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HARE SCRAMBLES BEST IN THE DESERT SILVER STATE SERIES Round 1: Laughlin, Nevada II res (Left ) Yamaha mounted Ty Davis soloed to victory at the Laughlin Hare Scrambles team race. (Below) The Dave _ O~try Abbott Kawasaki . team took second overall. By Anne Van Beveren Photos by Tom Van Beveren LAUGHLIN,NY, FEB. 21 Davis had three s trikes a ga ins t . him w hen he turned out for the openi ng round of the Best in the Desert's five-r ace Nevada se ri es. Th e even t w a s 150 miles long, th e co u rse was tight and technical every inch of the way, and all of the other top contenders had a teammate to share the burden of almos t five hours of grueling racing. But th ree strikes were not enough to take Davis out. The Yamaha racer had his YZF400 fou r-stroke ou t in front of the pack by the en d of the first 25 miles and kep t it there for the next four hours a nd 45 minutes. Wh en the checke re d flag finally fell, Da vis had brou ght his Ya ma h a hom e a lo ne a t a p ace th at . topped the first tw o-man team by just under 1 1/2 minutes. " I didn 't reall y w ant to ride by myself, bu t my partner (Donnie Book) is still re co v e rin g from tw o bro ke n wrists," Davis sa id. "We are a team and we pretty much wanted to stick together, p lus I d idn't rea lly have anybody to choose from. I knew it would be tough, ~ but I d id n ' t know it wou ld be t his tough. I wouldn't have wanted to go ano ther loop, that 's for sure." Most of the 138 team s that tu rn ed ou t for th e Lau ghlin U.S . Hare Scra m bles Championship, which was organ ized by Cas ey Folks' Best in th e Des ert a nd sponsored by Kawasaki Team Green, had at least an inkling of how tou gh the race would be. The techni cal terrain and thick cactus near Laughlin, a ga mbling town on the banks of the Colorado River south of Las Veg a s, has earned the respect of desert racers over the yea rs, bu t this yea r's course surprised even the old-timers. ''111e course was tou gher than usual because, wit h all the rain they' d had, the ground was so wet it got really worn ou t," Davis sai d . " It was really Whooped out - just one ditch after ano ther by the last loop . It was like ridi ng the Daytona Su percross." Many of th e firs t- time racers w ere shaking their head s in disbelief. "I ha d heard the rumors and I was expecting it to be really tight and tough, bu t I did n' t rea lize it was going to be that rough,", said Dave Hamel, who was teamed with Paul Krause on a Kawasaki KXSOO. "There was abo ut five percent of it where you could maybe grab a breath. The res t of it was work, work, work." The factory-backed Honda XR628 p ilot ed by John ny Campbell and Tim Staab was out in fro nt on the one-bikeevery-20-seconds starting grid , but heavy rain in the days leading up to the race coupled with a high per centage of virgin terrain turned a near-the-front start into a disadvantage. "T h ere was no dust, so, for on ce, being out in front didn't help, and with all that new terrain, the first loop was t ou g h because there was no trail. We were jus t breaking ground out the re," said Ha mel, w hose b ike was num ber four off the line. " It go t a little better as the groove wo re in but the first loop was ha rd to follow." Th e course was laid au t in a figure eight tha t consis ted of two 25-mile loops which had to be completed th ree times, for a total of 150 miles. Davis' ea rly-race stra tegy was to han g back a bit to save his s trength w hi le he checked out the terrain. "A t th e end of th e first 25 miles, (Des try) Abbott and Campbell were going at it. I had reeled them in, so I was probably ahead of them on time. I just followed them and saved my energy," Davis sai d. "I just hung th ere behind them . I figured I wo u ld let them br eak brush and smack so me bush es before I had to." A cu stom gas tank co ns tructed by IMS let Davis power right past the first p it and pu t him ou t in front in the ph ysica l as well as the time-adjusted sta ndings for the second half of the first figu re eig ht, with the Dave Ondas / Destry Abbott Kawasaki KX500 and the Campbell /Staab Honda not far behi nd . A KTM piloted by Russ Pearson and Jim Gray was a minute and a half back in fou rth overall, and the KX500 shared by Paul Kra use and Dave Ham el dashed in for gas in fifth .