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National Championship Hare & Hound Series Round 3 : V irgin Voyage National "Th e club did a great job," Abbott said. "It was a great National for out here. The first loop wasn 't a lot of val leys; the second loop was no valleys." " T h e club did an awesome job," Russell Pea rson exclaimed. " It wa s fun . The second loop, I thought, was bitchen; it was neat. They kept us in th e ro c k s. Yeah , they 'd have a few valleys, but they'd mostly keep us in th e v irgin stuff. If it was li k e that every time, I'd look forward to com ing down here. " Cous in David Pearson agreed : "This was one of the best National in Lucerne Valley because it was tight and technica l. I loved it ." The race started with a long bomb run across the valley just east of the b ig rock p ile at the north end of Bessemer Mine Road . From there, it snaked i t s way on the big 40 -mile first loop back to the pits. Loop two headed north out of the pits with a rockier, more technical 40 miles. Abbott got an excellent jump at the start and led the field to the bomb on his Pro Circuit/Dunlop/O 'Neal backed KX500. "Usually, I'm a slow starter, but I was l e ad i n g at the bo m b , " he sai d. "I reall y di dn't run the bomb [in pract ice]; I only ran it S T O RY AND PHOTO S BY MARK KARI YA LOCERNE VAllEY, CA, APR. 22 r eam Green's Destry Abbott broke out of a tie in AMA National Hare & Hound Series points with teammate Brian Brown by zipping to a wire-tow ire victory a t round three , the Vikings Motorcycl e Club's Virg in Voyage/Ch ri s Seymour Memorial Nationa l , off Bess em er Mine Road . Both rode KX500s , wh ile YZ250s and rid ers named Pear son occupied th e next two slots - Russell cla iming third and cousin David fourth . And y Grider rounded out the top five on another KX500. Indeed, th e course suited 250s m ore than usual and drew almost un i versal praise for the club from both 2 50 cc and b ig -bike pi lots. And that was despite getting no rain from a brief storm that left snow in the nearb y mou nta ins and p u d d l e s on the ground in town, though stiff winds on Sat urday no doubt would've dried the pre cipitati on anyway. 52 MAY 9 , 2001 • c ue I • lAbove) Defend ng AMA Na tional Hare & Hound Champion Destry Abbott 'moved back Int o the series points l ea d with h is win at the VIrgin Voyage. which he and others p ...l sed as a m o ng the best NatIonals at Lucerne Valley. Abbott enj oyed a commanding lead all day. (RIght) Brian Brown, the '9 9 series champ, couldn't rid e as fast as he wanted due to headshake, which he later traced to possible steering stabilizer damage from his T errlble's Town crash. Still, with a 2-1-2 score so far i n the series, he's In the hunL n e _ s once. I was heading to the right and said; 'M an , there's no good line over here,' so I started heading back [to the left]. I saw Ty [Davis] was on a line, and I had a little bit on him, so I took his line." And that helped the defend ing series champ jump int o the lead at the bomb. As they funneled into th e single -track trail meandering through the hills, Abbott asserted his lead followed by Brown , Price Rac ing 's Shane E s p o s i t o , Honda 's Steve Hengeveld and Montclair Yamaha's Davis . Honda 's T im Staab , David Pearson on h is Pro Circuit YZ250 , Price Racing KX500-mounted Grider and Jeff Capt on a Gas Gas 250 also figured into the lead group. From there , Abbott quickly gapped the pack , wh ich surprised h im: "Like I said, I usually am such a slo w starter, [but] I felt so good I said, 'Man , I'm just going to try to p u ll away as mu h as I can ,' k ind of like Danny Hamel use " t o do. I wasn' t going as fast as that guy ever went, but I went as fast as I could and was ab le to put maybe a m inute or whatever it was on Brian at the pit." Indeed, at the end of 40 miles, just over a minute separated the pair o f