-
- - - - - - Round 9
OFF-ROAD
Briefly...
_ _ AMA Grand National Cross Country Series
And as fo r t he th ird- place
ride r, Hatch : "I had some arm
pump early, so it was just one of
those thi ngs, " Hatch said. "It
was so bad that I could barely
work the clutch or the brake.
On the first lap I was trying to
pass Blackwell, and I snapped
the end off, of my brake pedal. I
could just nudge it w ith my toe,
but if I h it a bump wrong, it
would ny off, and I wouldn't be
able to get back into the brake.
It was hard to get sto p ped on
those downhills. Then my arms
un pumped, and I just kept nowing and having fun . Jason and
Ro d ne y are just riding unreal
right now, and they're just pushing each o t he r."
eN
WISP SKI RANCH
Mc HENRY, MARYLAND
R ESULTS: J UNE 27, 2004
(ROUND 9 OF 14)
O/A, I. Rodney Smith (SId (Swk im (Yam I I. Jim]arrett
);
(Yam 12. Cole CaJ_ (Kaw); 13. P. A. Allen
);
(Kaw); 14. B_
Garrahan (KTH) ; 15. Scott
Watkins (Kaw); 16. jesse ROOmon (Kaw); 17.
Justin Wolliamson (Yam); IB. Aaron Wegn..-(Yam); 19.
Galk (Kaw); 20. Ryan Rodgon (KTH).
AHA GRAND NAT ION AL CROSS COUNTRY
SERIES POIN TS STAN D IN GS (After 9 of 14 rounds):
I. Rodney Smith (22115 wim); 2. )""", Raineo (2 lltl wim);
3. Steve Hatch ( 138); -I. Fred Andrews ( U S); S. Mike
lGedrow.ki (12B); 6. Ilany Hawk J'. (124" win); 7. Scott
Summen (115); B. Doug _ kweI (107) ; 9. B_ Garrahan
(99); 10 . _
Jenks (BB)
.
em.
between Smith and Raines all day. The
four-time AMA National Motocross
Champion moved into second behind
Smith duri ng the second lap, and he
looked ready to go the distance and land
on the podiu m . But his forks started colleeting air in them from the constant
pounding on the Maryland rocks, and
Kiedrowski had to slow the pace from
there.
" I worked my way up, and I fe lt good,"
Kiedrowski sai d . " I went through t he gas
st op and everything, an d I d on't know
what ha ppened, but I got a b un ch of air
b uilt up in my fo rks. It go t real stiff. It just
beat m e up duri ng the second half. I
crashed o nce when we w ere jum ping
through a mud ho le ."
Kie d rowski's crash le ft Raines a nd
Sm ith alo ne o ut front again. At t he last
two GNCC rounds , Raines has pou red on
t he speed at t he halfway point o f the race
an d t rie d to get away. Th is time he did the
same, but Smi th was able to ke e p the
pa ce. T he n Smith grab bed the le ad back
he ad ing into t he fina l lap .
" W he n we started the last lap, I starte d p ushing really hard a nd t ried to get
away," Smith sa id. " I pushed for two
mi les , an d I looked bac k, an d Jas on was
still right there. So I knew I wasn't going
to be able to run fro m him. I knew I had
some good line s near the finish, and I was
also t hinking I could maybe pressure him
into a mistake on the final grasstrack sectio n before the finish ."
" I wanted to win t h is race so bad," said
Raines. "Rod ney rode a g reat race t hough.
44
The last lap I passed him , and he passed
me back, then I got past him again . Then
he came down this hill an d snuck by me.
It's just hard to beat h im . He has so much
experience.
JUL 14,2004 • CYCLE N EW S
Y
My
9
01
OWN RACE
Doug Blackwell
5th
Blackwell continues to get better and better on his new Suzuki. "I struggled early, like
usual," Blackwe ll said. "MK and Rodney just came up on me , so I let them go . I was fighting
arm pump. The trac k was so rough , there wasn 't any place to let it out until I got to the
pits and rode on the blacktop section. Then Freddy came up to me , and we were like a
two -man wrecking crew. I think we passed five guys on the last three laps."
