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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(Below) Doug Blackwell rode his number-one National Hare Scrambles Championship winning Yamaha to a fourth-place fi nish. (Above, left to right) Josh McLevy (47), Fred Andrews (2) , Paul Edmondson (7) , Watts (4) and Scott Summers (19) start their three-hour battle on the Loretta Lynn's motocross track. Edmondson and Andrews ran first and second early on , but an engine failure sent Andrews back to the pits prematurely. Edmondson went on to fin is h a re spectable second. (Right) For a while It looked as though Steve Hatch was going to finish outside the top five , but the Team Suzuki rider overcame a number of problems and moved up to third. BRIEFLY • • • In a move to help reward the sponsors that have stuck by the GN CC series CWiseco. Yamaha. Dunlop. MSR. FMF. Klotz . Acerbis. EK. Scott. Carmate . Ballzee . Laeger s. Outerwears. and MaxxisJ the Racer Productions crew will have a P re mier S ponso r at selected GNCC events . Yamaha wa s the Premier Sponsor at Loretta Lynn's and was generous enough to give away a Yamaha Tl-H gO as well as sponsor a cookou t both nights. In the future. MSR will be the Premier Sponsor of the Wi lderne ss W eek end GNCC (with Malcolm himself as master of ceremonies) and FMF will be the Premier Sponsor of the John Penton GNCC . Dunlop will have the honors at the High Point GNCC. Those who have been to the Lorett a Lynn GN CC bef ore may have noticed something vel)! special. In a rare occasion. the motocross track was used for something other than the amateur nationals. Riders got the privilege of starting on the motocross track and then the track was used again to close out each lap. In the past Big Dave Coo mbs wou ld seldom ever let anyone use the track . but the Racer Producti ons crew felt the GN CC series had grow n to the point where it was time to make a change . Each year the GNC C series get s bigger and bette r. and this year has been no except ion. Over 375 quads and 744 bike entrants showed up at the ranch to try their hand at one of the best racing series in the country , In the bike class there we re 36 Pro riders hammering it out. (Right) Oddly enough KTM's M ike Lafferty rode a four-stroke at Loretta's. Odder yet, he rode a 400 SX model rather than the off-road EIXC model. It didn't affect his results any, however, as the twotime National Enduro Champ rode to a seventh-place finish. The course at Loretta's was in great shape afte r rains early in the week left the soil perf ect. The course , laid out by Racer Production's Jeff Russell, was fast. exciting. and challenging to say the least. Randy Hawkins summed it up whe n he said. " It' s not what I wou ld call tight. but it really comes down to w hat line you take. " The course included a great spec tato r section that saw rid- ers run down the side of the infamous Loretta Lynn's cree k before turning back into the woods. Last year. Shane Watts pulled a huge burnout on the porch of the general sto re that stands on the ranch grounds. Wh ile the crowd wen t absolutely nuts. the store owners we re a bit upset and wanted Mr. Watts banned from the property. An apology and 600 bucks later and the issue was resolved. This year the crow d wanted another burnout. but Watt s res trained himself . He did promise that if he won the Championship he would do a huge burnout and nobody was going to stop him. The pits at Loretta' s resembled that of a National Motocross. with all of the facto ry support and the presence of the Kawasaki big rig and box vans from Honda. Suzuki. KTM . and Yamaha. The only diffe rence was the pits were open to all. As Mi ke Kiedrow ski said. "This is what motocross used to be like back in the day. " KTM 's rider s we re again keeping things intere sting by switching race machines . W att s moved from the 250 back to his trusty 125 and M ike Lafferty tried his luck on KTM 's new 400S X four-stroke. The change didn't seem to hurt their results any. The fastest lap of the event belonged to Paul Edmondson . The Brit logged a 27:3 1 to close out the first lap. (Left) Mike Kiedrowski and his Suzuki DR-Z400 overcame the muddy conditions and rode to an e ighth-place showing . Off -road legend J ohn Penton was on hand in Tennessee to watch the action. Penton was tak ing part in a book signing for John Penton and the Off-Road M otorcy cle Revolution by Ed Youngblood . Many will remember Penton as the man who encouraged KTM to build small-bore motor cycles under the Penton name. How fitt ing that Watt s took the win on a KTM 125 . c ue I e n eVIls M AY 10 . 2000 43