Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Okeechobee, Florida], I wasn't tired; I wasn't beat up at all. I just kinda rode the bike the way it should be ridden: I didn't force any issues; I was riding smooth; I felt great. At the next race, I rode that race [Macon, GA] 100 percent the entire time. I didn't hold anything in reserve, wasn't cautious, wasn't hanging out or anything, and I wound up in third. I was actually leading until the very last lap, when I got passed by Steve [Hatch] and [Mikel Kiedrowski. That race was a turning point for me. I knew then that I had these guys covered. What happened was, I got a decent top-! 0 start, and before the end of the first lap, I had passed everyone and gotten into the lead. Then I crashed, wound up in third, got back up and passed everyone back into the lead, then put 30 seconds on everyone. I knew then that I had the speed. I knew that I had enough in me, enough gas, to do it, because I wasn't riding cautiously any more. I wasn't paying attention to who I was racing against, I was just riding the race the way it needed to be ridden. I was just riding my bike. I don't know if there's an actual "secret," but something changed. Something clicked. I knew I could be a contender after Macon. Yes, but when you get to that point where you can be a contender, what does it take? Is there a lot of luck involved? No. No, what I was doing before is, I wasn't making certain decisions during a race because I wasn't sure I could make it for the duration of the race. Now I knew I could make it. [Because of that] I was taking chances. I was pushing the envelope even more. I wouldn't give a guy a line, and I was taking more chances to pass a guy to take a line from someone. I think, yeah, you have some luck, but you make a lot of it, too - especially in the GNCC. I mean, you can be nice and let the other guy go, maybe take some lines here and there. But you can be aggressive and push your way up to a guy, and then the next thing you know you push your way again to another guy. Then you come into a mud hole and you slide through it - there's two guys stuck. Well, if you were behind them, then you'd be even further behind and you wouldn't have caught the front guy. It's all about how you make your own, I think. At the next race, in North Carolina, I was back in the pack on the last lap. I was in fifth, and I passed Freddie [Andrews] and Kiedrowski to take third. That was a big eye-opener and a big race for me. It made me feel good, because I came from back in the pack and rode really aggressively and passed those two. They got bobbled up in some holes and stuff, but I had Kiedrowski behind going through the grass track at the finish, and he never got around me. I held him off and beat him to the end. Then you won the next round, round four, in South Carolina. Did you find it an easy thing, or was it a hard job? Oh, it was easy, it was the easiest race. Of all these races combined, that was the easiest day of the entire series. Did getting that win - your first win of your GNCC career - change your strategy for the next race? Yes. I thought I was forcing too much before. I felt like I had to get a good start, hurry up and get to the front and chill out because I knew I had it. That if I rode good and smart, I could be 30 seconds or a minute in front of everyone and then hold onto it from there. But at this one [South Carolina] I got a great start; I was third off the line and second into the woods, and I was in the lead within two miles. I led every lap. Guys came up and challenged me, but I never got nervous; I just rode my own race. They had problems, I kept just bumping ahead, and I thought, "God, that was simple. I can do that." Well, at the next race, in Tennessee, I knew it was going to be a physical race; it's always really tough and demanding down there. So I thought, "I'm going to get a good start, I'm going to hang out with these guys, and I'm going to ride to win again." It didn't happen that way. I got out to the front, led the first two or three laps, and Jason [Raines] and Kiedrowski kept pushing and pushing, and then I started doubting myself. I'm thinking that this is the most physical race; do I have enough? And actually, before that race, I knew that Tennessee was going to be really hard, so I pushed myself really hard in training that week, and I think I pushed too much. I was tired. That was the first race I felt tired at this year, and I got whupped. I got really tired on the last lap. Was it hard to not win after winning one? Yeah, definitely, because I knew I could have won Tennessee if I didn't work out as much the week before. I wore myself out before I got there. When I won, I had a great attitude. My bike was hooked up, I never got tired, I rode to the win, and it was easy. Then we went to Kentucky, the next one. I got up front early and got into riding around, and it was never easy. I was thinking it was going to be easy like South Carolina and everything was going to fall my way, but it wasn't falling my way. I got stuck behind lappers, then I hit the camera guy. My perfect day ended up being fourth; I couldn't even get to the podium. Same kind of story for the next one, Ohio. After winning a race and then getting third, I tapered off my training because I didn't want to get too tired for the races, and I wound up getting two fourths; I couldn't even get back on the podium. So I'm thinking, "Shit, I'm starting all over again. I won a race, and now I can't even get back to where the podium was." So I started saying, "Okay, regroup." And at Taylorton, Chuckie [Woodford] rode real good there. That was his day, and I was thinking, "I have to push the envelope here, but I can't push it too much and make mistakes like I did at the last two races." So I wound up third, had a good day, and then we went to Maryland with the same plan. On the last lap Jason broke his leg, and it was Rodney's [Smith] day. Rodney was on at Maryland. Lafferty had one of his best seasons in terms of speed, but he barely won his fifth enduro title. When Jason broke his leg at Maryland, he was right in front of you. Did you see it, and did it have any effect on you at the Lime? At that point, he had just passed me. Neither of us could have seen Rodney at the time; he was just out of sight. I was hoping for Jason and I to work together and get to Rodney. That's the first thing I thought when he passed me, "Okay Jason's gonna take off; I'm going with him." Then he hit that thing - it seemed to me like something was wrong, like his throttle stuck or he got a little sideways and accidentally grabbed too much throttle. He just shot out of there like - he couldn't have done it on purpose. Something weird happened, and then I didn't see the landing because I was coming up out of the hill, so I didn't see how the landing affected him; I just saw that he fell over. I didn't know he'd gotten taken out by the tree. So he fell down, and I figured he was going to roll off. I pretty much put the hammer down, but I was waiting for him to come up and get me. I also wanted to catch Rodney on my own if I could, but with Jason falling like that, it kind of took the wind out of my sails a little bit. It made me realize that anything could happen. I figured I was sitting in second, which wasn't bad. If Jason comes back up, we'll go at it, but I wasn't pushing that much after I saw him go down. I didn't think he'd done what he did, when I saw him go down. I figured he'd be right back up and after me. It only clicked later that something must have happened to him. Honestly, when he didn't catch me on that last lap, I figured something broke on his bike or he ripped a throttle cable off or something. Then I was really concerned. When I crossed the line, there was Mark Hyde sitting there, and I asked him what happened to Jason right away. He told me Jason had broken his leg, and then I felt kind of bad that I rode off. But, at the time it happened, I didn't know what to think. At that spot, though, there were a lot of spectators and camera people and whatnot to take care of the situation, whatever it was, so it didn't concern me so much. If we were way back in the woods and I wasn't sure about him, I would have probably stopped. For that, I'm glad it cue I e n e _ S • JANUARY 22,2003 33

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