Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

.OFF-ROAD' Best in the 'Desert Series By Anne Van Beveren Photos By Tom Van Beveren TONOPAH, NY, SEPT. 21 lincling dust, blistering high speeds and close competition kept the adrenaline pumping through 300 miles and more than six hours of racing in the silty desert on the outskirts of Tonopah, .an ex-mining town 200 miles southeast of Reno. The Kawasaki-backed duos of Scott Morris/Jim Loh, Greg Zitterkopf/Dan . Richardson and Ty Davis/Dave Ondas and the KTM team of Rick Bozarth and Jim Gray were locked in mortal combat less than two minutes apart for the first half of the race and it wasn't until the last 40 miles that Davis and Ondas finally got a firm grip on the number-one position. "At the last pit, Zitterkopf was still ahead of me on time, so I really pushed coming in to the finish," said Davis, whose all-out sprint, coupled with a clogged air filter on Zitterkopf's bike, put him three and a half minutes ahead when the race was finally over. "Team races are interesting and racing as a team makes it a challenge because anybody can win. This was close. Zitterkopf rode really well and kept us honest." One hundred and one teams lined up for the start of this year's race, which was round four of Casey Folks' sixevent Best in the Desert series. The event was sponsored by Kawasaki Team Green and was dedicated to the memory of Team Green racer Danny Hamel, who was killed racing in Mexico in June 1995. The Saturday event began with a ceremonial parade from downtown Tonopah to the starting line just north of town and it didn't take long for the racers to discover what they would be up against. The field was enveloped in a cloud of choking dust the minute it left the pavement and the brown blanket hung motionless in the still morning air. Kawasaki's Paul Krause had drawn the nurnber-one spot on the two-ridersevery-30-seconds starting grid and left the line at 8 a.m., side by side with a KX500 shared by Jason Higgins and Tommy Roberts. Krause, who had elected to ride solo, had high hopes as he sped through the short opening section and dashed out onto the 75-mile main loop with the dust-free lead, but he was back in the pits just half an hour later. "It stuck in fifth gear about mile marker 16," said Krause, who was forced to park his KX5OO. "The bike was running perfect, I was riding well and it was two minutes before the next bike came by." Destry Abbott got off to a slow start after his KTM fouled a fuel filter when he was due to leave the start and he was way back with the four-strokes by the time he got under way. "That put me way back in the dust. I was burnming," said Abbott, who was tearnmed with motocrosser Gary Dircks. "It was a last-minute thing. I called Gary yesterday and he flew all the way to Tonopah. He's a really good motocrosser but he's never ridden a desert race before." The course headed out in a fast sand Round 4: Tonopah 300 wash, then jumped onto the first of many high-speed roads. Davis, who powered off row three of the starting grid, was less than impressed. "The dust was a really big probleII) and even more so because they ran us down so many roads," Davis said. "It'd be okay if you went through some cross grain or zig-zagged around like (Folks) used to do but you can't pass like this. The only way you can pass is to cut the course." Jim Loh had the KX500 he shared with Scott Morris out front as he headed toward the alternate gas. The remote pit was 35 miles into,the course on the side of a rOad that was so long and fast that Dave Chase, who shared a Honda with Lori Conway in the "Mixed Doubles Division," described it as "the San Bernardino Freeway." "I beat Jim Gray off the line, passed the front-row starter about four miles out and then Krause broke," Loh said. "That gave me the lead, which was great because the dust was pretty bad. The course is really fast - a lot like a SCORE course. So the fast teams are just going to pull ahead." The course followed open roads and rocky two-tracks, sand washes and the occasional single-track as it wound its way around the mountains. "There were some tricky sections mainly when you got into the rocks because the ground was so soft you'd bog every time you hit the silt," Conway said. There also was a four-foot waterfall that took some of the front runners by surprise. "The waterfall just about killed me," Davis said. "You've been riding full speed all day and you get used to going 60 miles per hour, then it comes on instantly and there's only one danger mark - no double card or anything - and it's right on the danger. I was going so Ty Davis (below) and Dave Ondas (right) combined efforts to win thB Tonopah 300 In Navada. fast I panicked. I was fully locked up front and rear when I slid off the thing." Loh was still in front when he completed the 75-mile first loop and handed over to Morris after one hour and 37 minutes of racing. The Bozarth/Gray KTM hit pit row in second, just 25 seconds behind Loh, but Davis pushed them back to third when he handed over to Ondas just five seconds shy of the lead bike on elapsed time. Zitterkopf, who had started on row four of the grid, headed into pit row in fourth physically but, when the stopwatches were checked, he was all tied up with the Davis/Ondas KX500 for second. The Honda-backed XR628 piloted by Johnny Campbell and Jeff Capt was followed through by Jeff and Mark Lundgreen's KX500. Donnie Book and Steve Hengeveld's KX250 already had stretch.ed out a four-minute lead over its nearest 250cc Pro competition and was sitting in fifth overall on adjusted time. "It's a 500cc course all the w'ay," Hengeveld said. "On the 250 you can really reel in somebody iit the tight stuff . but you can't pass them and on the roads they just get away. It's a good race and it's fun but there needs to be some more tight stuff." With one loop behind them, Bryan Folks and Jimmy Lewis had pulled five minutes on their nearest 125cc rivals and the Billy Fullmer / Larry Roeseler four-stroke team was thundering along in front of the only other starter in the Four-Stroke Pro Gass. "When Roeseler called me and askedme to ride with him... well, I had to put Jeremy McGrath on hold for a while and think about it, but I eventually said, 'Sure, if you really need me on your team to win,'" joked Fullmer, who was partnering with the desert ace for the first time. The second trip around the 75-mile loop was just as fast as the first but the . dust was worse as the front-runners caught the occasional lapper and the silt started to get deeper as the trail got beaten in. Unlike most of the teams, which had swapped riders in the first pit, Zitterkopf elected to stay on his bike and keep racing until he reached the alternate pit. He dodged around the Bozarth / Gray KTM, reeled in Ondas and then passed Morris, who had stalled in a sand wash 14 miles into loop two. ·"When I got off after 120 miles, we had a four-minute lead," said Zitterkopf, who handed over to Dan Richardson for the 75-mile circuit through pit two and back to the alternate. "We had a problem with the brakes when Dan was on the bike. I guess I had the pedal adjusted too high and Dan burned them up." Richardson arri ved in the main pit with most of Zitterkopf's lead still intact, but he ended up leaving the pit in fourth after his pit crew elec.ted to change brake pads. "I thought the brakes were working fine - I wasn't having any problems, I wouldn't have changed them, and the,n it took them two minutes to do it and I got left way back in the dust," Richardson said. "Looking back, I should've said no, don't do them, and headed £f and waited until I knew there wasja problem. I'd hate to lose the race by. that two minutes." " The delay put Loh back in the lead as he started into loop three, but his team's elation was short lived. "Something happened to the shock. It started getting really rigid," Loh said. "I was going around a comer in fourth gear five or six miles from the pit and tl;\e bike did a complete 180. It was going backwards and it threw me clean off."

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