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GNCC
ATV Racing
Round 7 - "Snowshoe
GNCC " |
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Snowshoe, WV (6/25/2011)
- Adam McGill pocketed a cool $5,000 and moved
within striking distance of the 2011 Can-Am Grand
National Cross Series points lead by taking a
spectacular win at the Motosport.com Snowshoe
GNCC, round eight of the series at Snowshoe Mountain
Resort in Snowshoe, West Virginia.
With the win, his second of the year, McGill
moved to within seven points of series points
leader Chris Borich, who finished a disappointing
12th after mud clogged his radiator and caused
the engine on his Rockstar Makita Suzuki to
overheat.
McGill's Foremost Insurance/Warnert Racing
Can-Am teammate Chris Bithell finished second
after leading much of the race, while FRE Racing
KTM's Bryan Cook claimed his first podium finish
of the year with a third.
Billed as America's Toughest Race, the Snowshoe
GNCC is two hours of grueling mountain two-track
set at 4,800 feet in elevation, and each year
the event awards a generous overall purse, this
year courtesy of St. Lawrence Radiology Group
and Friends of Coal. Just finishing this race
is a major accomplishment and Borich kicked
it off by grabbing the $250 Motosport.comHoleshot
Award to start the race. The defending series
champ led the opening lap until a small mistake
in the woods allowed GT Thunder's Brian Wolf
to take the lead.
Wolf, last year's Snowshoe winner, made the
most of the gift that Borich had given him and
at mile-marker 13 his pit crew was telling him
he had a one-minute lead over second, however,
his day came to an abrupt end when he snapped
his chain on the rocky trail. At that point,
Bithell took his turn up front and held a comfortable
gap at the halfway point of the race.
On the final lap, McGill found his way around
Bithell and into the lead when he blitzed a
nasty mud hole that Bithell chose to ride around.
Borich was on the move as well, and passed Bithell
a short time later to move into second before
setting his sights on McGill. Once Borich got
within striking distance of McGill, however,
his engine locked up and left him on the side
of the trail, leaving McGill with nothing but
clear trail ahead of him.
At the finish, McGill crossed the line with
fist in the air to claim the "W" ahead
of Bithell and Cook.
"I can't describe how good this feels,"
said McGill. "Bithell was ahead of me and
he went up around a ditch and I just hit it
wide open and got the lead," said McGill.
"I knew from there if I could get through
the last mud hole I could win it and I just
pushed and pushed. I looked back at one point
and Borich was behind me and then all of a sudden
he was gone and that was it."
After the race, Bithell talked about how difficult
the race was.
"There were some many lines you could
take out there and one could lead you to the
trail and the other could lead you to somewhere
real bad," said Bithell. "But there
were so many fans out there helping everyone
through all the bad spots and I just want to
thank all the fans."
Cook was obviously happy to be on the podium
for third.
"This has been coming for a long time,"
said Cook. "We've got the bike working
good now and it's good to get up here."
"After the start I just took it easy until
I got to a portion of the track that I was comfortable
with and then I just put the hammer down and
moved up into third." added Cook. "Me
and McGill swapped back and forth a little bit
and then on the last lap I made a couple of
mistakes."
Honda-mounted Jarrod McClure bounced back with
a fourth place finish after three-straight races
where he finished outside the top 10. Meanwhile,
Donnie Ockerman put his JET Suspension Honda
into a solid fifth, finishing just ahead of
GNCC legend Bill Ballance on his Ballance Racing
Yamaha.
GT Thunder rider Kevin Yoho was eighth, while
Jeffrey Pickens (Yam) and Craig Bowman (Hon)
rounded out the top 10.
