Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

RELIABILITY ENDURO AMA NATIONAL RELIABILfTY ENDURO SERIES (EASTERN REGION) HURRICANE MILLS, TN, FEB. 2 TM Sport Cycle's Mike Lafferty tallied his first-ever National offroad victory by scoring the overall win at the Loretta Lynn National Reliability Enduro. With the win, Lafferty, the 21-year-old up-and-coming offroad star, served notice to his fellow offroad competitors that he's a rider to contend with. "Right now I just feel great," Lafferty . said after the one-day ISDE qualifier. "Everything just seemed to go right out there today. I've only been racing in (off-road) Nationals for the past two years and my best finishes so far were« few' seconds. I couldn't have picked a better way to start the 1997 season." Lafferty posted a score of 3083, bettering Works Enduro Rider's Chris Smith, who was 13 seconds behind Lafferty. Lafferty's KTM teammate, Scott Plessinger, was third, with a score of 3102, and Sport Cycle Racing/Yamaha's Doug Blackwell finished fourth with a score of 3107. (Right) KTM's Mike. Lafferty scored his first major off-road victory at the ISDE Qualifier Series opener at Loretta Lynn's. (Below) The 125cc class takes off in the final MX special test. The qualifier, which was put on by the Grand National Cross Country series sponsor Racer Productions, consisted of 80 miles of trail. The two-loop event, with seven special tests (four onemile-long grass tracks, two six-mile-long terrain tests and one five-lap final motocross) had 15 time checks. Going into the final motocross test Lafferty held a 17-second lead over Plessinger, a 23-second lead over Blackwell and a 34-second lead over Smith. "There were some real good riders here this weekend and I knew that I was near the top after seeing some of the (earlier posted) special test scores," Lafferty said. "Going into the final (175- (Below) Four-time National Enduro Champion Randy Hawkins made his debut on his new Yamaha ride. Here he gels tangled up in a grass track special test. He ended up seventh New ISDE selection rocess announced he AMA announced a new ISDE selection process for the Italian Six Days which qualifi.es nine riders from three different regions for a total of 27. ('The remaining 10 positions are selected separately by an ISDE board of directors to make up the six-rider World Trophy Team and the four-rider Junior Trophy Team.) In order for a rider to qualify he must ride all of the available qualifi.ers in his region. The Eastern region would include evaluation points from the Loretta Lynn and MacArthur, Ohio, one-day qualifiers. The Central region would include the evaluation points from the Texas two-day qualifier. And the Western region would include a rider's overall evaluation scores from the two-day qualifi.ers in California, Idaho and Tillmook, Oregon. . At this time a rider must finish every day of every qualifier within his region to qualify (two days for the Eastern series, two days for the Central series and all six days of the Western series.) But throwaways may be allowed in the West~ region series if nobody qualifies by finishing all six days. To help level the playing field, evaluation scores from the eventual trophy team riders, and those riders who compete and / or qualify in other regions, will be removed from their non-related regional series' evaluation points list. . The AMA national title will be awarded on a rider's perfonnance solely from the McMinnville, Oregon, two-day qualifier to be held June 21-22. "McMinnville will be an exclusive race to detennine the AMA National Championship," Hugh Fleming of the AMA said. "It will be an 'all or nothing' event that will be open to any AMA rider who wishes to participate. Hopefully it will draw riders from motocross as well as other national off-road series. Right now it looks like it may even draw national television coverage. "We're trying this new system for qualifying for the Six Days this year to make the process fair. Nothing is cast in stone for next year so the AMA is looking for some rider feedback." T 17

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