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Wis con sin Observed Tria ls Association Round 2: Duker's Hole Smage Puts His Sherco on Top of the Hole By CRAIG GERNHARDT WHITEWATER, WI, MAY 2 T he Wisconsin Ob served TrialsAssociation is trying something different, and it's working. The sections have spectators, and the Champ class had its largest number of competitors in quite a while. Every sectio n, from numbe r one to 14, was within one mile of one another, so it was easy for spectators to wa lk from one to another t o view eac h C ham p rider's sec tion attempt. Trialsmaste rs Paul Phibrick and Scott Loveless did a great job on section markings and layout design. Se ven Ryan Young Products-s po nsored Sherco 2 .9 riders, each w ith years of expe rience, were tryi ng to beat t he young Smage brothers , Phillip and Pat r ic k. Elgin, Illinois, Sherco pilot Dave Rohrschne ide r gave it his best shot , so did She rco-m ou nted Je ff Lois, and so did Paul Philbrick. Big brother David Smage tried , and so d id the senior Smage, Noel, but in the end, it was all Patrick and Phillip. At t he start, it looked like Phillip might walk away w ith th is trials. Sections one and two put Patrick in t he hole . Patrick ma naged to w or k threes and one t w o o n t hes e sections, whereas Phillip nudged out ones and twos, and at t he end of t he first loo p Phillip was ahead , 13 to lB. O n the second loop, Patrick started one of his trademark moves of dwindling down eac h loop score to a low I I dabs, whi le Phillip had a silly five o n sect ion I I and turned in a 14 . Philli p had only one point on this secti on with his other two rides. After two loops, Ph illip was slightly head of Patrick, 27 to 29 . The next-closest rider was Rohrschneider, with a first -loo p score of 22 and a second-loop score of 20 , totaling 42. Phillip dialed in on his final to finish str o ng with a day- low eight . Patrick could only manage a 12. Phillip he ld off Patrick, 35 to 41. Bot h Patrick and Phillip had 16 cleans on the day. In the Expert class , Montesa rider Dave Montgomery held off Beta rider Scott Loveless and Ed Polhe ber. Montgomery sco red a 66, to Loveless ' 72, and Polheber had a high score of 137 and one clean . Montgomery and Loveless fared much better on cleans - 10 for Loveless and 14 for Montgomery. In the Advanced class , Hebo Gas Gas representative Tim Detweiler he ld off two Sherco riders from Illinois. Tom Gillespie and Cra ig Gemhardt. Dan Maupin made it a repeat of last week in the Intermed iate class, scoring the vict ory, and Fantic-mounted Bentley Wolfe held off Bultaco jockey Dave 5chigoda for the Novice win. (And no, it wasn't the Vintage class.) then slid out on a downhill turn . The fift h and sixth sectio ns o f the course posed the most difficulty for the Intermed iate ride rs and would de termine the competition's outco me. Travis Ste ve ns started first on his Hon da TLl25, carefully ba lancing himse lf up and ove r the boulde r section. He placed two steps down to tum in the next uphillclimb. Tom Fenton we nt next , with one foot down to tu m for the uphill climb. Jim Upscomb followed with a score of two . Troy Gasser made a clean ru n, placing himself in second. On the sixth and last sec tion , Fe nt on sc o re d a one - the m o st impressive ride of t he day, consideri ng he 'd crashed his tum before. It beca me apparent that staying on course was mo re important than striv ing for cleans. Fenton neve r quit a section , eve n after falling on co urse six, and he continued on to win the competition with eight cleans . On the other hand , second-p lace finisher Gasser had nine cleans but scored 10 points higher than Fenton. Many r id e rs co mp lained after the competition that the course was just too hard . Pedd ling or putting a foot down to avo id the dreaded five score was taught to the Beginner riders during the competition, and those who peddle d thro ugh t hr e e s obviously scored better. The winner of the Beginner class, Todd Harrison, scored a seven with 16 deans. RESULTS BEG : I. Todd Harrison (Yam); 2. Michael Humphries (Yam); 3. Richard Gasser (0 55). NOV: I. Ray W inward (Y : 2. Dale Beeman (Bul); 3. Mike Murry (Mon). INT: I. am) Tom Fenton (Hon ); 2. Troy Gasser (Yam) : 3. Travis Stevens (Hon ). PREM l/W: I . Stan Zedek (Due) . Tom Fen to n w o n the Inte rme d ia te competition at th e Uta h Vintage Tria ls Summer Series opener in Elberta. R ESULT S Phillip Smage flies over the log and o n to victo ry at Duker's Ho le, site of th e second round of the Wiscon sin Ob served Trials Association series . YTH : I. Ant hon y Lcener; N OV: L Ben tley Wo lfe; 2. Dave Schigoda: 3. Kevin Ge rnhard t : -4 . Bill Smage : S. Jo n Weikert. INT: I. San Maurin: 2. Marl<. Doll; 3. Pat Doll: 4. An d r ew Renner; S. Tr avis Kirkpatrick . A D V: I . T im De tw eiler. 