Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

1 _ S eptembe r 13-18, 2004 OFF-ROAD 79th International Six Days Enduro '" know I kind of let the team down. Believe me, ending up in t he hos pital was the last thing tha t I wante d to happen . I'd really like to than k Sara Nelson [an ERt rained tra uma nu rse, w hose hu sb and , Kyle, w as r id ing on a U.S. club te am] w ho insisted th at I go to the hosp ital. If it was u p to me , I just wo uld of laid down a nd gone to sle ep. Afte r spending a week in a Po lish hosp ital w here no bo d y speaks Eng lish , all I can say is I can 't wait to be stuck in traffic back in New Yo r k and have so m e guy nip me the finger." Conside r ing t he ci rcumstances, the U .S. Trophy r iders weren't too disappointed w ith their 12th-place st art; after a ll, t hey had more important t hings o n th e ir m inds that nigh t . Lucki ly, th e ir teammate, Kanne y, was going to be o kay. T he re mai nder of the Trophy team N ick Pearson , Fred Hoe ss , Jim my Jarre tt, Tim Taber an d Kurt C as elli - regro up ed fo r day two a nd, like Kanney had d on e the Jimmy Jarrett Gold (40th E2) Greg Ghione Silver (75th E I) "During the beginningof the wee k, I think Iwas thinking too much," Troph y rider JimmyJarrett said. "By the middle of the week, I just rode the test without worrying about fallingor stuff like that, and that's when my times start ed to improve . I came here to at finish on Gold, and that's what I was able to do . Up to this week, I've had limited experi ence with the Six Day's fomnat; I've ridden a few qualifiersand enduros but nothing like this. I've learned a lot and I'm lookingforward to riding a Six Days again. As far as the Europeans go, they are so fast. Everybody tells you that coming here , but until you see it, you can't believe it. Obviously they 're better at grass track than we are, but we can get better. Each day Iwas able to improve my times , so with a little nnore grass-track practice in the off-season, we allcan improve ." "I didn't have any mechanical problems this week , but I tw isted my knee pretty bad o n day two and that kind of took th e fight out of me:' Ghione said. ':t>.t first I didn't even know if I was going to even finish, so I was happy to finish, es pecially on Silver. It act ually was a lot of fun. The tra ils were fast and te chnical, but hey, th is is th e Six Days." C ody Mastin "I started having mechanical problems on day two w he n the valves on my bike started to tighten up, and it was almost impossible to get it started:' Bucher said. ':t>.t the end of the day, we checked everything we could to make sure it wasn't a dirty carburetor or a shorted-out wire. The next day, with the help of Topper Ghione and my dad , I pulled the top-end down and tried to re place the valve shims. Up to that point, I'd never worked on a top-end of a four-stroke. But we just couldn't get the proper setup. The only shims we had available were too thic k. Ne xt year is my revenge year, so look out . I do ubt I'll ride it on a four-stroke, though. I'll probably use DeffJ Fredette's approach and get a KDX." Silver (43rd E3) "W hen the Gemnan rider on my minute was killed, that kind of messed me up for the week:' Cody Mastin said. "W he n I got there his bike was still running , but he was leaned up against this tree and he barely had a pulse. Another couple of riders stopped and we did what we could, but he was gone. The rest of the week, we must have ridden by that tree eight or nine times, and each time I would th ink back to how one minute we were riding along trying to make it to the next check and, just like that , he was dead. It could have happened to any of us. This is my th ird Six Days and I guess it went pretty well. I had no real me chanical problems and my tests were okay. It was just tough to not keep thinking about day three." Nick Pearson Go ld (21 st E3) "The tests here were all typical European grass-track stuff, so finding the right line was so important," Trophy rider Nick Pearson said. "The trails were really rough , and by the end of the week they were all wasted. The trail pace was always fast, and with the dust you had to be heads-up on the trail. I was a little disappointed with my time s. It's hard to come here and all of the special tests are grass tracks when I spend most of my time racing in the desert. So I felt my times wh ere off a little , but the w ho le thing was a great experience." 