Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

HARE &HOUND AAfA NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP HARE &HOUND SERIES (Left) More than 200 riders made the trip to Idaho for round two of the AMA National Championship Hare & Hound SerIes. (Below) Determined to win this year's hare and hound title, Davis recorded his second win In as many tries. By Anne Van Beveren Photos by Tom Van Beveren MURPHY, ro, MAR. 16 bad cold, miles of leg-numbing whoops and stiff local competition had Ty Davis fighting for every inch of ground when the National Hare & Hound racers turned out in Murphy, Idaho, but the Kawasaki pilot was up to the task and captured his second win of the two-race-old series by a slim three-minute margin after three hours and 100 miles of grueling racing. "The first loop just sucked. It was nothing but whoops - total whoop city and it beat me to death because I'm sick," croaked Davis, who was coughing and obviously tired after his dash fo glory. "The second loop was a little better but I'm happy it's over. This just kicked my butt." The win put Davis one step closer to his 1997 goal ot a National Championship in the best-five-out-of-seven series, which he hopes will make up for some of the disappointment of narrowly missing both the National Enduro and Hare & Hound titles in 1996. The 219 riders who took their places on the starting line abou~ 40 miles southwest of Boise were greeted by an unusual layout - a 3D-mile first loop followed by a 70-mile second loop with an alternate gas at 33 miles. "The comment cards from last year's race said there wasn't enough room to pass in the first loop, so we've made this year's first loop as wide as possible and pretty fast," said Bill Walsh, President of Dirt Inc., which has organized seven Idaho Nationals during the 12 years of National Hare & Hound competition. "It's like a long supercross. The second loop has a lot of technical draws that'll slow them down and two creek crossings that are about engine deep. They'll have fun out there." But first the racers had to make it up the bomb run. "There was pretty much a single fast trail to the bomb and Davis was there, plus Rex Staten, Paul Krause, Donnie Book - all the fast guys," Kawasaki racer Abe Baumann said. '1 didn't beat them across that first ditch, so 1 had to go wide through the bushes. I found a trail way off to the right and ended up turning almost 90 degrees to come back to the bomb. Another guy coming straight turned right in front of me and r Tboned him and went down." The fall ripped the steering stabilizer off Baumann's Kawasaki KXSOO and he retired after a spectacular over-the-bars crash not far past the bomb. KTM's racers didn't fare a whole lot better. A two-kick start left Russ Pearson and Destry Abbott struggling in near-white-out dust and Jim Gray lost about 15 positions when a collision in the dust knocked him off his bike in the sand wash just after the bomb. About the only racer having any fun was Davis. "I got the holeshot right off the start," Davis explained. "At the first ditch about 100 yards off the line, Paul Krause shut off, so I gassed it wide open and that's where I passed him. 1 just hammered it to the bomb and, when 1 looked back and .noticed I had a big lead, I just put it on cruise mode:' As the racers hit the first of the ribboned trail, it was Davis out in front, followed by Dave Ondas, David Hamel, Steve Hengeveld and local hotshot Brian Brown. Dust was making life difficult for racers who had got off to a slower start and the rough terrain wasn't helping, either. "I was playing catch up and that first loop was really tough for me," KTMmounted Jim Gray said. "It was real whooped out, pretty fast and very demanding on the legs. It was hard enough just riding in that stuff let alone trying to make up time:' Abbott was in the same boat. "The first loop was just horrible," he said. "1 don't like whoops and this was whoops all the way. 1 didn't like the course nearly as much this year as I did last year." The only good thing that anybody had to say about the first loop was that

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