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CROSS COUNTRY GRAND NAnONAL CHAMPIONSHIP CROSS COUNTRY SERIES Round 7: Boyers GNCC stretching out lap times on the eight-rniles-per-lap course to more than 30 minutes. Several course changes were made by the Racer Productions crew to keep the track fair and passable, but the weather was relentless. "I was at qulte an advantage today, because this is where my trials-riding experience comes in," said Edmondson. "1 just tried to ride as smoothly as possible and save energy. This racing is usually so different from Emope, because here it's three hours, flat-out." When asked how tough he thought the track was, on a scale of one to 10, Edmondson said, "It was a nine." "It was a tough track, and I was pretty knackered," said the Au tra"lian Watts, who posted the best overall finish for a 125 since the Tom Norton days. "KTM has a new generation of 125s, and the bike is just great. I think I will be very competitive against the 250s and Opens." Watts has raced 250s for the last five years, and finished third in the World Enduro Championships last year. (Edmondson won the overall title.) When asked what it felt like to be an (left) Team Suzuki's British-import Paul Edmondson overcame the deep mud and rain to beat the rest of the field to the finish by three minutes to win his second GNCC of the year. (Below) Team Suzuki's Steve Hatch (3) leads the Pro line into the first corner followed by KTM's Scott Plessinger (2) and teammates Edmondson (111) and Rodney Smith (8). a good day, even though I crashed a couple of times and did a few silly things." American Honda factory rider Scott Summers was the leader early in the event, but a small spill in a ba~ spot ruined his chances for his second win of the series. "1 was going around the course and my front end just washed out," explained Summers. "I landed underneath a tree and the whole bike was stuck there with the handlebars facing downhill. Hercules could not have lifted that thing out of there! Luckily, a couple of guys that I had just lapped stopped and helped me out. I went from first to 10th, and spent a lot of unnecessary energy. I did the best that I could after that. It was unbelievably miserable today, maybe the roughesL course ever. In the end, I think all of the smart guys were sitting in their, trucks." ~ Edmondson took over at that point, and appeared to have clear sailing ahead until the surprising Watts made a charge, passing Plessinger, Andrews, Hatch and Hawkins in the process. But Watts was unsULe where he stood in the field, and the miscalculation cost him plenty. "1 didn't even know that I was in second place," Watts said after the finish. "1 thought there were two or three laps to go. I pulled over and let Scott Plessinger pass - I was just going around, checking ,out the babes! I'm still happy with third, but I won't be doing that next time. If I had known how close I was to Paul anonymous foreigner as compared to Edmondson, Watts said: "Everyone knows that I'm here now! I'm hoping to race here in America next year, but right now I'm just here to have a'bit of fun. I'm headed for Brazil and the next round of the World Championships, which I'm leading at the moment. It was (Edmondson) and the win, I would have gone a little harder at the end." "Once I got around Scott (SULnIDers), I just kept picking my pace up: Edmondson explained about his move to the front. "1 rode my own race and> didn't worry about what was going on back there." The British rider led by six' By Davey Coombs Photos by Jay Chittenden 36 BOYERS, PA,JUNE 1 aul Edmondson, Team Suzuki's off-road ace from England, needed every bit of the mud-riding skills he picked up on his way to his multiple FIM World Enduro Championship titles to capture the Boyers Grand National Cross Country race in northwestern Pennsylvania. The 27year-old Edmondson overcame deep mud and rain to top KTM pilots Scott Plessinger and Shane Watts (another international talent), and the rest of the 350-rider field by nearly three minutes at the seventh round of the series. "Before ,:"e even get into the race stuff, I want to say a big, big thank-you to American Suzuki, Tom Weaver for letting me stay at his house, and my mechanic, Rob, for just being out here in the mud all day," said Edmondson, who has finished in the top four of each of the last five races after scoring zero points the first two times out. "The whole team was working well, and I am absolutely, really pleased to be here and to win today!" Plessinger just nipped Watts at the barrels for the runner-up position. Former GNCC Series Champion Fred Andrews, from the AYR Yamaha team, and Suzuki's Steve Hatch rounded out the top five overall in the race, which ran for just over three hours. Multi-time off-road champiOns Scott Summers and Randy Hawkins were next across the finish line, in that order, followed by Kawasaki-mounted Brian Keegan and Yamaha riders Doug Blackwell and Jim Jarrett. The Boyers GNCC track was one of the all-time muddiest races in GNCC Series history. A severe rainstorm oblitera ted the track - and the riders -