Hoping to claim his third straight victory in this season's US GNCC series reigning Enduro 3 world champion David Knight and his Red Bull KTM Off Road Team travelled to Ohio for the John Penton GNCC this passed weekend, round six of the '07 US GNCC series. Confident that he could extend his championship lead David finished in fourth position having once again had to fight his way from the back of Pro XC1 class before running into problems as the ignition on his XC450 worked its way loose.
Making a much better start than he had at the two previous rounds of the US GNCC series Knighter went from mid-pack to last as he collided with Australian Shane Watts, who himself had tangled with Robbie Jenks. Forced to once again make his way from the back of the pack Knighter didn't need long to start catching and passing many of the front runners. But the Manxman's progress was then halted having closed in on the top three as his bike began to misfire and cut out. Later diagnosed as a loose ignition top coil David continued to battle on working his way back up to third after dropping to fifth following the mid-race pit stop.
Determined to at least finish on the podium Knighter caught and passed Jimmy Jarrett for a second time to move into the final podium spot but then came close to crashing out of the race as his bike cut out as he hit a section of whoops on the motocross track section of the course. Despite managing not to crash the impact badly buckled the front wheel of David's XC450. With numerous broken spokes, and with the wheel hitting either side of his forks, David continued pushing as hard as he could, and dared, but was unable to stay ahead of Jarrett and claimed fourth.
David now sits in second position in the overall US GNCC series standings, just four points behind Charlie Mullins and 11 points ahead of Garrett Edmisten.
David Knight: "I'm really disappointed with the way things turned out because the win was mine for the taking this weekend. I got a pretty good start, much better than the last two races, but then Wattsy decided to take out Robbie Jenks and I got caught up in it. I was last so I had a lot of work to do again. It didn't take that long to catch up with the guys near the front, but then I started having problems with my bike. It started popping and banging like the jetting was way out. "I dropped back to about fifth after the fuel stop but made my way forward pretty quickly. I got passed Josh Strang and I got up to Jimmy Jarrett in third. I actually managed to pass him briefly but then my bike stopped. I didn't lose much time and was able to catch him again pretty quickly. Then I nearly had a big, big crash. I could see Jimmy's helmet in the dust when my bike died again as I hit the whoops on the motocross track. I hit them so hard I buckled me front wheel. The wheel was rubbing against both fork guards it was so badly buckled. It was pretty scary too racing across the fast sections of the track.
"The bike was really hard to control after that. I was having really bad tank slappers all the time as well as the bike dieing and cutting out. I knew that I couldn't stay ahead of Jimmy, I wasn't even sure that I'd finish the race even. Thankfully I did but like I said I'm pretty disappointed because I should have extended my points lead, not finished fourth." Results XC 1 class - US GNCC Series Rnd 6, John Penton GNCC
1. Charles Mullins (Yamaha) 3:09.11
2. Barry Hawk (Yamaha) 3:09.36
3. Jimmy Jarrett (Suzuki) 3:11.12
4. David Knight (Red Bull KTM Off Road Race Team) 3:11.49
5. Josh Strang (Suzuki) 3:12.51
6. Paul Whibley (Honda) 3:13.38
7. Glenn Kearney (Suzuki) 3:14.22
8. Robbie Jenks (KTM) 3:14.24
9. Jesse Robinson (Kawasaki) 3:14.41
10. Garrett Edmisten (Kawasaki) 3:15.37