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.ENDURO Round 6: Tri-State Enduro NETRA Enduro5eries I I 11 (Above) Mont Fairfax had a great ride 'on his Suzuki and won the Lightweight A class with a 26. (Left) Veteran Bclass rider Dean Olson took the High Point B-class honors with a 47. (Below) Hans Neff won the award for the biggest hand guards in the event, and won the Bantam A class for fun. (Left) eRE's Kevin Hines had a slow start but came back to win the NETRA Trl-State Enduro by'one point with a 24. By Paul ClipperlTrail Rider Magazine Photos by Jay Chittenden! Fast Line Photos SUTION, MA, JULY 21 rdinarily, having former national champion Kevin Hines riding the NETRA Championship events is like automatically giving up the overall win trophy. After fighting tooth and nail against Randy Hawkins, Steve Hatch and Ty Davis at the toughest national enduros in the country, coming back home to a NETRA event must be like shooting fish in a barrel to Hines. However, every now and then a crack appears in the armor for a short period of time, and on the morning of the TriState enduro, it looked like he was about to be beaten by the local boys. Although fresh from a·rough and muddy trail ride the day before (in which he literally rode the back wheel off a borrowed bike), Hines came into the Tri-State honestly claiming that he'd had no enduro practice since the Rhody National, a month ago. True, he didn't, but he had ridden a 2000-mile rally in Brazil (DNFing after his borrowed XR600 hand-grenaded on the last day), which should qualify as some sort of practice. "Well, I knew I wasn't going to warm up fast, and 1 didn't." he said after the event. "That can be really important in these NETRA events, because they're very short, and the sections are short and hard to make time on. I knew 1 was going to have to just hang on and wait for it to all come together today." He knows of what he speaks. In the first section Hines was just another rider, carding probably the sixth-fastest time through a short bit of southern Massachusetts woods. "I think it was four miles of pavement and then we dropped into the gnarliest stuff you can imagine," Hines said. "Just rocks and slippery, nasty roots. Yeah, it was normal riding!" . Vermont CRE rider Jason Cayer, one of this year's rapidly rising stars, set the fastest time through the section, with a 2:42 to Hines' 2:53, and had Cayer kept up that pace he would have been serious trouble for Hines the rest of the day. As luck would have it, he blew a tire in the next section, losing a lot of time and dropping way back in the standings. That next section was a real bugger, the perfect place to get a flat. It was 18 miles long without a break, following a trail of half-buried rocks, ruts, roots and mud, thanks to the rain earlier in the week. It was a section designed to separate the mighty from the meek, but unfortunately a mean uphill right in the middle served to separate many of the riders from their hour. Nearly half of the 102 starters wound up houring out in that section, causing a little bit of grumbling back at the finish. Hines was once again posting a mediocre score, and former NETRA champ Kemp Stewart (Hus) and Kawasaki rider Darrell Szlachetka posted the fastest times, coming through the check-out only 11 points down, compared to Hines' 13. "I have to admit 1 truly wound up on my head in that section when 1 tried to jump a couple of huge slabs of granite and spun the rear tire instead," Hines said. "It was a low-speed