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Enduro ENDURO 71 st International Six Days . . . - _ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - _.: riders), that would save about 12 or so seconds all together at each test. times that by six tests on the day. that would be 72 seconds, over a minute. If anything. we're there to encourage them." In all, about 10 spoilers, all wearing blue T-shirts, lined every special test at critical areas, pointing out the "hot" lines to the U.S. Trophy riders. Did the plan work? "It's hard to tell. but I think so. Hey, Ty Davis beat out Paul Edmonson by .35 seconds for second overall on the day, so we'd like to think the effort helped out." Most of the U.S. Trophy riders felt hailing line-spotters helped. (Left) Swede Anders Eriksson smoked the 400cc Four-Stroke class. (Below) U.S. Club rider Ron Lawson required medical attention because of dehydration after day one. He came back to finish the event on silver. ". he u.s. team was a little discouraged to fall back to fourth after day three, but that wouldn't last for long when Sweden's Peter Jansson failed to start the day after getting sick during the night. He was reportedly so ill that he couldn't even get out of bed. Sweden's problems continued when Trophy rider Joakim Johansson had problems in the second-to-last special test, losing over 200 seconds to the top riders' scores, and another Trophy rider, Uli Orrvik, dropped 1980 route points, including 20 late-start penalty points. Things didn't go much better for the Italian Trophy team either when Rinaldi crashed and banged himself up pretty good. He dropped 1260 route points. Even the U.S. team suffered problems when Rodney Smith disappeared. "After my third crash (in a special test ), I saw Rodney go by," said Hatch. "Then I saw h;m in a turn standing there, I guess his bike seized." Smith confirmed Hatch's assumption after riding up to Pare Ferme at the end of the day well after houring out. "Basically, earlier today, it stuck a ring or something:' Smith said, "and then it locked up solid in the last test. There was nothing I could do, everyone was watching. "I knew after the first time something happened (to the engine)," Smith said. "I took it easy after that test because I was afraid it was going to blow up. I made it through the day, put a bigger mainjet in it, and it was running pretty decent, so I wasn't worrying about it. But it seized. We tried to get it rebuilt and not hour out but time ran out. We got it going and rode it to the next check, it was kind of pinging. When I came in, I looked down at the motor and it was on fire. The check people were yelling at me. I jumped off the bike and threw dirt on;1. We just slapped it back together and I guess the (carburetor) vent tubes were hanging down or something. I guess you can say I went down in flames." Smith was now the team's throwaway score for the rest of the event, but the team came awfully close to losing its third place position when Hatch came in limping badly. "Everything was going good until After stnuggling with tendinitis in his wrist the day before, U.S. Junior World rider Mike Lafferty was all smiles at the end of the day. "My wrist was pretty bad yesterday, but the doctor shot it up last night and today it just felt awesome. - said Lafferty. "We taped it up so it's kind of hard to move: I have to move the whole hand. Overall. today went great. It's day lour and. man, I'm here - one more dayl Then the MX test. I'm digging this but the tests are gelling hammered, especially the sand-pit test. k's completely hammened; it's full grind - sand whoops, oh man. just chewed. hammered, destroyed. Never seen anything like it before in my life.ยท T 8 Despite going back to the same hammered trail used on days one and two, all of the U.S. club riders made it through the day. One of those riders was Kerry Clark, of the Cycle Gear Racing team. "Yeah, still going," Clark said enthusiastically. "But I can't get my rhythm in the sand pit (special test) at all - the whoops are four feet deep. I'm sick of the rocks, it's kind of like riding the whole NETRA series in six days - twicel You know what it is? I feel stupid out there, I feel like I'm one of those mice stuck in the slot. going around, and around, and around, and can't get out." "I know what you mean," reiterated Chris Smith. "I feel all proud of myself when I find a smooth line that nobody else rode. " . . T the last 45 minutes:' Hatch said. "In the last test, I crashed four times, then hit my foot on a rock - I just hope it's not broken, but there's something wrong." As it turned out, Hatch did break a bone and tore Hgaments in his foot. But