Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
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VOLUME 56 ISSUE 28 JULY 16, 2019 P117 would have to ride wide-open for 20 laps. He was smoother and a more gifted rider than I was, so I had to go out there and treat each race as if the championship was on the line." The strategy paid off for John- son. He won round three in his home race in San Diego, his first victory on Honda, and then he won the second leg of the Seattle doubleheader and Atlanta. John- son came into Daytona on a roll, but Bailey was right there with him in the points and was a proven winner at Daytona, having won the 1984 race. Defending SX champ Ward, with two supercross wins to that point in '86, also seemed like a significant threat, not to men- tion Johnson's old teammate at Yamaha, veteran Broc Glover. One thing that added to John- son's growing confidence was, by midseason, he was finally begin- ning to feel at home under the Honda tent. "The people at Team Honda are really supportive of me," Johnson said just before the Daytona main event. "I don't feel like an outcast. As soon as I came over to Honda, they really treated me good and made me feel at home. I think that's part of the reason for my success." One rider Johnson didn't have to worry about at Daytona was three-time race winner Bob Han- nah. Hannah was injured and instead of racing, and he was helping Larry Maiers call the race for USA Network. Johnson won the most talent- packed heat race over Bailey and Ward. Another Honda rider, Micky Dymond, as well as Yamaha's Jim Holley and Broc Glover, won the other heats. At the drop of the 40-rider gate on the Gary Bailey-designed track, it was the Yamahas of Glover and Holley jumping to the front of the 12-lap main event. Bailey made a mistake early, trying to go beneath Holley, just before Holley slammed the door, leaving Bailey nothing but a hay bale to run into, causing him to tip over in the tight turn. Bailey got passed by what seemed like half the field before he was able to get back up to speed. Dymond and Johnson were battling it out for third. But then Dymond was forced to exit the race after crashing in a badly rutted staggered whoop section. That left Johnson alone in third chasing the two Yamaha fac- tory riders. By the third lap, Johnson moved past Holley to take over second. Jeff Ward was shadowing Johnson in a very close third. Johnson nearly threw it away when he got out of shape and went nose first into the face of a jump. Only his lightning quick reactions saved him from hitting the dirt, but the error temporar- ily slowed his charge on Glover. Meanwhile, Bailey recovered from his early fall and was the fastest rider on the track, closing quickly on the leading trio. For a brief moment, it appeared there might be an epic four-way battle up front between Glover, Johnson, Ward, and Bailey. But then Glover se- lected a bad line through whoops section, and Johnson rocketed past into the lead. Once out front, Johnson seemed to find an extra gear. He set sail and pulled away. His breakaway was helped along when Bailey slammed into Ward, knocking the chain off Ward's Kawasaki and putting him out of contention for a podium finish. In the end, it was Johnson with a commanding lead at the check- ered flag over Bailey. Glover came home third ahead of Holley and Alan King, who rounded out the top five. "I came down to Florida and practiced in the sand for two weeks, and it paid off," Johnson said on the podium. Not only was the Daytona win a personal breakthrough victory for Johnson at the most prestigious race in the series, but it also clearly established him as the rider to beat with a three-race winning streak. By the end of the season, Johnson had won six of the 12 supercross races and beat Bailey for the championship by a whop- ping 52 points. He then took all but one of that year's 250 motocross nationals, easily winning the title. Johnson was named co-winner of the AMA Pro Athlete of the Year with Bubba Shobert (the two would share the honor again in 1987). Looking back on the '86 AMA Supercross season, the grueling Daytona event was the one that gave Johnson the confidence that the title was his to win. CN Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives