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The Aussie Shane Watts: who is campaigning the very competitive USA GNCC series (Specially since it was joined by Juha Salminen) has fought hard to Overcome Injuries: to get back to his previous competitive form.
Shane regularly updates Silver Bullet on his progress.
With a great start on his KTM 200EXC Watts ran second for the first half mile before moving into the lead and holding it for a half lap. From there Watts just hovered around in the lead pack of three or four riders. After the gas stop, and with three laps remaining of the three hour race, Watts, Salminen and Hawk distance themselves slightly from the rest of the pack as they began the charge to the checkered flag.
With two laps to go Salminen wiped-out leaving Hawk out in front, with a 10 second buffer over Watts. Then with only three miles of the final lap to be completed Watts made a basic mistake and suffered a time consuming crash in a mudhole, losing second place in the process. Then with less than a mile remaining Watts was outgunned by Salminen and was thus relegated to a final finishing position of fourth.
"That was enjoyable to have a great start to the race and to be apart of the lead pack. I was just trying to ride smooth and smart, and be consistent but I just kept making too many mistakes. I suffered a few crashes during the middle part of the race which is not what I wanted, although I was able to catch back up to the leaders each time. On the last lap I just tried to bring it home for a magnificent second place but I made that dumb mistake and crashed. Talk about being disappointed!
Other than that I’m pretty happy that I was able to still run the lead pace for most of the race considering that unfortunately it is impossible for my body to function at the level it used to a few years ago."
GNCC Round 4 South Carolina:
1. Barry Hawk (YAM)
2. Glenn Kearney (SUZ)
3. Juha Salminen (KTM)
4. Shane Watts (KTM)
5. Robbie Jenks (KTM)
Footnote: The other Australian, current enduro champion Glenn Kearney (23) has made a huge impact on the GNCC scene and is currently second to Juha Salminen. Half the top 6 are foreign riders.
Check out the Official AMA GNCC Website:
Championship Points to date:
