IN
THE
WIND
P36
BURSON GRABS GORMAN WHS VICTORY
P
urvines DA8 Racing Ya-
maha's Nick Burson didn't
always like racing at the Hungry
Valley State Vehicular Recre-
ation Area and Quail Canyon
MX Park. Unless you're lucky
enough to hit it after a rare
SoCal storm, the trails tend to
be very hard-packed, slick and
dusty, often with steep cliffs to
ride off should you overshoot a
turn or make another mistake.
But after many, many hours
of testing when he worked for
Kawasaki, he came to grips
with the area and got very good
at negotiating its trails. Thus,
it was no surprise to see him
walk away with the win at the
Prospectors Motorcycle Club's
Gorman Hare Scramble, round
three in the Kenda/SRT AMA
West Hare Scramble Regional
Championship Series, March
18-19. Leading from green flag
to checkered, he finished four
minutes ahead of Beta's Max
Gerston, while Axel Pearson re-
bounded from wrapping himself
around a tree early on to give
Purvines DA8 Racing Yamaha a
1-3.
"I hated this place when I first
started racing here," Burson
said. "It's slippery and hard to
know.
"I've raced here so many
years now, you [get to] know the
terrain, you get comfortable with
it—blue groove, slippery—so you
get used to letting the bike slide
around. It feels like you have a
flat. You can't go forward unless
you're a gear high."
Taking those lessons learned,
the reigning series champ out-
ran the field on his FMF/Preci-
sion Concepts/Thor-sponsored
YZ450FX.
Gerston got going well early
to hold second on his Motul/
Kenda/Klim 390 RR after a
somewhat disappointing sixth in
the mud of round two on a 300
RR two-stroke.
"I thought it'd be a little better
for the hard-packed stuff and it
was!" he said. "Nick was defi-
nitely hauling. I tried on the first
lap to kind of gauge off him a
Nick Burson (1)
dominated the
Gorman Hare
Scramble from the
green flag, taking
the holeshot and
extending his lead
with each mile.
