ix-time National Enduro Champion Mike Lafferty took over
the lead in the AMA/FMF
National Enduro Series by winning the Cherokee National
Enduro in a decisive fashion.
Lafferty, who was tied for fourth in the
series going into the Cherokee National,
carded a 22, besting local SE&TRA Series
riders Russell Bobbitt (26 points) and
Stephen Edmondson (28 points), who finished second and third, respectively. Lafferty,
Bobbitt and Edmondson, all aboard KTMs,
made it an all-orange podium.
Lafferty said the win made up for his
disappointing early round finishes, where
he finished fifth and third.
"My finishes where hard to take," he
said. "I had some bad luck in California
when I went from second to fifth when
the last three checks where thrown out.
It didn't get any better in Arizona when 1
was scored wrong at one of the checks,
S
32
and when we went to check the backup
sheets, they had no record I was there!
"Finally, I'm where I thought I should
have been all along," Lafferty added.
Lafferty's climb in the series standings,
from fourth to first, was helped dramatically due to the series front-runners' finishes: Honda CRF250X-mounted Matt
Stavish finished I I th, KTM-mounted Billy
Russell DNFed, Kawasaki's Steve Hatch
finished sixth, and KTM's David Lykke
ended up fifth. They were all overshadowed by Bobbitt's and Edmondson's
podium finishes, as well as the fourthplace finish by defending champ Randy
Hawkins, who rode a Yamaha YZ250.
Lafferty, on the Enduro Engineering!
KTM Hard Equipment/Thor/ Michelin
450, now sits atop the series points
championship for the first time in over
two years.
"Winning is actually a real big deal for
me," Lafferty said of his victory in
APRIL 6,2005 • CYCLE NEWS
Georgia. "I needed to turn things around.
Once 1 got back east and won the
Alligator Enduro and finished second at
the GNCC last week, 1 was pumped to
come here. The Cherokee is always a nobull-crap enduro. The best rider usually
wins it straight up, and today 1 feel 1
earned it.
"This place always brings back good
memories for me," Lafferty went on to say.
"It's where 1won my first National back in
1997. It's a great place to ride. They always
use a check-in/check-out format, and that
helps eliminate the kind of problems I had
during the first two rounds."
Lafferty's win came after he, Bobbitt
and Edmondson pulled away from the rest
of the field during the first two special
tests, when they went 0-0-1 in the first
three of the enduro's 15 checks. From
