Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

74th International Six Days Enduro fun, but the first loop wasn' t fun a t all. It just wasn 't any fun ." N ot everyone was put off by the day. Drew Smith said, 'Til tell you, this is the kind of day that the wolf's a t you r door, and yo u wh ack him in the nose and say, ' Ba d d o g !' It w a s fun. A fte r thin gs thinned ou t it was kind of nice . In the morning, I felt like I 'wa nted to sto p. I d idn't wan t to take a chance of getting hurt in the dust, yo u know. But yo u jus t rid e as mu ch as the dust wou ld let you, wo rk y o ur way p a st g uys and ke e p mo ving. I wa s reall y h appy with m y bike, my 250cc Hu sk y." Giovanni Sala, th e " lea d er" of th e It ali an Trophy Team, fin is hed up th e day 23 seconds ou t of first place, s till co n fiden t tha t he would find th e wa y to m ak e up th e time , but v ery co ncerned abou t the trail s. He said his d ay wa s "not so bad , not so fas t as Mika Ahola, bu t ok ay . It is critica l to know w he re to put yo u r wh eel, in the bump o r n ot in the bump, because it is s o s li p pe ry . But, e ver y th in g is okay; I enjo yed the da y, so it' s okay. It will be a lon g week for Aho la too , so we' ll see , no?" Ahola w as flying, though, and not (Left) U.S . Trophy team rider Pat Garrahan had very little trouble with his bike and body during the week and finished with a gold medal. (Below) Nevada's Russ Pearson had the help of his brother Nick, his girlfriend, and his father, and brought home a gold medal as a member of the U.S . World Trophy tea m. '" '" '" uS 1: o u a 18 cial test for, it had to be eight to 10 minut es, in a bottleneck. Then we wer e six or seve n minutes late at the next check. The next check myclutch nu t,came off, and we we re at th e top of that big hill and I knew I'd want to use the clu tch on the w ay down. So I ran u p and down an d finally fou nd a Brit with a 22mm socket wrench and put it back togeth er. Cost me another four minutes. I guess I dropped 11 trail p oints total, but that's better than not coming in at all." Kawa saki rid er Fred ette was a mem b e r o f the Sa lt Fork Dirt Riders, a n Am erican team that couldn't hide from its m embers' hi st ory and ex per ien ce . Fred ette, 41, has 19 years of ISDE finishes to his cred it, includ ing Trophy Team rid es and top Am erican s ta tus in th e past. Also on the team wa s Husq varnamounted Drew Smith, our senior ISDE com petitor in the Sta tes, th is bein g his 20 th ISDE ride o u t of 25 yea rs o f in volvement in the event. Unofficiall y, Dre w's record may be a world championship in itself, as so far no other ISDE competitor is on record with 20 sta rts in t h is eve n t (D r ew h a s 18 FIM ISDE medals out of his 20 rid es, and is 42 yea rs old) . The th ird member of the Sal t Fork team was former AMA Na tional Enduro Champion Terry Cunningham, riding th e Si x Da ys for the first time in 10 years, after com peting with the Am erican-tea m effort from 1979 to 1989. . ' "Maybe after 10 years of layin g back I've for gotten what it was like," Cun ningham sa id, " bu t w e'll see how it goes . My Gas Gas goes rea lly well, and I'm in pr etty good shape, so I'm look ing forward to it." Bottlenecks at th e s ta r t of th e mo tocross special tes ts added to th e confusion on day one. "I knew it was going to be tight in that next section after the bo ttleneck, so I just haul ed and got in on my grace, so I d idn't lose anything," said Pat Ga rrahan . "They'll probably throw tha t section ou t. The trail sections aren't bad at all, but the tests are really ugly. The tests a re re all y s il ty and hammered ou t. They 're no fun to rid e wha tso ev er, so you try to get through it as fast as you can, but even that' s kind of sketchy ." It was the kind of da y eve ryo ne had a comment about, most of them not printable. Long, tou gh, and a wa ke-u p call. Cunnin gham, pointin g to h is w ris twatch alarm going off at 6:00 p.m., said , "Tha t means it' s tim e to quit! I'll tell you , every Six Days I ever-rode, I never dropped a route point until tod ay . We dropped 'em today; probab ly about 14 if I had to guess. I was lat e comi ng into th a t special test , and they had ev erybody backed up in ther e. I gu ess they were trying to give everyon e 30 seconds' space because of the dust. It was kind of the same deal at the next check also; I waited six minutes ther e. "Does it feel good after all that time off? I' ll tell yo u, I gu ess bein g back 14 minu te s go t m e ou t o f th e cr o w d , becau se on the second loop I hardly had any dust , and it w as fu n. I mean yo u could jump over little moguls an d have planning to give up the lead position, as we would see throughout the week. Day two was a repeat of day one, this time on "A" schedu le, which is a little bit faster than the "B" schedule the riders rod e on da y one. Or gani zers utili zed the same tests and the same trail, which was well- ha m me re d by th is tim e, but the rid ers now kn ew what to ex pect. Actuall y, th e s ponso ri ng club ran the same motocross spec ial tests every day; two tests, twice a d ay, and all the riders learn ed to hate th em. Th ey w er e rib bon ed ou t in river-bott om silt bed s, dry, dusty , and lackin g of an y interest wha tso eve r, o the r th an ge tt ing pas t th em quickly. Th e d u st also was the quiet pot en tial assassin threatening eve ry bike. Air filt ers were ge tting clogged rapidly, and if yo u delayed chan gin g them you wer e in viting all manners of problems . Air filt ers bein g washed a nd hung out to d ry wer e a com mo n sig ht a t all the check s. "We ' re changing air filters a t every other check," said Trophy Team rider Rand y Hawkins, "and I'm still not sure tha t's good enough." It was also necessary to watch where you were going. Central Jersey Club Team rider Mike Sigety paid the price when he hit the wrong rut in a special test. "I went down into thi s silt rut, and I sw ea r a wave of dust ca me right over my front fender," Sigety said. "It was like sinking a Jet Ski. I sucked dust in everywher e. From th ere to th e end of th e test the bike ove r he ated and the engine quit. I gu ess the filter failed and I packed the engine full of d irt."

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