The champion has left the building, so a bunch of contenders
are looking to move into his office. After Juha Salminen dominated the Can-Am
Grand National Cross Country Series for the past two seasons, the friendly Finn
decided to return to Europe and rejoin the
World Enduro Championship that launched his career. He took two titles and 17
GNCC wins during his 24 months in the States, so the mere fact that he is gone
will give the GNCC field a huge boost of confidence heading into the 2007
campaign, which opens Tuesday, March 6, with the Parts Unlimited Triton GNCC in
Vero Beach, Florida, part of Daytona Bike Week.
| David Knight. Jonty Edmunds photo
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With
Salminen out, a potent field of contenders now has sights firmly settled on the
GNCC Championship, a fact which promises to present one of the best GNCC title
fights of all time. You will have the typical GNCC elite—riders like Barry
Hawk, Charlie Mullins and Glenn Kearney, all fired up over the chance to battle
without Juha—tangling with Salminen’s KTM
replacement, off-road world beater David Knight. Adding more intrigue is the
invention of a new class, the XC2 Pro Lites class, which is a 250F class
designed to launch the next generation of GNCC stars. Add it all up and you’ve
got a lot of questions to answer heading into the series kickoff in the Florida sand.
The Knight
factor is literally the biggest of them all. The big man from the Isle of Man
has won everything in sight during the last two years, including two World
Enduro Championships (including a perfect season last year), and overall win at
the ISDE, two wins at the Red Bull Last Man Standing, a Maxxis EnduroCross
triumph, and even a win in a beach race over Stefan Everts a few months ago.
Knight has been almost unstoppable over the last two years, as his combination
of strength and size (he stands 6 feet 4 inches) as well as skill (he grew up
as a trials rider and possesses alien-like talent and technique in technical terrain)
make him hard to stop. As big of a gap that Salminen has left, it’s not hard to
imagine Knight being able to fill it. At the very least, the Red Bull KTM team
is counting on it. Knight broke a bone in his hand a few weeks ago which has hampered his training, but reports from those who have seen him testing indicate he'll still be plenty fast even when he's not 100 percent.
Knight did race a GNCC last year to
get a feel for the series, and he ended up with an unheard of (for him) fourth
place finish. Many think Knight took the race too lightly, especially when he
took the early lead and started pulling away. But a lot can happen in a
three-hour GNCC, and assorted bike troubles and other issues sent him back into
the pack. Did he dig down deep enough? Was he caught by surprise? The mental
side of that one race in Ohio
will tell a lot about the ’07 GNCC season.
| Charlie Mullins is hoping to avoid the sophomore slump. Ray Gundy photo
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That
Ohio round was billed as the “race of
champions” since Salminen and Knighter were finally getting to face off. But
the rest of the GNCC pack wasn’t happy about taking a back seat, and indeed
Hawk, Kearney and Mullins rode as hard as they ever have holding the KTM duo
off. Ultimately they swept the podium and left Knight and Salminen in fourth
and fifth. Clearly, the Hawk-Kearney-Mullins trio is motivated for this year’s
series, and they won’t be caught by surprise like they were when Salminen
entered the game in 2005.
Hawk and Mullins have spent the
last few months training at Randy Hawkins’ ranch in South Carolina. The H-Ranch is a frequent
stop for off-road travelers, but this year it featured a new tool with two-time
AMA National Hare Scramble Champion Jason Raines acting as the resident
trainer. Raines should be a GNCC title contender himself, but the 28-year-old has
re-broken his leg three times in the last two years, and won’t be able to race
until the fall. In the meantime, he’s transferred his infamous training regimen
over to Hawk and Mullins.
“It’s pretty intense,” says the
super-talented Mullins, who completed the best rookie season in GNCC history
last year. “We’ve been working a lot harder than the past few years we were
down here. My conditioning now, it’s nowhere near compared to last year. At
this point, it’s pretty much all mental, really. Just to know you can ride that
hard and that strong. I’ve been sand riding a few times, and pounding down the
laps, I don’t get nearly as tired as I did last year.”
| GNCC legend Rodney Smith has moved on to part time racer status like fellow Suzuki rider Ricky Carmichael. He'll race Florida in the XC2 Lites class to help develop the RM-Z250 for off-road racing. Ray Gundy Photo
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Mullins’ talent and speed has never
been in doubt, but many have wondered about his conditioning. This year they
should wonder no more.
Kearney,
meanwhile, has been staying in California
with Rodney Smith, who certainly knows a thing or two about preparing for GNCC
title runs. Smith himself is down to part-time racer status this year, in fact,
many in the Suzuki off-road camp compare his presence to that of Jeremy McGrath
with Team Honda’s supercross crew in 2005-2006. Suzuki is also employing two
other riders, veteran contender Jimmy Jarrett and Australian rookie Josh
Strang. But Kearney
is the leader of the group. He has quietly grown into major contender, and
should have won that Ohio
race last year had he not yielded to Hawk in the final mile when he failed to
realize it was the final lap.
But Knight is still the big factor.
There are many—including Hawk—that believe the loss in Ohio last year will only give him more
motivation for the coming year. “Juha came over for a race in ’04, and he
finished second behind Jason (Raines),” says Hawk. “He probably realized he
would have to go home and do some work to be ready to win when he started
racing here full time. With Knight, he might feel the same way.”
| After third and fourth place finishes in the series in his first two seasons here, Australian Glenn Kearney is a serious title threat. Ray Gundy photo
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The series starts in the
Florida sand in
Vero
Beach, an hour south of Daytona off of I-95. This is a
new facility for the GNCC tour, and rumor has it that the track will offer more
woods and tight terrain than last year’s
Florida
opener, which featured nothing but sand whoops. Still, the track will be
different than the hard woods, mud, rocks and hills that define most GNCC
events, so the one can only take so much stock in Tuesday’s results. But several
privateers have spotted Knight training down in
Florida, and he’s reported to be absolutely
flying. And remember, he beat Everts at that sand race a few months ago….
But the rest of the GNCC pack won’t
let him have it easy. When asked if he will be happy with another solid season
with a few wins and second in the series standings again, Hawk says: “No. No
way. Second place is first loser.”