Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

HARE SCRAMBLES AMA NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP HARE SCRAMBLES SERIES By Mark Kar iya J l HOLLISTER, CA, FEB. 1 hi s yea r is starting like last , • year ended - in th e rain, " KTM's Scott Plessinger said from the safety of his box van . Indeed, rain was the topic on most peopIe's minds, as it made for a soggy start to the AMA National Hare Scrambles Series. However, KTM-mounted Brian Garrahan proved to be stronger than even the vaunted EI Nino by winning his first National. Held at the upper portion of Hollister Hills SVRA a few miles ou tsid e of town, the P&J Promotions event went off well in a new two-da y form at. The numerous C and mini racers competed on Saturda y in somew ha t drier cond itions, with the AA , A a nd B cl asses be in g endurance-tested in Sunday' s slop. Unlike the stereotyp ical Californian, though, Garra ha n relished the tho ug h t of mud. "If it's raining, I' m happy," claimed Garrahan. "Last night I was praying for it to rain the who le time, because I love riding in the mud." God answere d Garrahan's. p rayer s, be cau se it did r ain th e wh ol e tim e, enabling the field of 169 riders to race around in the mud from start to finish. What s ta r ted out as a loop nearly 11 ~ miles long kept getting sho rter as pro0\ mo te r Pet e Francini a nd hi s cr ew cu t ,...... . and rer outed around the worst bottleneck sections. By the finish, some eight of the orig inal miles remained . Francini also de cided to cut the race to six laps from seven; even then, it took Garrahan three hours, 22 minutes and 16 seconds to finish, and his lap times grew from 28:35 on the first circuit to 41:00 on the last - desp ite the shorter course. "They held the cou rse together pretty well ," fifth-place finish er Josh McLevy ~ JI J~ 14 'Round 1: Hollister Hills SVRA said of the organizers in what was his ' first race out West. "I was p retty su rpri sed . Back East, with Dave Coo mbs and the GNCCs , they' re really on top of it. A lot of other races aren't. These guys did a really good job making the course really passable every lap . It mad e it so it wa s still a competition, not just su rvival. " And, surprisingly, 147 su rvived . Defending AMA Nation al End u ro Champion Michael Lafferty and fellow KTM racer Scott Plessin ger headed the field off the start. "I knew he wasn't. really going for it, so I said, 'What the heck: " Lafferty said. "By the second or third turn, I go t the lead an d led for a w hile . It was tough because we d idn 't walk a lot of the track (ahead of time)." Tha t led to a mom en ta ry tip-over before the end of the first lap, and Italy's Luca Trussardi zi pped past on h is IMS/Team Gree n KX250. "I followed him for a w hi le on th e first lap, and I guess we pulled away quite a bit: ' Lafferty said. Plessi nge r went back to the pits for the day after he reportedl y reinjured his shou lder, though it wasn' t crash-related. Nearly everyone tossed their gogg les du e to the mud and fogging problems during the race, bu t for some, that was th e lea st of their worries . Husaberg's Jason [)ahners, the high est-ranking ride r in the se ries from las t yea r with the number-three plate, overestima ted his fuel econo my and ran out of gas when he tried to go three laps wi thou t pittin g. That put him out of the running, after having switched from his 400 to his 501 engi ne tha t mor ning. Tru ssardi also ran into a few obstacles, one of them literally. "I touched another rider and ben t the brake ped al," Tru ssardi said. "The bike stopped . I stayed there maybe two min- utes an d bent it ba ck ; a no t he r man helped me, then I got going again . Afterward, in the pit stop, Garrah an was pretty close to me. On a downhill, he took ano ther line and passed me. I tried fol-, lowing, but with no goggles, no nothing, he went. After that, 1ran out of gas." Desp ite the time-consuming trip back to the pits to get fuel, Tru ssardi finished . seventh. Brian Garrahan wa s, indeed, on the move. "I got a bad start," said Garrahan. "I was a little too afraid at first. I made a lot of mis ta kes - I wa s gassing it too hard, overs hooting stuff. I caught up to my brother, passed him , and was making mistakes. He told me to calm down I heard hi m yell that - so I ca lmed myself down and just rode smoo th after that. 1 do n' t know what place I was in, (Above left) Brian Garrahan notched hi s first National HSwin, at Hollister. (Above right) Doug Blackwell finished second overall. (Right) Pat Garrahan took third. but I know for a while (Doug) Blackwell and 1 were battling it out pretty good . He passed me, and 1 know he' s a backEast rider, so he' s a good mud rider. I rod e with him for a while, and I felt com fortable. I made m y move on him , then went as fast as I could from there on out. "I nev er even saw Trussardi,' Brian Ga rrahan added . "I knew the re was a Kawi in front of me. Someone said it was Dave Hamel or someone like that, but that 's all 1 knew . 1 was just looking for Kawis wh en they said there was a Kawi ahead of me. I just started pickin g people off and picking people off." Likewise for Blackwell . "I got a pretty good start - like fourth or fifth - and was up in the lead pack where 1 wanted to be:' the YZ250-mounted West Virginian said . "The first lap, not being used to

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