GNCC Round 9
Bill Ballance Breaks Away with Maryland GNCC Win
By Jason Weigandt
June 28, 2005 – The competition in the Suzuki Grand National Cross Country Series may be able to match Team Yamaha's Bill Ballance for pure speed this year, but no one has proved smarter when the conditions get tough.
On an incredibly rough and rocky course in McHenry, Maryland, Ballance persevered to win the Parts Unlimited Wisp GNCC, his third-straight win in the series. Safari Motorsports Polaris rider Matt Smiley led most of the race and took a hard-fought second, with Yoshimura Suzuki's William Yokley in third.
Former series' leader Chris Borich crashed and broke his collarbone, knocking the Alba Actionsports Honda rider from the race and championship contention.
"This is the roughest track I think we've ever seen," said Ballance. "There were a lot of battles out there today. Chris (Borich) and I blew down this downhill and got our tires locked together. We dropped back in the pack and started slowly working our way back to the front. Toward the end, I lost my back brakes. I didn't think there was any chance I could win, but I got around Matt (Smiley), he got hung up a little bit, and I got away from them."
The come-from-behind win extends the points lead for the five-time GNCC Champion from Kentucky. Borich, a three-time winner this year, was fighting through the pack with him before he crashed in a field section, ending his day. Luckily, he will have more than two months to return to racing since the Suzuki GNCC Series now begins its annual summer break.
Smiley was all smiles after putting his Polaris Predator 500 back on the podium.
"It feels good to get up front and run with these guys, it's been a while since I've had a chance to do that," said Smiley, who led all the way until the last lap. "I've said it before, sometimes being in first on the last lap is the worst place to be, because of bottlenecks and stuff like that. Bill and William managed to get around me when I got stuck, and I had a tree wedged up under my A-arm. A lapper actually helped me pull it out."
As always, the fun-loving Yokley was happy with third.
"I had the lead early, but I wasn't in a hurry, I knew it would be a long day," said Yokley.
"On the last lap, when Bill came around, we kind of came together, and I didn't want to take any chances and throw it away. He was gone," Yokley said. "Then Matt got hung on a log, but I knew he was coming, and I got stuck with some lappers, and he got around me. I stayed with him, but on the last hill my subframe broke, and I was just lucky it didn't pull the carb out of the engine."
The Wisp is unlike any other race on the tour. A beautiful ski resort in western Maryland, the race features huge hills and endless miles of big boulders. The track is tough and unrelenting, and only the strong survive. All told, well over 1,300 racers braved the rugged track.
DeRisi Racing's Santo DeRisi put in his best ride in months with a solid fourth overall. Four-Stroke Tech's Chris Jenks was putting in another great ride and even leading the race at one point, but he bent his steering stem and had to deal with steering problems in the rocks. He would take fifth, right in front of his teammate Bryan Cook who took sixth.
Seventh went to 2004 Pro/Am Champion Jeremy Rice, eighth to current Pro/Am class leader Adam McGill, with local favorites Andy Lagzdins and Todd Knippenberg rounding out the top 10.