tough for the
GNCC
racers.
Not only
did they have to start olf
the series on
one of the toughest, sandiest and most
whooped-out track on
the circuit, but
they also had to deal with
KTI',1's
Juha
Salminen, the defending GNCC Cham-
pion,
who
is
a sand specialist. So it didn't
come as
a
great
surprise that the Finn
easily squashed any momentum the
competition was hoping to build from
the start.
ln
Florida, Salminen
jetted
out
to an early lead and destroyed the field
en route to his most dominant win
ever.
Just
a few days later the
se.ies
resumed
in Georgia for the Maxxis
General GNCC, and with a more
tradi-
tional GNCC course setup -
dirt
instead
ofsand, trees instead ofwhoops
-
itgave
everTone else at least a
better chance to
hang with him.
And they
pretty
much did. Salminen
still won with seeminS
ease, but the
stopwatch indicated
that the
pack
was a
little closer this time. The charge was
led by FMF
Suzuki's Glenn Kearney,
who
showed serious speed
by
running
about 40 seconds behind Salminen for
most of the day before taking
a
runner-
up finish.
ln Florida,
Salminen
won
by
four
minutes.
"Today,
the first
two laps I felt really
exhausted,
you
know?"
said the lo-time
World
Enduro Champion.
"l
felt soft; I
felt
tired
-
I think it was from Florida.
We had that Florida
race, and lthink
everyone
on the track today was still
feeling that race."
lndeed,
everyone was struggling
through
Georgia, it seemed, since the
Florida race was one of rhe most
physi-
cally
demanding GNCCs of all time,
and
the riders
only had five days in between
races to Tecover.
Kearney
rode brilliantly to finish
sec-
ond, but he
admitted that he was tired at
the end.
"l
rode
pretty
well today,"
Kearney
said. I was a
bir
disappointed in
Florida, I felt
like I let the team down. I
felt
good
in the first half, and then I
heard
The
General
