a whole lot better today," said H ines. "I just so rt o f rod e along and sta yed out of trouble. I caught and passed a lot of people in the sp ecia l te sts, so I guess th at was a good sign." After the event, Smith said: "This has been a rea l good qu alifier. First of all, the club knows how to put on a good event . They set u p the event with the riders in mi nd . Yesterday they had a goo d speed average a nd fai r tests given th e conditions. And w he n a p rob lem arised . like when it ra in ed las t n igh t, th ey were o ut t here re -ro utin g so w e wou ldn't get b ot tl e n eck s. An d th e y make the changes to make it safe again. I know they don't have a lot of people working on this event but you'd never know it. The people they do h ave out .~ there sure know what thei r doing." little Burr Two-Day Qualifier McArthur, Ohio Results: May25-26 (Round 2 of 3) Ol k 1. RodneySmith (Suz~ 2. Guy Cooper (Suz~ 3. Ran d y Hawkins (Suz); 4. Kevin Hines (CRE); S. Doug Blackwell (Yam ); 6. Mike Lafferty (KTM ); 7. D uane Conner (Yam); 8. Fred Hoes (Suz); 9. Ia son Dahners s (KTM); 10. Dary l Conner (Y am ) 125: 1. G uy Cooper (Suz) 4SSS; 2. Rand y Ha w kins (Suz ) 45786; 3. Kevin Hines (CRE) 4659; 4. Kevin Brown (4972); S. Kerry Clark Sl77; 6. Jeff Kirchner 5241; 7. Jim Conner 5562; 8. Brian Bennett 5778 ; 9. Ma nny Garza 5898; 10. Brian Tod d Storrie 6106; 11. Michael Talia ferro 7840; 12. John Shanley 2000. OPEN: 1. Rod n e y Smit h (Suz ) 45 12; 2. Do ug Blackwell (Yam) 4670; 3. Mik e Lafferty (KTM) 4742; 4. Duane Conner (Yam ) 4782; 5. Fred Hoes (Suz) 4807; 6. s Jason Dahners (KTM) 4927; 7. Daryl Conner (Yam) 4932; 8. Tom my Ady 5051; 9. Scott Mclaughlin 5054; 10. Alan Randt 5054; 11. Kevi n Yame1l5241; 12. David Campbell 5317; 13. Eric Koe ller 5350; 14. Lynn Bai ley 5450; 15. Sco tt Ch apkovich 545 2; 16. Kelly Crens h aw 5473; 17. Mick ey Frantz 5568 ; 18. Ray Simpson 6756 ; 19. Scott H ofm ann 7842; 20. Christop her Smith 12458; 21. Kevin Mon ahan 13118. 35 0 4-S TRK : 1. Dav id Rh od es (K a w) S074; 2 . Mathew Spige lmyer 5388; 3. Vince nt Davis 5438; 4. John Nielsen 5463; 5. Robert jo hnsen 5762; 6. Mik e McCarren 6266; 7. WiUiam Hamilto n 6925; 8. Don Kna pp 7784; 9. Aaron Sykes 8555; 10. Rip Woo da rd 14897: 11. Jam es Bums 2000; 12 Greg Hold er 2000. OPEN 4--STRK: 1. Curt Wilcox (Ho n) 5832. S R: 1. Randy Mastin 5476; 2. Tom Ebe rso le 5492; 3. Kevi n Davis 5573; 4. To m Pa rfitt 5883; 5. Ken Tomeo 6325; 6. Archer Talia ferro 2000. Upcoming Round: Round3 - Idaho City, Idaho. June 1-2 23

• Cover