Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

• AMAlFMF National Championship Enduro Series Round B: Mosquito Classic HARRISON, MI, AUG. 10 M ike Lafferty is back to his winning ways on the National Enduro circuit, narrowly beating GNCC points leader Barry Hawk at the eighth round of the series. Scores day on his new 2004 KTM 450 EXC, off-road events and showed up to compiling a total of 42 points. Hawk By GEORGE VILLANYI have some fun at this one. Fun was was consistently second behind the what this event was all about, as the National Enduro champ, finishing trail and test sections were well laid the day with 43 ~70ints, as Randy out on private land by the Lipovski Hawkins rounded out the podium with brothers. Mike Lafferty won his fifth National Enduro event of the year in Michigan. He's once again leading the title chase by quite a bit with only two rounds left to run. a solid third on 45. The routes for the day included at check one. The second test, also only three miles in length, was fin- Lafferty was happy with his ride, nine different test sections, varying in as burning checks wasn't possible as he had lots of competition show up length from three to almost 11 miles_ with the 30-mph speed average for the event. Shane Watts was pre- Every test section began with a through the nine test sections. Laffer- sent to do battle, as were most of the restart, making for goo4-racing in the National Enduro regulars. Watts has tight Michigan woods. The first test, At check three, there were seven ty posted the qUickest times through everyone of the tests throughout the recently begun finishing well at other only three miles in length, was fast riders scoring twos, but the sec- topped by Lafferty and Hawk, as they onds told the story. Lafferty topped possessed the only twos of the day, the field coming through at 23 sec- were tight at the qualifier-style event, my Own Race Mike Lafferty 1st "There was a lot of competition today with Watts and Hawk, but I won every section, and I'm happy about that," the champ said of his day. "Alan from Enduro Engineering put a lot of work into preparing my new bike, and I got to thank him for that." Barry Hawk 2nd 3rd "In. the aftemoon, I ride really well," Hawkins said. "In the morning, I didn't ride worth a flip. I got to hand it to Mike, though. He was on it today." Shane Watts 6th "The two middle sections kind of sucked," said the tell-it-Iike-you-see-it Aussie. "I didn't like them so much, 'cause you couldn't see where you were going. I had a good ride going at the start. though. I was kind of going for it, but when I couldn't see where I was going, I went into trail-riding mode and just cruised along." n e recording the second the racers passed the flag. BRIEFLY••• Andy Shea had a bad get·off one mile into the last section and was airlifted out with a broken femur. Randy Hawkins also experienced some broken parts. but his were on his motorcycle. He "I tried to catch Lafferty today, especially at the end of the day, because that is where he usually fades a little bit, but I couldn't," Hawk said. "Mike did not fade today." Randy Hawkins ished with a tie-breaking checkout, vv s broke the banjo off his rear brake and had to finish one test rear-brakeless. When speaking about the format of the event. Hawkins said, "I like this format. However, I think it is important to keep some length in the technical sections of an enduro. If the AMA changes its enduro format in the future and it uses all grasstracks and short sections, I think we would lose a lot of what makes up an enduro - long. tough sections where you got to be smart and think to ride well. .. Jeff Fredette showed up to do battle at the Mosquito National and placed 13th. He rode on Rodney Judson's minute, and it made his day when he watched Judson cartwheel through the forest. Steve Peck was the S-class winner, placing 24th among all the A riders. According to AMA Enduro rules, with this finish, Steve is not a B rider anymore!

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