Broken kick start cost Kearney at John Penton GNCC

After rain and hail on Friday night the sun came out for Sunday's, Wiseco John Penton GNCC in Ohio, the 7th round of the Suzuki GNCC series. Once again it was KTM Juha Salminen who claimed the victory, making the trying conditions look more like a family trail ride. The Finn took his place at the head of the field with yet another great start and was gone by the end of the first lap. It was all over for the win after that, but the Ohio fans were pumped to see two local boys, Ohio's own Robbie Jenks and Parkersburg, West Virginia's Doug Blackwell, round out the podium on a mega-rutted track. Barry Hawk was a frustrating fourth and Steve Hatch finished fifth. Hawk does move into second in the series standings after FMF Suzuki's Glenn Kearney - second in the championship - suffered a broken kick start and carded his worst round of the series. "I got off to a mediocre start", said the tough Australian. "however I crashed in the second turn and although I didn‰Ûªt know it at the time, I had almost completely broken off my kick starter in the crash. Because it was hanging on within an inch of its life, when I tried to start the bike the starter just went flying off!" This resulted in Kearney then having to push his bike up a hill close by and bump start it down; getting back onto the track just as the second wave was leaving the start line. Another crash only minutes later in a deep mud hole cost GK more precious time, and also his gloves as they were completely ruined by the mud when he crashed. "I lost about 5 minutes in the second crash, and also my gloves, so I rode the entire first lap in last place with no kick starter or gloves", the reigning A4DE Champion told. "I wasn‰Ûªt very happy to say the least. When I came back into the pits for the first time I got my kick starter put back on and some new gloves then just hunted down riders for the remainder of the race!‰Û