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CROSS COUNTRY Round 11: High Point Raceway AMA GRAND N T N A IO AL CROSS COUNTRY SERIES L 00 0\ 0\ ...... By James Derek '<::l'" 1] ...... I-< OJ .n o .... u o 48 MOUNT. MORRIS, PA,SEPT. 27 earn Suzuki' s Stev e Hatch ove rcame a dry, dusty track and took advantage of the mistakes of his prima ry competitors to win the Hi gh Point round of the 1998 AMA Gr and National Cross Country Series in mount Morris, Pennsy lvania. Hatch bettered Kawasaki 's Fred And rews and his British tea m ma te Paul Ed mo ndson for his second win of th e series, tw o-tim e AMA Nation al End uro Ch am pion Mike Lafferty (on a KTM ) and Kawa saki-mounted Jim Jarrett, who inched ou t Yamaha' s Barry Ha wk for the fifth-overa ll pos ition. "What can I say? It was a basically a survi val run," said Hatch, who kept his Ameri can Su zuki /FMF / Moo se OffRoad entry on two wheel s a nd ou t of the p it area lon g enough to secu re the wi n. "It was a tou gh tra il, and you had to rid e smart the whole tim e. There was never a plac e to take a break , except for ma ybe thesm otocross track, because it was well-watered an d prepped. The rest of the trail , you had to keep your eyes open beca use it was dusty and hard to see. There was a lot of stuff ou t there that could sneak up and bite you if you w eren't careful." "I felt like 1 w~s the fastes t ride r and sho u ld have won, but th e breaks just di d n' t go my way," said Team Green 's Andrews , w ho is also backed by And rews Racin g and Axo. "The first p roblem wa s bending m y ba rk-buster back until it pushed back into my clu tch lever. Then I gu ess I went into too many dust berm s and my air filter go t clogged. That kind o f ruined m y chances at that point." Hat ch' s Su zuki tea mma te Rodney Smith, who has alread y wra pped up the '98 championship - the first-ever GNCC overall title for Team Su zuki - was an ea rly contender be fore a big crash left him off the podium for the first time in th e ent ire series. Smith was joined on th e side lines by o u tgoi ng champion Scott Summers, w ho sat out the event wit h brok en ribs su ffered last weekend . Round ing ou t the top l Oin the Pro class, behind s ixth -p laced H awk, were the Garra han b roth er s from Ca li fo rn ia (Brian and Patrick, resp ectively), KTMmounted Eric Bern ard, an d Connecticut's Josh McLev y. The High Point race is often marred by bad w eather , usually in the form of rain, thou gh in one mem orab le case the event was held in the mid dle of an unexpected snowstorm . This race was no different, though the snow was rep laced by a thick layer of powdery dust as a resu lt of a mont h-long drought. Trail boss Jeff Russell an d the Racer Productions crew di d their best to avoid the dust, including dropping tru ckload upon truckload of water on the motocross track. Still, the dust was unavoidable, eve n in the tight woods sections, and the poo r condi tions would take a toll on man y of the 320 riders in the field. One tw is t th at the race orga nizers added tothe race was a tight section right after the start. Rather than put the large field thro ugh the tight woods, they decid ed to add the section after the first lap w he n traffic died down a li ttle. The change offered Team Suzuki a chance to do a little strategic planning towa rd the middle stages of the three-ho ur-long race. As u su al, it was a Suzuki at the head of the pa ck when the green flag dropped for th e lead row of Pro-class riders . Hatch w as the man out fron t, but h is lead wo u ld be short-lived, as his teamma te Smith made a quick pa ss for the lead on the motocro ss track, w hich was being run in the sa me direction as the annual 125/250cc Outdoor Nation al at Hig h Point. But it was the first bad da y in a long tim e for Smith, w ho had 10 podium finishes in a row going into the High Point race . "The re w as a ne w sectio n that was really tight, and I got bottlen ecked in there," Smith sai d of hi s ra ce-ending cr ash . "I tr ied to g o a ro u nd a lapped rider and we got tan gled up going down in to a ravine. We were hung up in some vines and branches and all, and by the time 1 got out of ther e, my clutch was smoked and the lead ers were go ne . 1 already have the cha mpionship wo n, so 1 decid ed to just wait for the next time." With Smi th ou t, Ha tch picked up the flag for the Suz uki team and held th e lead, though Andrew s would have his Kawa saki out in front before too long. "We decided to gamble on our pit sto p at the end of the fourth lap," Hatch said la ter . "We knew tha t Freddy was going to stop for gas, so we ga mbled on ma king it five laps befo re a fuel stop. Steve Hatch won the High Point Grand National Cross Country round In Pennsylvania.