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/128331
maha_m o unte d Nath an Kan ney re lied on consist e ncy, his ex pert mud-rid ing skills, and a little bit of goo d luck to to p the 64-rider field at the Athens 2-Day Q ualifier. Over the tw o-day com petition that utilized nine spe cial tests, Kanney racked up a total of 3100 points, we ll clear of Mark Hyde 's ru nner-up tally o f 3 177. Rounding out the to p five was KTM's Tim Taber with 3 182 points, Gas Gas rider John Barber with 3 18S po int s and Yama ha-moun ted Jimmy Jarrett with 3208 points. Kanney posted the quickest times in three of the qualifier's nine special tests, while Jarrett recorded the quickest times in the four of them. Kanney, the 21-year-old who hails from High Falls, New Y k, took advantage of a bad break or to Jarrett right off the start, when Jarre tt 's Yamaha ran out of gas during the fi rst spec ial test, costing him 146 points to Kanney. That early problem cost Jarrett any chance he had at winning. "It's a little odd beat ing Jimmy that way," Kanney said. "But something like that can happen to anybody." "Right from the start [day one] I was having tro uble with my carburetor when the need le and seat stuck open," Jarrett said. " I figured I had it stopped in time. The test was going pretty good until I ran out of gas." Jarrett's bike came to a stop just a few hundre d yards from the finish of the test and less than a quarter-mile from the first scheduled gas stop . "I knew Jarrett was going to be tough, but when he ran out of gas, that kind of put the pres- Y Nathan Kanney ca me away with the overall w in at the Athens 2 ·Day Qualifier. 68 JULY 7, 2004 • CYCLE NEWS 40th Anniv ersary sure on him to come back ," the RER Moto rcity/Shift/ Facto ry Co nnection/Works Con nection/Maxxis/Spectro -backed winner said. "The mud was probably the next-best th ing to happen . I'm a better rider when the trail gets technical. Most guys get nervous; I get more re laxed." Kanney was talking about the extremely muddy conditions that greeted the riders after three months of rainy weather had saturated central Oh io, causing the Athens Motorcycle Club to reroute the course days before the start. Hyde, the 43-year-old O hio native who works for KTM as a regional sales manager, said, "I'm a little surp rised with my results. It kind of helped having Jarrett [and others] have troubles. The mud didn't hurt either. These kind of cond itions are always right up my alley. The club did an exce llent job of eliminating sections that could have caused bottlenecks." Athens Motorcycle Club's event trail boss, Kevin Brown, said, "With all the rain we 've had lately, we just didn't want to jeopardize anybody 's chances of qualifying for Poland by using mudd y or rutted tra ils. We 're also running this event in conjunction with a District II endu ro, and we plan on running two loops each day, and it would have been rea l easy to have problems. "Earlier in the week Drew Smith came out, and he and I evaluated all of o ur trails and took out the sections tha t looked like they would cause problems," Brown said. "For the most part we used mostly dual sport trails and left the special tests alone." Taber, who rode a 2S0cc four-stroke, said, "Coming here, I was n't sure riding a small four-