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L.L.J:ceN"le Valley, CA • ..)-.nuery 23. 2CXJO AMA NATIONAL HARE & HOUND CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES Round 1 : Desert MC B y ANNE VAN BEVEREN PHOTOS BY TolVl VAN BEVEREN hings were rocking at the first race of this. year's AMA National Hare £, Hound Championship Series. The Desert MC laid out a course that took the racers across nearly every rock in Lucerne Valley. Ty Davis's pit crew had to rock his Yamaha YZ426 to life to get him off the starting line, and last year's top two finishers - Kawasaki KX500-mounted Brian Brown and Destry Abbott - were rocking 'n' rolling in an all-out duel at the front of the pack. When the checkered flag dropped after 80 grueling miles, Abbott had grabbed the first win of the year by a margin of just three minutes. Brian Brown crossed the line in second, giving Kawasaki Team Green a 1-2 finishing punch, and Davis had battled his way up into third. And the race got a rock-solid thumbs-up from everyone who made it to the finish. It was a cool 50 degrees when the racers lined up for the start of the twoloop, 80-mile event that Desert MC has dubbed "The Winter Classic." The still morning air, coupled with an almost rainless winter, had left the starting area blanketed with a choking layer of thick, brown dust, and the racers knew a fast start would be critical to a good end result. Brown was off like a shot when the banner dropped for the Expert wave just after 9:30 a.m., and he led the charge up the 5 1/2-mile bomb that ran due east through the cross grain toward Victor Canyon. KX500-mounted Doug Chiapuzio was right with him as he powered past the bomb and, to his surprise, so was Abbott. T "I had a four-kick start and I was nervous about that; I kept kicking and kicking and kicking," said Abbott, but his bad luck disappeared the second his KX500 fired. "Nobody took the line I had been riding. I pinned it and I went by everyone except Brown. I was second into the bomb, and then Chiapuzio passed us. He was riding really well." For Davis, the ride was not going well at all. After firing on the first kick every time during warmups before the banner was raised, his four-stroke had a change of heart when it was time to race. Davis kicke,d and kicked but to no avail, and the Yamaha hotshot finally had to be push-started by his pit crew. The front-runners were long gone and the dust had settled in with a vengeance by the time Davis's wheels started to tum. "It was one of those deals," Davis said. "I was almost last off the line and I ran dust all the way around until about three-quarters of the way around the first loop. I never saw the trail for the first 10 miles." Brown snatched the lead back from Chiapuzio in the first tight section and led the way, as the course made a clockwise circle out toward Galloway Dry Lake and then funneled the racers toward a sandy uphill west of Means Dry Lake. Abbott raced along in third as the loop continued. "I rode behind them for the first loop, just hanging in there," said Abbott. "It was kind of fast, with lots of cross-grain stuff, and I don't care for that very much, but everybody kept telling me how tough the second loop was. I was hanging in there, waiting for that. " (Above) 1999 series bridesmaid, Destry Abbott passed teammate Brian Brown to claim the round one win. Abbott also won the opener last year, but fell one race short of the championship. (Below) A talented field awaits the kick-off of yet another AMA National Hare & Hound series. Vet-class racers Abe Baumann and Ronnie Shuler and Honda XR628mounted Johnnie Campbell were all battling for a place in the top five as loop one neared the halfway point, and Davis was hard on the gas, still trying to come back from his disastrous start. "It was pretty tough," said Davis. "The dust was really bad and pe were all over the place. I just worked on picking people off. Guys would pass me; I would pass them back. There were times to go fast and times to back off, and I just picked my lines and got around them." For Nick Pearson, a good start was going downhill fast, and the Yamaha pilot was just biding his time to the end of the loop.