endo, just the kind of thing you don't want people taking pictures of!" We are still hunting for the person who may have those photos. Film at 11. Twenty minutes grace and a gas stop allowed a lot of riders to get a little time back, and then Hines finally started warming up. The- CRE pilot chalked up the fastest score in the next short section (known affectionately as "Bug Swamp"), and then never backed off of the throttle. Hines scored a 2:19, while Szlachetka roosted in right behind him with a 2:26. Two more sections followed, and Hines continued to turn up the wick, as he's done late in a race so many times before. He wound up with a threepoint loss at check nine, and a fourpoint loss at che9< 11. Try as he might, Szlachetka could only manage a 5-6 over the same two checks. He needed one point to tie Hines, but instead he finished up with a'25 card, while Hin.es turned in a 24. Behind hines was a bevy of 4-5 scores, turned in by Mont Fairfax, James Kelly, Hans Neff and Paul Milliken. Fairfax wound up in third overall, Stewart was fourth, and Kelly was fifth. Szlachetka's second-place points netted him the High Point A trophy. B rider Dean Olsen, another Kawasaki rider in the Veteran class, turned in the top score of 47 points, good for High Point 5, and Jarrod Kurosh scored a 48 over· the shortened C course to take home High Point C. CN NETRA Trl-State Enduro Sutton, Massachusetts Results: July 21, 1996 (Round 6 of 17) O/k Kevm Hines 24 ffigh Point k Darrell Szlachetka (25). ffigh Point S, Dean Olsen (47). 'BNTM A: 1. Kevin Hines (24); 2. Darrell Szlachetka (25); 3. Hans Neff (36); 4. Kevin Howley (39); 5. Peter Tanner (40). UW A, 1. Mont Fairlax (26); 2. Kemp Stewart (26); 3. James Kelly (27); 4. Dave Gunn (31~ 5. Paul Milliken (37). HIW A, 1. Bill 5ironen (47). 4-STRK Ie 1. Richard Seymour (42); 2. Patricle Wo~ (65) VET k 1. Max Park.. (32): 2. Geoff Wurtitzer (45); 3. Ed Bishop (SOt 4. David Dulra (54t 5. Fred Goldberg (59) SR Ie 1. Jerry Randall (32); 2. Jim Smith (45); 3. Bill Johnson (52); 4. Jim Stoddard (61). SNTM S, 1. Jim Cooney (57); 2. Paul Piva (S7); 3. Kevin Knotl (58~ 4. Glenn Arnold (58); 5. Tony Mazer (61). HIW S, 1. Michael ash (60); 2. Jim Royce (ck.10); 3. Art Pepin (ck.10); 4. Mike Stone (clc.8); S. Mike Dowling (ck.4) VET S, 1. Dean Olsen (47); 2. Gerattl G_dman (56t 3. Brooks Saund... (65); 4. Broce Rocha (65); 5. Bob Edwards (71). 4-STRK 8: 1. Justin Lis (66); 2. Michael Chop (cle.10); 3. Stan Poplasky (cle.10t 4. Kevin Jordan (clc.8) SR B: 1. Robert Kamay (62); 2. Robert Landry (cle.10t 3. Dave Mathisen (ck.10); 4. Alan Walker (cle.10). VET e;, 1. G~ Graolo (cle.8t 2. Ken Atkins (cle.4); 3. Jeff F1ucleiger (cle.4). UW e;, 1. Jarrod KurQSh (48); 2. Eric DeGray (57): 3. John DiSimone (cle.8); 4. Todd Jones (ck.8); 5. Brandon Lee (cle.8). H/W C: 1. Ryan Brown (ck.8); 2. David Wemersbach (dc.S); 3. Eriklarvas (ck.7). 4-STRK c: 1. James TordeUa (69); 2. Ken Semerjian (70); 3. Mike Kaminski (cle.8); 4. David Dugas (cle.8); 5. Thomas Smith (ek.8). BNTM C, 1. Gary Van Voorhis (55); 2. AI Huo! (~; 3. Mark Beawegard (75); 4. Kenneth Bessette (ck.8); S. Cory Borovicka (ck.S). . SR C, 1. Paul SDansky (75); 2. Michael Suriani (ck8); 3. Greg Wibben (ck.6); 4. Charles Kennedy (ck.4); 5. Francis Kaross (cle.4). SlSR, 1. Keith Goodell (48); 2. Gordon Kazee (51); 3. John Parker (53); 4. Ernie Mellor (ckS); 5. Tom Farley (ck.5) WMN, 1. Heidi Landon (cle.4). Upcoming Rounds: Round 7: Granville, MA, August 11 Round 8: Windsor, MA, September 8