15
Nathan Kanney
8th
Kanney has finally mastered the art of consistency, and
now he's racking up solid results. At Wisp he was even up
to fourth at one point. "I just rode kind of slow on the
first lap, learning the track," Kanney said. "Then I was still
in there, so I just said, 'Hey let's go for it.' , didn't get
tired, but those guys definitely picked up the pace in the
second half of the race. On the last lap, I saw [Scott) Sum mers behind me. and I was thinking , 'O f all the people you
don't want behind you on the last lap.' But I managed to
hold him off."
16 Scott Summers
9th
It wasn't a good run for the five-time GNCC champ. "I would have done a lot better if I
rode faster, " Summers said sarcastically. "It was just hard to push hard on a rocky track like
this." Summers was also hampered by his typical bad start, which was further aggravated
by the dust that formed on some of the open sections of the track.
18 Shane Watts
35th
Watts rode a KTM thumper at Wisp and rode hard for the first lap. "Th at' s pretty much all
I had ; it's scary to ride this fast over those rocks ," Watts said. "I love riding in these condi tions, but I don't know about racing in them."
40th Ann iversary
Wisp hosted the sec ond annual GNCC
golf tournament, which raises funds fo r
America's ISDE program. About 60 golfers
turned out, and teams of four hit the links.
The team of GNCC trail boss Jeff Russell
and KTM's Ron Heben won the tournament.
Jeff Russell redid the W isp cou rse this year
to put some of the challenging rock sec tions in. Most riders deemed the first Wisp
course, in 2002 , too tough. And last year's
was considered too fast . Most of the riders
liked the combination on this year's track.
"I liked the track," Pro privateer Nathan
Kanney said. "I like sections where there
are rocks, and it's just a challenge to even
get through it w ithout taking your feet off
the pegs ."
Ohio's Jimmy Jarrett switthed from a
'(Z250 to a YZ2S0F for WISp, and he liked it.
'" didn't get as tired as Idid on the twostroke," Jarre tt said. Jarrett ended up battling
with the other 2SOccfour-stroke rider in the
field, Cole Calkins. Calkins, on a Kawasaki
Team Gree n KX2S0F, was strugglingwith his
suspension setu p, but he managed to get
around Jarrett on the last lap. Then Jarrett
passed him back. and they battled all the way
to the lastcomer before Jarrett got the nod .
The Wisp also counted as round five o f the
AMA Na t iona l Ha re Scrambles Se ri es,
and Smith, amazingly, is back in the po ints
lead of that se ries . Smith and his FMF Suzuki team do not contest the NHS Series separa tely, but he has wo n all t hree se ries'
rounds that run in conjunction w ith the
GNCC Series . The former series po ints
leader, Kawasaki Team Green's Chuc k
Woodford , failed to finish the Wisp when
he bent a brake rotor.
Throtdehead.com Kawasaki's Josh McLevy
r~"'IJ~~."''"'!1lIll1 ran fast early
until he
jammed the
wrist he had
actually bro ken
in the off-season . He rode
five laps before
his team told
him to pull off.
No w tha t
many of the major manufact urers have
begun to fill ou t thei r mo tocross tea ms, the
se lectio n process for the teams has begun
in th e GNCC Series. Most notably big
names like Jaso n Raines, Barry Hawk and
Chuck Woo dfo rd are fre e agents ne xt year.
Also, Rodney Smith is considering a move
to supermoto racing.
The KTM Off- Road team shou ld be back
in a much stronger fashion at the next
GNCC ro und in O hio . AMA Nat io nal
Enduro C hamp io n Mike Lafferty is expected to return from ACL surgery, and Juha
Salminen, the Finnish nine-t ime World
Enduro Champion who will ride in the
United States next year, will also give
GN CC racing a try.
