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CROSS COUNTRY GRAND NATIONAL CROSS COUNTRY SERIES Defending champ Scott Summers posted his second win of the season at the Brownsville GNCC In Pennsylvania. By Jim Talkington BROWNSVILLE, PA, MAY 17 earn Honda's Scott Summers returned to winning form at the Brownsville Grand National Cross Country after disappointing showings at the previous two rounds left him Y down in the field with unusually few points to show for ills efforts. The key to Summers' return? Tills time, a little luck went ills way. "It feels good to get another win," Summers said. "Everything went really well, and my XR was ideally suited to the Brownsville course. There were a lot of slick off-cambers with roots (on the trail), and I think that it was just easier for me to get my rear wheel hooked up and going in certain sections. Everything just went right - no real problems on the day." Summers attributes ills two atypically poor finishes (sixth and 13th) at the previous Clarksburg and Elizabeth rounds in West Virginia to plain old bad luck and, more emphatically, the curren:!' level of competition in GNCC racing. "Recently, we've just had a couple of those races when nothing seems to go right," Summers said. "At the Wilderness, we had some problems in the pits, and at Starvation Point it seemed like· every line I took put me in the wrong place at the wrong time. More than anytiling, though, there's just so much competition in the GNCCs now. There was a time when a top rider could lose time and stilI charge back into the top five. Now, the first through 10th spots are all so close and everyone's going so fast for the duration of the race, making up time like that is just not possible now. "We're all lining up against the best off-road riders in the country every GNCC," Summers added. ''I'm glad that Honda and I were able to score another win here today against such great competition." The biggest infusion of talent into the GNCC field in recent years has come from the all-star three-man U.S. Suzuki team that was once again making its presence felt by claiming the remaining . two podium positions. Rodney Smith was the only rider to stay on the "arne minute as Summers, willIe finisillng second for ills sixth consecutive top-three finish. Second-place points have once again put Smith on top of the championsillp points battle, gilring rum a one-point edge on Team Kawasaki's Fred Andrews. Smith and Andrews have traded the points advantage at almost every event, with one of the two claiming the top spot for the entire first half of the series. Going into the second half of the year, advantag\!: Smith. Former National Enduro Champion Steve Hatch scored third after he, Smith and Summers shared the lead for much of the early going. Off the winner's pace by two minutes at the finish, Hatch's third-place points keep rum well in the championship hunt. Fourth place at Brownsville went to Andrews, his lowest finish thus far in a stellar"comeback" season. He, like Hatch, has had to recover from back injuries suffered in 1997 and is back on his championsillp-~g form 0(1993. Bellind the Team Green rider was Team Yamaha's up-and-comer, Barry Hawk, in fifth. Onehalf of the new Team HWK (Hawk and Randy Hawkins), the Yamaha rider claimed ills second top-five finish of thk season aboard the YZ400 four-stroke. Four-time AMA Off-Road National Champion Scott Plessinger suffered injuries at Brownsville that necessitated air transportation to nearby Pittsburgh. Aboard his KTM 125, Plessinger attempted to jump a ravine that had not been attempted by any other rider, and he came up short and was spit violently over the handlebars. As it turned out,