Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128197
AMA National Enduro Champion Mike LaHerty Mike Lafferty discovers new-fotJnd s"eed and beco~es a seriotJs tit(e contender in two off-road series btJt bare(v co~es awav with one. We chatted with the five-ti~e endtJro cha~" abotJt his wi(d ride. --...;.....;;... By PAUL CLIPPER/TRAIL RIDER MAGAZINE If[:ew people would argue that Mike Lafferty had a II tough year. He started out 2002 with a new attitude and had the idea that he could win his first GNCC race if everything went right. That idea came to life at the fourth event of the season, and from there Lafferty started building up points that would eventually see him at the front of the GNCC pack, however briefly. In the meantime, he charged out to his usual lead in the AMA National Enduro Series, and for the first half of the year looked like he might be able to take the number-one plate in both series, something that has never been done before. He stretched his enduro lead to a comfortable mass of points and started looking like a sure bet for the championship for a fifth time. But things changed quickly. A dumb crash at the annual KTM dealer meeting left him sitting in a Colorado emergency room with a broken scapula and only four short weeks until the next race in the (GNCC) series. He healed in record time, but bad luck and a crack in his normal armor of confidence left him spinning at the final races of the year, facing the distinct possibility of losing both series. In the end, he rallied to finish on the GNCC podium for the first time and to score his fifth AMA National Enduro Championship at his last possible chance. We caught up to Lafferty during the '02 holiday season and talked to him about his wild year and his future goals. When you started the 2002 GNCC season, you seemed to have plenty of attitude. Did you already know you could win races, or even get on the podium at that point? Did you already have it all figured out? No. I was going to ride the 400 [KTM 400 MXC] for the first time, all year long. I was going to start on it, and I didn't know exactly how it would work. It was also the first season where I had done a ton of training in the winter time - cardio training, and riding that 400 all winter along. I had done something different, gotten ready for the season unlike I had ever done it before, and I wasn't sure what was going to happen. I wasn't sure. Even after the first race, I got a fifth, and I thought, "well, it was okay." I wanted to get through the first race okay, so I just rode really conservative, really cautious the entire time, and that only got me a fifth. Not until the second race did I think that I might have had a chance, that I could be a contender this year. What was it that finally gave you a clue that you could do it? What was the "secret," for all the B riders out there? I think the only real secret was to not ride so cautiously. After I got done with that first race [at Mike Lafferty turned a lot of heads in the 2002 GNCC series in which he's now a legitimate threat for the '03 title. 32 JANUARY 22,2003' cue I e n eVIls