Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

Round 1: Laughlin U.S. Hare Scrambles By Anne Van Beveren Photos by Tom Van Beveren and Kinney Jones ~ 28 LAUGHLIN, NY, FEB. 20 --n desert-racing circles, the U.s. Hare Scrambles in Laughlin, Nevada, has a fearsome reputation. The first race of the Best In The Desert's Silver State Series is known for its tight, technical terrain, for mile upon mile of flesh-piercing cactus, and, after this year, for being the course that was tough enough to beat Ty Davis. Riding solo because his teammate was injured, Davis knew he had his. work cut out for him when he set sail into the 135-mile course, but, aiter soloing to victory in la t year's event, his hopes were high. But that was before he discovered just how tough this year's Laughlin course was - and how tough local hotshots ick and Russ Pearson are. The KTM-mounted brothers set a blistering pace right off the tart that forced Davis to pull out all the stops, and the grueling course did the rest. "Davis had got within, like, 35 seconds of us, so we were pus!).ing hard, and the course was really tough," said ick Pearson. "It was lots of up-anddown, rocks, cactus, and lots of new trails. It was tighter and twistier than usual - fun but tough. f'd hate to solo it." After four hours and 28 minutes of close racing, the Pearsons were still in the physical' lead when they crossed the finish. They looked back to check where Davis was on adjusted time, but t):leir racelong rival was nowhere to be seen'. "I knew I wa in trouble aiter the first loop," Davis said. "The pace was quick and there were no rest tops. J pushed my bod y too hard for too long and I ended up dehydrating myself on the last loop. I had to pull over." With Davis out of the hunt, the Pearsons could finally celebrate victory - and their almost-comfortable th.ree-and-ahalf-minute lead over their next-nearest rivals. "This really is a big race," ick Pearson said. '1 mean it' rough, it's tough, it's rocky, and there are so many obstacles you've got to get around, so it's good to win it - plus it's the first race of the series, and it' always nice to do good the first race of the series." The more than 200 motorcycle tearns that turned out for the race were greeted by clear skies' and bright sun, bu t a chilly wind kept spectators bundled up for most of the day. The first motorcycle left the line at 7:30 a.m. and the rest of the racers followed - one bike at a time every 20 seconds. The course was laid out in a figure 8, with a 22-mile first loop followed by a 23-mile second loop, and it didn't take long for the racers to realize it was one of the most challenging courses some of them had ever faced. "Since (race organizer) Casey Folks has gone to the team format, it seems like the course is laid out for teams and, whereas before there was a little road, a little wash, a little break here or there when it used to be a solo race, this thing worked you the whole time," said KTM- mounted Scot Harden, who, like Davis, found himself riding solo due to his partner's injUries. "Tight" was the first word out of most of the racers' mouths. "The course was rough and real tight - it definitely wasn't a 500 course," said Scott Underwood, who was teamed with Greg Zitterkopf on a KX500. "It was so tight, I didn't get out of third gear on the second loop, and I was told by Greg earlier tha t he didn't get out of second gear on loop one. It's probably the toughest course I rode in the last two years." To make things even worse, the first lap was extra-tough because much of (Above) Nick and Russ Pearson teamed up to win the Laughlin U.S. Hare Scrambles. (Left) The Dave OndaslShane Esposito team took runner-up honors. the course had never been ridden before. "I took the lead like two miles out," said Destry Abbott, who led off on the KXSOO he shared with Brian Brown. "It was kind of tough because there was no trail I had to break trail, and in the first loop, 1 didn't do really well." By the end of the first 20 miles, the Abbott/Brown Kawasaki, a matching KX500 piloted by Dave Ondas and Shane Esposito, and the Pear on brothers' KTM had e tablished positions at the front of the pack. Da vi was coming up fast from a last-place start in the Open Pro division, and a KTM piloted by Bryan Folks and David Pearson was . making time on the rest of the 250cc Pro entries. But for many of the racers, the first circuit of the course was more like hard work than fun. "The start, for me, was horrible," said Yamaha YZ400F pilot Tim Staab. "1 got arm pump really, really bad. I fell like three times and stalled it like four times." Johnny Campbell would have swapped his problem for arm pump in a heartbeat. "About 10 miles out on the first loop, I was going along good and the bike just quit," said Campbell, who shared a factory-backed Honda XR600 with Cole Mar hall. "What happened was, I got a rock lodged up in the countershaft, and it ended up cutting the wires on the ignition." Campbell got word to the next checkpoint and a radio call went out to his pit, but a lot of time had elapsed before another Honda rider arrived with replacement parts in a backpack. "I ended up fixing it and we got moving again, but 1 imagine r was down an hour at least," Campbell said. The first fuJI circuit of the figure 8 took an hour and a half to complete. Russ Pearson handed over to Nick Pearson in the number-one spot, but, as the KTM headed into circuit number two, Davis was just a minute behind on adjusted time. The Ondas/Esposito Kawasaki was another minute back in third, and the Abbott/Brown Kawasaki and 250cc Pro leaders David Pearson and Bryan Folks were within four minutes of the number-one spot. Even the top-running Over 30 racers - Larry Roeseler and Mike Healey, who were piloting a KXl25 - were only five minutes off the pace. "We chose the 125 because of Laughlin and how tight it is here, plus that's really the only new bike 1 had, and Mike likes 125s," Roeseler said. "I know it makes it a little bit more challenging, but it's just for fun," As time wore on, many of the racers were wishing they had followed Roeseler's small-bike lead. "It really doesn't work as good as some of the maller, lighter bikes," said Torsten Bostrom of the XR600 he shared with Jonah Street. "There's a lot of tight stuff, and, on a big bike, you're just kind of fighting it th.rough there," The Ondas/Esposito KX500 duo was having similar problems. "Our real problem was that f'm a little guy to begin with," Esposito said, "and then, with Ondas being bigger, the suspen ion was a little uneven for the two." But riding solo, even on a well-set-up bike, wasn't proving to be a picnic, either. "Casey Folks definitely made it a lot harder than la t year," Davis aid. "It was pretty intense the whole time. There was really no rest the whole way. I rode' solo last year and r won it, but it was a little cooler and the course wasn't this challenging." A ba ttle for the 250cc Pro lead waged all the way around the second half of the figure 8, as KX250-mounted Steve Hengeveld and Oakley Lehman struggled back from a slow tart and moved up to battle for supremacy with class leaders David Pearson and Bryan Folks. "1 made up some time in the first

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