Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

Round 3: Little Sahara Recreation Area Hare & Hound AMA NA TIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP HARE &HOUND SERIES (Left) Brian Brown rode off to victory at the third round of the National Hare & Hound series in Utah. (Above) Russ Pearson won the 250cc class. By Anne Van Beveren Photos by Tom Van Beveren JERICHO, UT, APR. 10 e AMA National Hare & Hound Championship Series used to be a whole lot easier to call. In years gone by, three roun<:!s of competition would have meant three consecutive wins by the dominant rider and a clear points lead - almost a foregone conclusion. But all that went out the window at the start of the 1999 race season. The win in round three of this year's hotly contested series went to Kawasaki KX500-mounted Idaho racer Brian Brown, whose dash to the checkered ~ flag involved serious challenges, such as ,temperatures that lingered stubbornly Ci. in the low 30s and snow in the higher' et elevations. But Brown's bid for the 1999 Nation30 l1 • al title involves even more serious hurdles, such as round-one winner Destry Abbott, round-two winner Ty Davis, and a points spread so narrow that the red-hot battle in the best-five-out-ofseven series looks likely to continue all the way to the very last round. Almost 400 racers turned out for round four's action at the Little Sahara Recreation Area, about two hours' drive southwest of Salt Lake City. Stormy weather in the days leading up to the event had ttimed a dry, dusty course into a muddy and sometimes slimy trail, with snow in the high country, and the early risers who turned out to practice the bomb run were greeted by temperatures in the teens. The mercury was still hovering around 30 degrees at noon, but by then the riders had a lot more than the weather to keep them busy. The course laid out by the Sage Riders got off to its traditional start near the sand dunes that gave the riding area its name. Three loops followed, and each of' them was a challenge. The first loop headed north toward Maple Mountain and then launched into 45 miles of technical terrain before it was time to head in for gas. Loop two alternated open terrain with tight cedars for 42 miles, and then came the crowning glory: a 20-miIe third loop that took the front-runners almost an hour to complete. "There will be a lot of snow out there on the last loop, and it's got some rocks," said Preston Gerber of the Sage Riders. "It was not my choice. I thought that was a little too much when they're tired. n Russ Pearson had his KTM 250 out in front when the first wave of starters flashed past the bomb, but the Las Vegas racer's head was somewhere completely different. "1 got the holeshot, I guess," said Pearson, "but at the starting line, my dad had noticed a leak in my back brake, so it was kind of messing with my head. I was afraid it was going to go ou t. It felt spongy for some reason. I don't know if there was a little more slop than I'm used t(), but I ended up slowing down a little bit and six or seven guys got by me." The pack tha t slipped by him included Destry Abbott, who put his KX500 to good use on the power-draining bomb, and Brian Brown, who was fourth overall when he emerged from the starting chute at the end of the bomb run. Greg Zitterkopf, who missed the rid- ers meeting and didn't hear the organizer's stern warning about what would happen to anyone who did not ride through the chute, was off to one side when he reached the critical section of the course in fifth overall. "If he didn't go through the chute, he's long gone," said Preston Gerber. "They were told, and we had people out there checking to make sure everybody djd what they were told. If he didn't go through th~ chute, he's got his number pulled and he's done, but we don't want to deprive him of having this fun course to run, so he'll ha ve the experience, and then he'll find out he's disqualified." Disqualification would almost have been a blessed relief for Ty Davis, who got one of the worst starts he can remember and was way at the back of the pack. "It was bad," said the Yamaha YZ400F racer. "It was one of those deals - it just wasn't meant to be, I guess. I was last." But at least he wasn't alone. "1 got a horrible start," said Husaberg 501 pilot Rob Zimmerman. "The bike flooded out or something and I was dead last off the start. I had to fight my way back up." And fighting back up wasn't easy on a course that included miles and miles of single-track through the tight cedars. "We've got some tricky little grassy washes they have to go up the bottoms of, and we've got some burn area that's very fast; then we go into some real tight cedar stuff that will be very slick today," said Gerber. "We've tried to break it up so they have cedars and road and cedars and road, and open grass, so it gives them a variety." But for Vet-class leader Dan Richardson, there wasn't nearly enough terrain of the fast-paced variety. "It was a good course, but I had a lot

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