one rider who was having a good day was Davis, who was continuing his week-long battle with Edmonson and Sala. Davis posted the fastest time in the fifth test, but Sala won the rest. Edmonson was right there, too, and when their total times were added up for the day, Sala was again the day's class winner followed by Davis, who edged out Edmonson by 0.35 seconds. "Edmonson and I battled back and forth all day:' Dayjs said. '1t gets a little frustrating when I beat him (Edmonson) by one stUpid second, that's nothing. You can't make anything up. If I rode like th;s Monday I'd be right there today (for the overall). That day is really kilHng me. One second! And then Sala's just kjcking our butts big-time - he's in another league." For the fourth straight day, Silvan topped the USee class, while Hawkins posted decent times ending up eighth on the day. Tiainen won four of the six special tests in the 500cc Four-Stroke class, with FarioH taking second and Posledni third on the day. Summers played it safe, going 8-7-7-7-6-10 on the day for seventh. Despite Smith's DNF, the U.S. Trophy team jumped back up to third behind Finland (601.72 points) and Italy (839.31). Unfortunately, the U.S. team was a distant third wjth 1578.77 points and had no realistic chance of catching Italy, unless a couple of Italian riders, or Finnish riders for that matter, dropped out, but the Czech team was still within str;king distance, only 209.48 points behind the u.s. squad. Sweden dropped all the way back to seventh. Finland again nipped Sweden for the day's overall win in the Junior World diyjsion, stretching out its overall lead to a fairly comfortable 232.78 point margin. The Daytona Dirt Riders . Fred Hoess. Guy Cooper and John Nielsen . moved into first place in the club team division, a first for an American club team, but a narrow escape by Cooper made it nearly not happen. "I had a big mishap," he said. "In the first special test at the ski slope, in a fast section, I hit a hole I didn't see. It pitched me feet up over my head and came back down. bulldog, beside the bike. I was trying to slow down nunning along side the bike, but I was already veering off (the traiD, and me and the bike went off this cliff. It was amazing that it (the bike) 'hit a cedar tree and stopped. I picked up the bike and sidehilled it for about 200 feet before I could get back up to the trail. I lost about 30 seconds. I was ripping it before then." U.S. Trophy team m'anager Dave Bertram recnuited as many people as possible to act as -.potters- in the special tests on day four. -We need to make up two minutes (on the Swedish team) and every second counts," he' said. "If we can position line-pointers to point out the best lines to our Trophy guys in all the special tests. well, maybe we can help them cut a few seconds off each rider's times. If we can gain a few seconds with each (of the slxl he United States went into conservative mode on day five. Knowing they didn't have a shot at second, the U.S. Trophy team didn't want to make any mistakes, such as dropping route points, to stay ahead of the Czechs. "We had a team meeting last night:' said Hawkins. "We can't catch the ItaJjans, but we have to stay ahead of the Czechs, we decided to take it easy, I just kind of backed off today, short-shifted my bike, trying to save it and get it to impound, so all we have to do is get around the MX track tomorrow." Davis however, must have missed the meeting. He had a score to settle wjth Edmonson, and the rest of the top Europeans. He went out and posted some of the fastest times of the day, but still couldn't quite top Sala for the overall day win. In the very last specjal test, Davis did beat Sala and Edmonson for the fastest time in the test, but would fini.sh second to Sala in the day's overall scores. "I had to beat Edmonson in the last test:' said Davis. "It was do or die. I went as fast as I could, took chances, kept it pinned. When I went to back off, I just tried to make myself gas it, tell myself, 'Just keep it on: So I'd keep it on totally out of shape, 'But don't back off: I didn't back off today, my goal is to win th;s thing. As long as I can keep beating these guys, J get my name out, I'll be a threat to them. If I just kind of cruise, they're going to think, 'Oh, Ty's no good: I want to be a thorn in their side." To no one's surprise, Eriksson topped the 400cc Four-Stroke class again, as did Silvan in the 125cc class, wrule Tiainen won three out of the four special tests held this day to top the 500cc Four-Stroke class. The U.S. team accomplished its goal of maintaining th;rd after the end of the day, while the Jw:tior World team held on to fini.sh fifth.