2. Tom Gillespie : 3. C raig Ge m hard t: 4. Homer We ber, 5. Dan Cotter. EX: I. Dave Mon tgome ry: 2. Scott Loveless : 3. Ed Pohle be r. C'S HIP CL: I. Phillip Smage ; 2. Patrick Smage : 3. Dave Rohrschneider; -4 . Noel Smage: 5 . Davkl Smage. ELBERTA, UT, MAY 2 Twelve riders gathered in a typically dusty I reg io n of Utah t o c on test t he opening round of the Utah Vintage TrialsSummer Series. The first thing one not ices at a Utah Classic Trials Eve nt is th e t r ue spo rt sma ns hip a nd solida rity among riders. They c hee re d and advised one another th ro ughout the four-hou r event. In fact , the judging was shared among riders, wit h the ho no r system employed at times . Spectators enjoyed the dese rt sun on a particular ly pleasant spring day. and they didn't have to walk far at all to see all the action ! Nowadays. one doesn't necessarily have to travel far from a grocery store or other signs of civilization to attend a Utah trials event or desert race , as communities are springing up all ove r 62 espite torrential rains on Friday night tha t left the track in less-than-favorable condition, 589 entries filled the grids at roun d four of the CMRA Championship Road Racing Series , held at MotorSport Ranch near Cresson, Texas. Shogun Motorsports/Ride Smart-sponsored Ty Ho w a rd was t he b ig money winner at Cresson, claiming $635 0 in CMRA pu rse and Suzuki con tingency money afte r taking wins in the C Superstock Expert, Fo rmula One and A Superstock Expert events, sett ing a new track record o f I: 16 .] 3 in the proc ess. Anoth e r multiple-class winner was Ryan Andrews, who t o o k wi ns in t he Unl imited Motard an d Supermotard divisions. In t he co m bine d Super mo tard/F ormula Two/Vintage Ughtwe ight race , Eric Fait go t the holeshot o n his Suzuki D RZ400 . with Yamaha Y2426-mounted Andrews and Honda CRF450R rider Kyle Martin close be hind. Andrews quickly got arou nd Faitin rum one , while Jason Pirtle was capitalizing on a fast start from wave two and was D the area. The mile or so of dirt road leading to the event was smooth and flat and had just been watered down. Seve ral spectators even rode their shiny-chromed Bee mers to the event . The course was taped into six technica l but fo rgiv ing sections , wh ich were ridde n four t imes fo r Be ginne rs , N o vice s , Class ic Intermediates, and Prem ier Li htw eight riders. g Sta n Zedek , a pop ular cla ssic-motorcycle mec hanic, en tered a one-of-a-kind Ducati single trials bike that won t he Pre mie r Lightwe ight category. Who had ever heard of a Ducat i tria ls bike? "Stan the Man," who's originally from the Czech Republic, built the bike himse lfl Th e re were several tips , spills, scuffs and slight bruisings throughout the day. O nly one rider may have need ed stit ches . Utah C lassic Trials club organizer Jim Lipscomb took the first crash that could be described as a "stopple" and JUNE 2, 2004 • CYCLE NEWS MOORE CRESSON, TX, MAY 2 The Dusty Dozen STEWART Andrews, Howard Tops in Texas By SHAN Utah Vintage Tria ls Summe r Se ries Round I: Utah Vintage Tria ls Co mp e tition By D.R. CMRAChampionshi p Road Racing Serie s Ro und 4 : Moto rSport Ranch 40th Anniver sary moving toward the front. By lap two, Pirtle was up to third and pressing Martin , with FaIt and SuzukiSV650jockey Scott Levine in tow. Pirt le took the lead with an inside move on Andrews going into Rattlesnake, a tight series of S turns after the front straight, an d a t t he be ginning of lap four the order was Pirt le , Andrews and Mar tin o ut fro nt in a t ight for mat io n, with Levine in fourth and Robert Bradlaw, on a Honda CRF450R, now in fifth. On the white-flag lap, Andrews pulled back up to Pirtle's rear fender and was beginning to loo k for an opening . O n the final lap, Andrews pressed hard go ing into Little Bend, a hard righthander after the fast back straight, forcing Pirtle a little wide . This gave Andrews just the room he needed, and the Yamaha rider took Pirtle o n the brakes going into the next 90-degree tum. At the finish, th e order was Andrews by 0.37 seconds over Pirtle, with Martin, Levine and Fait roun ding out the to p five. "I wasn't sure how fast Kyle was going to be going. so I kind of too k it easy on the first lap go ing thro ugh t he [wate r] pudd les ," said Andrews. "Pirtle came by me, and I didn't know