Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

GNCC Legend Scott Summers .. . The king of GNCC on Now I feel a little lost. I'm also continuing to work with Honda through the Honda Riders' Club, and I'll be attending a lot of events this year just to help people get more involved with riding a motorcycle or ATV. By JASON WEIGANDT PHOTOS BY JOE BONNELLO merican off-road racing has enjoyed a somewhat surprising amount of success in the past few years, and no segment better represents that than the AMA Grand National Cross Country Series. Promoted by Racer Productions, the long-popular circuit is really beginning to pick up momentum, and its 2002 rendition promises to be one of the best in history. With ever-increasing rider, spectator and sponsorship attention, along with the successful TV coverage that began last season, the Grand National Cross Country Series has become not only America's premier off-road series, but one of the best off-road series in the world. Off-roaders tend to stay put more than some other racing disciplines, and there hasn't been a lot of team news over the off-season, with the biggest news being the recent broken wrist of 2000 champ Shane Watts and the formal retirement of GNCC icon Scott Summers, a five-time champion in the series. Still recovering from a badly broken femur, Summers announced his retirement last fall at the Honda Dealer's Convention. Now the once highly visible star, who many credit with bringing off· road racing to its present success, has taken a relatively low profile. We've decided to forego our traditional squad-bysquad preview of the GNCC series and instead speak with Summers on the current state of GNCC racing. A It would be really interesting to see how many decisions have to be made in a three-hour GNCC...decisions that have to be made very quickly, and that one decision detennines your finish, or even your health. ThiS is going to be the first GNCC opener you haven't raced in over 15 years. What's it like to not have to train and prepare for racing this March? Well, it's good I think, in a lot of ways. One thing that's good is I have a lot of good memories. I was able to accomplish a lot of the things I wanted to accomplish. Maybe if things hadn't turned out the way I wanted them to, it wouldn't be so much fun to think about GNCC racing. But I had a lot of fun, I learned a lot of things, and I made a lot of great friends. Q A What have you been doing with your time now that you're retired? Well, the main thing is that I've been going to the gym three or four times a week. I do it because I enjoy it, but it's kind of strange now because I used to go to the gym with a goal in mind. Q A 28 FEBRUARY 27, 2002' DUD • e n e currenI' srare of rhe series. Q YOU seem to be pretty content with retirement. You've said it may take as many as 18 months for your leg to get back to 100 percent. If that does happen, could you make a comeback? _ s I think it would be arrogant for me to say that I could come back and. win races. A rider's result is not the result of what they did today, or last week. A person gets to the top of this sport because of what they have done for years. I won my last title in '97, and my last race in '99. Since then, I haven't done a lot of riding. So even if my leg were 100 percent today, it would take years to get back to where I was. A ThiS series has grown tr.emendously since you started racing, and a lot of people think your influence had a lot to do with that. Are you proud of where the series is today? Oh, absolutely. I'm very proud of what the series has become. I thought the series was really cool after the first one I went to, and all the things that I thought were cool still exist. But now, there are more people that are familiar with it. I think it's great, because I think there's a lot more people having the same thoughts about the series that I was haVing almost 20 years ago. Q A What are some of the changes you've seen with the GNCCs now, compared to where it was when you started? well, I think Racer Productions was really smart to make changes to appeal to the majority of the riders in these events. And the majority of riders are not paid, pro riders. They are there to have a good time, and they're engaging in an activity that has to compete with other forms of recreation. If the races were still 1DO-mile events, then the poor guy that spent money for [him] and his family to come to that event and has to go through five hours of physical hell - he's not going to be very happy when he goes to work the next morning. So I think the fact Q A

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