34 oaOBER 6, 2004 • CYCLE NEWS Daniel Janus Bronze (I I I t h E I) "I had a few problems and dropped some ro ute points on day four," Janus said. "I melted a hole in my gas tan k, so we decided to replace it and also do a clutch in the morning [on day five]. Everything w as going fine, and the n I bro ke off on e of the bolts on the clutch basket. We were just swappi ng out the clutch plates just to be safe and then I tw isted off a bo lt, so later that day we had to swap out the clutch and anothe r whole basket." Mat th ew Bucher DNF A lan Deyo DNF On day four, Alan Deyo suffered a hard get-off that put him out of the race and sent him home early. Imme diately after the crash, Deyo was transported to the hospital where he was diagnosed as having a broken co llarbone. After he got home, it was discovered that he had also bro ken five ribs, punctured a lung and broken his scapula. Mark Faulk Silver (72nd E2) "I had a re a' consistent week:' Faulk said. "T his is my seco nd Six Days, and I knew what to expect. Here, they kept us in the saddle a lot and the trail neve r let up. Our Club team finished top American team [21st out of 72 teams], and we each tried to have fun with it. At the end of the day, we' d compare test times and give the slower rider a bad time ." 40th Anniversary previo us day, pr e ssed o n, putting up a good fight the rest o f t he wee k. After m any promising m oments o ve r t he next five days , t he U.S. Trophy te am wo rked its way up to finish out t he week in ninth o ut of 2 1 teams . All of the U .S. Tro phy riders earne d Gold medals , exce pt fo r Tab e r, w ho finish e d on Silve r. O bvio usly, a ninth-p lace finish isn' t w ha t the te am had in mi nd o n t he long night to Poland, but t here w e re so me positive things t hat came out of the week. Main ly, th e performance turn e d in by C alifornia's Kurt Caselli. The KTM pilot ha d on e of t he best rides put fo rth by an Am e r ican in ISD E history, putting his name right t here wi th t he like s o f Rodne y Smith, Larry Roe seler and Malcolm Sm it h. Com pe t ing in t he highly com petitive En d ur o 2 (25 0cc two-stroke) class, Caselli place d a remarka ble thi rd and gave t he U.S. continge nt so mething to che er about as he accepted his t rophy d uring John Barber Silver (56th E2) "I reallyhad a pretty good Six Days," Barber said. "I just missed finishing on Gold, and I think I finished like sixth-fastest American. I crashed a lot in the tests , but Iwas always able to put together some descent times. D ay six was almost a disaste r. I was having trouble with my eye and my contacts, so after day five, I we nt to a local phamnacy and asked for some eye drops. The lady at the counter just couldn't unde rstand what I meant, so I pointed at my eye and pret ended to put in eye drops. She nodded her head 'yes' and she gave me a little bottle. The next morning, when I put in the drops, my eyes started to bum and it was hard to focus. As it tumed out, she had gave me some eye dilation drops and I could hardlysee. Just gett ing to the final chec k and the final moto was almost impossible. The onlyway I could see anything was to squint my eyes to the point that I co uldn't see any detail." Mike McCarren Bronze (I 38th E2) "I got the call at th e last minute from the AMA that I coul d go to Six Days if I w anted to , but the bike container had alread y shipped : ' McCarren said. "So I had like halfa day to decide if I wa nted to go . I went wit h a rental bike and eve rything worked out great. I lost a couple of route points on day one wh en I got hit by a local kid who was out riding th e trails on his bike. That was kind of weird." Jeff Bauer Silver (86th E2) "It was a little tougher than I expe cted:' Bauer said. "On days one and two, it too k a lot of energy to just get through th e day. Then o n day three I crashed a lot, but by day four and five, I finally got things going in my directio n." Amanda Mastin Bronze ( I38th E2) "By day five, I was so exhausted I didn't th ink I could make it," Mastin said, "and the n the strangest th ings started to happen. I came into th is check and this guy walks up to me and asks me to autograph a coupl e of ISDE programs for him. So I d id, and he holds them up and points over to two boys standing on the other side of the check, and they're going crazy, jump ing up and down and blow ing kisses at me and chanting, (Amanda, Amanda , Amanda.' And then about an hour later, there's th is gro up of kids stand ing beside the trail and so me of them are

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