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/128318
Barry Hawk dropped from first to fourth in the series points standings after taking a hard to -swallow DNF in North Carolina. His day ended when he rode off a bridge and into a river. "I came across the bridge, and just as I turned, there was a post," Hawk said. "Another half-inch and it wo uld have missed , but it caught the bar and pulled the front e nd to the left. And then the throttle went on, so I turned the other way to try to compensate, and I let off the thrott le , and the bike hooked up and shot me into the river. Me and the bike were both under water. So we got it pushed back to the pits, and I thought maybe we could get it started. But it was too far gone. They flipped it ove r, and kicked it over and drained out the pipe and kicked it w ith the spa rk plug out. I think a few minnows came ou t of the engine ." Team FMF SuzukI's Fr ed Andrews got off to a bad start whe n his bike stalled on the second lap. After kicking and kicking and kicking his RM2S0, he finally got it started. Suzuki team manager Mike Webb suspected that Andrews had collected some water in his gas. After he pitted for new fuel, he rod e strong and worked his way back up to the top ten . (Above) Ja so n Raines was caught off g uard tow a rd the end wh ile leading. (Rig ht) Mike Kiedrow s ki found his way o nto the podium again. " It seems like I get a littl e tight early in th e race ," Raines said . "I don't know what it is a bo ut pitti ng, but it's like that five seconds is all yo u need to re a lly get going. At the beginning we were just cruising. I didn't care really who w as in the lead, I was just trying to ride sm a rt and let th e rac e come to me. It doesn't really matter until the end. You kno w, if so meo ne tries to run, you maybe run with t hem. But it's not until you stop for gas th at everyone starts to pick it up. " The rest of t he field , meanwhile, ha d th inned a bit , and only the FMF Suzuki duo of Smith a nd Mike Kiedro ws ki w e re st ill charg ing for the w in. " I w as leading, and I got stuc k on Nate Kanney has compi led a solid list of mechani cal problems lately, and he added a broke n fender to the list th is week. "I got up w ith a bro ken fender [from a first-tum crash], and I figured I would just ride until my ignition blew or something, and this way I could say I dropped out with a mechanical failure and not because of a crash . But then nothing went wrong, so I figured I would act ually have to charge all the way to the end. " Jas o n Raines was not happy about losing the race after pulling out a big lead, but he seems to be taking all of his results in stride nowadays. ''I'm just trying to have fun now," Raines said. "As long as I put in a good effort, I'm going to be happy. At the first race in Texas, I was so prepared [that] I was overprepared. I would just be so stressed and nervous before the race . It wasn't really any fun anymore. So I'm just trying to have fun now. But it's hard . It's hard to have fun when you have to train and work so hard during the week." As is typical for this time of the year, many of the GNCC riders have been hanging out at Randy Hawkins' house in South Carolina . "We 're calling it the H Ranch now," RaInes said. "Me and Barry and Chuck (Woodford] and Freddy (Andrews] have all been riding down there." The Stee le Creek GNCC was co -sanctio ned by SETRA,and it drew a huge crowd of well over r000 riders. Oh io's Charles Mullins was the top finishing amateur ride r, topping the 2SOccA class and collect ing ISth overal l in his KTM. C YC LE N EWS • APRIL 7,2004 3S