Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

AMA National Champions h ip ISDE Qualifier Series Round 1 : Little Burr Qualiner (Left) Turning wrenches Is jus1 as important as riding at the Qualifiers. Winner Robbie Jenks works on his machine on day one. (Above) Randy Hawkins fi nished second overall , whil e Fred Hoess . peft) took th ird. S T O RY AND PHOT OS BY C HRIS J ONNUM "W MCARTHUR, OH, MAY 26·27 ho's Robbie Jenks? " ask ed mo re than on e person up on reading the results of th e Li ttle Bu rr Qualifi er , held in the ho m e sta t e of the fe derati o n that sends the A m eri can t eam to the In te rn ati o n a l S i x D a y s Enduro . And i t was a val id question. Jenks is primarily known as a promising GNCC race r , and i n Oh io , it wa s the fans that c ou ld be forg iven for l etting him pass under their radar as they focu sed on the established Qua lifier ac es. Of course, thank s to his performance at th e Lit tle Burr , not m an y Six Da ys fans w ill be forgetting who J enks is for quite some time , and we ca n on l y hope that the Yamaha racer makes a similar imp ression on the Eu ros in Franc e this August. Unfortunatel y , there' s little chance that the Amer ic an team as a whole will m ak e such an im pa ct . Such is the lack of fac tory support for tha t intern at ional event tha t th e Qualifier seri e s has dw indled to just two events , and w ith th o se coming on successive week ends , th e wh ole shebang was over a week after it began . And since the Qualifiers are no lo nger a part of the FMF Nat ional Champi onsh ip Enduro Series, even many of that circuit 's top competitors (including champ Mike Lafferty ) were not on hand. Amateur interest in the ISD E has not suffered such a blow, however, as grassroots riders - eager fo r the 26 JUNE 13. 200 1 • cue • e opportunit y to represent th eir country overseas th is fall - signed up for the Letter of Int ent class and showed their stuff. Such enthus iasm is inspiring , and ISDE afi cionados are hopeful tha t it w ill spr ead to those with wh at little fin ances and power ex ist in A m erican off-road compet ition . One hero th at wa s on hand was Yamaha 's Randy Hawkins, who fin ish ed as the runner-up , and he ha d pos iti v e th i ngs t o say a b ou t t h e even t: "It' s so nice to come and ride a rac e that's actuall y got d irt, " he said. " Some of the rac es we'v e been riding lately are just k ind of worn out. This was a lot of·fun." CAY 1 Rain watered the area in th e week leading up to th e event, and with the m emor ies of last year's saturated ev e n t still presen t i n everyone 's heads, there was consid erable trepi da t ion that t his would be a rep eat. Fortunatel y , t he prom ot ing E n du ro Rid ers A ssociation did a good eno ugh job o f k ee ping the course on hi g h ground that subma rin e imi tat ion s wer e k ept to a m in im um. T he route consisted of two loops , both of wh ich were ta me eno ug h that so me called th e co urse a d ual-sp o rt ride wi th spe cial t ests. The first of five spe c ial tes ts was aced by the little bikes, wi th veterans Hawk ins (on a WR250F Yama ha fourst roke ) and Fred Ho es s (r i di n g a 125cc Husqvama ) sharing the top posit ion with an identi c al 223 score. R e _ s BRIEFLY. •• (Left) D istri ct 37 enduro ace Rick " Bicky Racer ' Daniels drove all the Wfrj from Southern California to Ohio in a 1964 .....d truck (really little more than a shell with a big·block Chevy motor). pulling an enclosed trailer with his and four of his friends' motorcycles. "lt was 40 hours of driving time.' he said. ' 1had the overdrive in the transmission go out in New Mexico. I had to manually lock it into overdrive. Otherwise. it was turning 4000 rpm to go 60 mph.' Daniels drove straight from Ohio to Idaho for the following weekend's Qualifier. Upon seeing the forme r race truck of motocrosser H_th Voss in the pits. at least one person speculated that the top privateer was trying his hand at off-road (either that. or that he had made a wrong turn on his way to that weekend 's High Point National MX. just three hours away in Mt. Morris. Pennsylvania). Act ually. Voss sold the truck to off-reade r Mark Faulk. who has yet anther MX connection in that Plano Honda sponsors him. Faulk Finished an impr essive seventh overall in Ohio. ' Wh ile many other manufacturers are moving the National Enduros and Qualifiers down their priority list. Spanish bu ild er Gas Ga. has been backing both serie s with strong teams. It shows . In Ohio. two of the top six riders (,Joey Ambrosini Jr . and Matt Stavish) were Gas Gasmounted. John Beal finished 17th on another Gas Gas . Even the company P.R. rep Chilly White got in on the action. finishing 53rd overall (and on silver) on yet another Gas Gas. How about those Bennett boys? The battling Bennetts we re fast in Ohio. putti ng three family member s in the top 20 overall. II' s enough to remind one of the east coast Laffertydynasty. Paul Krause (right). who normally rides big bikes in the ISDE. showe d up in Ohio with a KTM 125. saying." I've ridden in the back forever - always in the last minutes. After last year, I said , 'Never again.' I'm going to ride a litt le bike. and I'm going to be one of the first bikes out there ." W ith the AMA 's offices being in the same state Gn Pickerington) , the federation had thre e represe nta tives on hand - Hugh and Connie Fleming, and Cherie Daniels. all from the amateur racing department . In addition to ove rseeing the weekend 's activities . the trio Was also selling ISDE T-shirt s to support the U .S. team's efforts in France. ITo or der one , call the AMA at 614 /856-1900 .> Gunny Claypoo le will represent the AMA in Idaho next week. ISDE vet Drew Smith was on hand to do battle on his Suzuki DR-Z4 00 , and to prepare for his job as the Trophy Team manager. On the Monday following the event. Smit h held a grass-track· riding clinic for those who were interested . and he applauded the club for doing a good job of mimicking conditions that would be found in Europe. ' The grass track that they prepared is perfect ,- he said. " lt's quite representative, and I'm encouraged by some of the steps we 're taking in the right direct ion. I'm always optirmsnc ."

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