Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
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The second annual Maxxis EnduroCross used a racing fonnat similar to a traditional supercross race, but there were some significant differences. On Friday afternoon, amateurs competed in "motas" to get into Saturday's program. On Saturday afternoon, the 33 remaining contestants got in one lap of practice before going for it in a single-lap race against the clock, which was used to detemnine start picks for the evening's program, where three heats, three semis and one LCQ were used to narrow the field down to just 10 riders for the IO-lap main event. The top two riders in the heats transferred directly to the main, while only the winner of the semis and the LCQ transferred to the main. As you can see, it was truly a major accomplishment just to make it into the main event. Seven-time National Enduro Champion Mike Lafferty almost didn't make it past his one lap of practice, when he endoed big-time over one of the tractor-tire jumps. "I can't even tell you what I was thinking," Lafferty said in disgust. "I was screwing around, and I saw Ryno [Ryan Hughes] jump off that thing, and he overjumped it by a mile. I wasn't even thinking about doing it, I just did. Wow, that thing kicked me and shot me over. It was one of those things; I'm glad that I'm okay and that Igot up from that," Now in its second year, the EnduroCross race saw its first really scary moment when which had spent most of the evening on its collective feet inside the Orleans Arena, which holds about 7000 people. "I'm over the moon," a very happy Knight said. "This year has been absolutely incredible. To win this... well, there's going to be a party tonight!" For Knight, getting over the moon wasn't exactly an easy thing to do, especially after crashing hard in his heat race and tweaking his left arm. Despite losing some strength in the arm, he went on to win his semi and the main event, even after getting off to a mediocre start. "In the main, I didn't have a good pick and had to start on the inside," Knight said. "I actually got a good jump, but went wide in the second turn and everyone went inside of me. I got past a couple of guys, then got settled in and thought I had a good chance to win." Knight soon found himself in third, behind last year's EnduroCross winner, Hughes. "I got behind him [Hughes], and then he got stuck on the wood and I got around him," Knight said. "I then had a good line and got next to that Kawasaki guy [Dietrich], and he made sort of a bobbie and got past him. Then, I almost had a big crash over the tires; that was a bit of a wake-up call, so I just started to concentrate. I was glad to see that last-lap flag. I was confident I could do the last lap nice and safe and not do anything silly." And he was right. Despite getting passed by Knight, Dietrich remained focused on the task at hand and appeared to have second place in the bag - that is, until retired motocrosser John Dowd came along. Dowd, who had crashed on the sec- Nathan Kanney and Mexico's Homero Diaz crashed hard in the first turn of the LCQ. Both Kanney and Diaz tumbled onto an opposing section of the track that was filled with big rocks and logs. Kanney pretty much ended up on his feet, but Diaz laid on the track for a while, forcing the race to be red-flagged. After a few minutes, Diaz got up, waved to the crowd and slowly walked off the track. "I just wanted the holeshot so bad, I just didn't let off, and you saw what happened," Diaz said. '" just went over the log and hit a big rock with my leg, with my shoulder, with everything. When I hit that rock, I thought it was going to be very serious, because it just knocked the wind out of my sails. I couldn't see well, my left eye was really, really blurry. I'm going to feel very, very bad tomorrow." Kanney walked away unscathed. "I went out of control, like three lanes of the track, and somehow landed on my feet," Kanney said. ''As soon as I looked up, I saw Homero on the ground, and I just felt so bad for him. I didn't know if I wanted to race anymore. Fortunately, they redflagged it and I was able to give it another try." Missing The Cut: Considering how many top off-road racers signed up for the Maxxis EnduroCross and that only 10 spots were available in the IO-lap main event, many superstars of the sport would not make it into the main event. Some of those who didn't make it were Nathan Woods, Barry Hawk, Russ Pearson, Geoff Aaron, Destry Abbott, Randy Hawkins, Josh Continued on page '9 CYCLE NEWS • NOVEMBER 30,2005 17