Name/Title
Plessinger, ScottEntry/Object ID
462Description
Scott Plessinger was a top off-road racer in the late 1980s and early 1990s, achieving two GNCC titles (1994 and 1995) and two AMA National Hare Scramble titles (1989 and 1992). The four-time National Champion is from Hamilton, Ohio and has scored 41 national event wins during his career, mostly on KTMs.
Plessinger started riding just a few years before he took to competitive racing, breaking out on the scene in 1982 aboard a Suzuki RM 80. While he started on the motocross circuit, his career started to take off when he shifted to off-road racing. An early, notable success was Plessinger’s win at the Haspin Acres 100-mile Hare Scramble in Indiana in 1985. That win helped turn his sights on the challenging courses of Southern and Eastern Ohio.
“When I first started competing in Ohio, I went and got lapped by fast guys like Kevin Brown and Mark Hyde and went home with my tail between my legs,” Plessinger said. “The next year when I showed up, I was in better shape and beat them. I really accomplished something and they were all coming up to me saying I had to start running in the Nationals.”
By the fall of 1986, Plessinger was winning nearly every local race he entered while finetuning his skills.
Also, in 1986, Plessinger attended the AMA National Hare Scrambles at Lorretta Lynn’s Ranch. Racing in the 250B class, he found himself chasing an Open A bike piloted by the young, up-and-coming — and now AMA Motorcycle Hall of Famer — Scott Summers. Plessinger powered through, caught and surpassed Summers, then Summers got back into the lead and flung a rock down from the top of the hill.
“He kicked up a big rock the size of a softball going up the hill and it hit me right in the shin and that ended my day,” Plessinger recalled. “I was winning at the time, but ended up pulling off during the last lap and got second. But that is really what started a rivalry between us that would last throughout my career into the late 1990s.”
During the 1987 and 1988 seasons, Plessinger primarily raced Kawasakis. While he continued to earn top marks and won his first national competition in 1988 in Brownsville, Penn., it wasn’t until 1989 that he claimed the ultimate prize and scored his first AMA Hare Scrambles National Championship in Massachusetts.
“Until that win, I was always leading races, running fast and at speed, but the end never went my way,” he said. “I always knew that I could do it, but it took a lot of dedication to make everything work right.”
For the 1990 season, Plessinger led in points until the midway point of the season when a crash tore up his shoulder in Idaho, erasing the chance of becoming a back-to-back champion, which he was on course to accomplish. That same injury dogged him in the 1991 season.
Entering the 1992 season after a full recuperation and on a KTM, Plessinger sailed to victory and earned his second AMA Hare Scrambles National Championship. In 1993, he earned a second-place finish behind long-time rival Scott Summers.
“The problem was that I was still working a fulltime job during those years, but at the end of the 1993 season KTM North America President Rod Bush came up to me and told me to quit my job and focus on racing,” Plessinger said. “So, I said ‘heck yeah’ and got back training.”
Plessinger won the GNCC titles in both 1994 and 1995, and almost took another AMA National Hare Scrambles Championship in 1995 but fell behind rival Summers, losing the championship by one point.
Plessinger continued racing competitively until a crash in 1998 shattered his wrist.
“That really ended it for me. I could still ride fast, but not for three hours,” he said. “I had a good career and I accomplished everything I set out to do, but the problem is you never know how it is going to turn out when you go into a race.”
After retiring, Plessinger moved to Georgia to try setting up a race program, but it didn’t take off. However, he spent every weekend for six years training with his son, Aaron. Aaron turned pro in 2015 and was Rookie of the Year. Since then, he has climbed the ranks in the AMA Supercross and motocross circuits.
“For six years, we would go out to the track one weekend and then in the woods the next as he progressed,” Plessinger said. “It is great to see him walking a similar path as me.”
Today, Plessinger lives in Ohio and focuses on training young racers in motocross and manages one of the top amateur motocross venues in the nation — East Fork MX in New Vienna, Ohio — as well as Chillitown MX in Chillicothe, Ohio. He also started his own series, the Buckeye Series in Southern Ohio.
“It really has been great getting thousands of racers out on the track to compete,” he said. “And plus, I like working hard and staying busy.”Relationships
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Plessinger, Scott