Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/126479
o 00 0') ~ IClockwise from top) Donnie Hansen leads midway throughturn one in Saturday night's main with Donnie Cantaloupll23), Marty Smith (26), Broc Glover (11) keeping him company. Bell beat teammate Glover in both Saturday's and Sunday's heats. WiH broke while third saturday and claimed fifth Sunday. AMA Supercross Series: Rounds 13ยท14 Two-fisted Superbowl grab by Glover By Mark Kariya Photos by Charles Morey and Kariya LOS ANGELES. CA,jULY 12-1~ . "I've never ridden one of these (Superbowls) and I thought it'd be kinda nice to do well," said Broc Glover after riding to an uncontested , win in Saturday night's portion of the CocaCola Bottlers' Superbowl of Motocross IX in front of over '41 ,000 f h ~ns at.t e Los Angeles Memorial Cohseum . 6 And in Sunday's race, he held on with a broken frame and front hub to garner his third -ever AMA Supercross Series win. "You know, 1 really enjoyed last night a whole lot , but his night kinda just caps off last night ," he mused afterward. The ninth running of the Superb owl was a two-day affair for th e first time . On Saturday night , racers raced around the track in a counter-clockwise direction. Sunday afte,?oon:s program called for a .cha nge of dlfectlO~ . . Several riders, however , voiced dis pleasure with the track , no matter which direction run , saying it was too fast and/or too hard on equipment. Mike Bell, who retained his Supercross Series points lead , said.. "It's more like a dirt tra ck course than a motocross ." Yamaha Team Manager Ken Clark exclaimed , "You could put Kenny Roberts on this course on his TT bike , and you'd never catch him!" Sa id Chuck Sun, "T here's nothing to it. You just go wide open . There's just fast straights and jumps. You hold it wide open and then oomph, you land so hard just to shave a few fractions of a second." On the other hand, Glover shrugged after Sunday's final event and claimed, "I really liked the track , and , think most of the riders do . It was starting to get dangerous, and' think in the final , the track was a lot better than before (changes were made to the track) ." Promoter Mike Goodwin , after learning of the riders' feelings and seeing several riders go down hard, had parts of the track modified to remove dangerous areas. Saturday Honda's Donnie Hansen , with the nickname "Holeshot" on his leathers, got one to lead the first qualifier. Current Supercross point leader Mike Bell lurked in second aboard his factory Yamaha , though, and when the pipe split on Hansen's bike, Bell closed the gap, passing him in the Tornado on lap five . The split opened further as the race progressed, visibily dropping the power on Hansen's bike, and Bell 's teammate Broc Glover sailed past Hansen a few laps later. Jimmy Ellis on a Yamaha and Gary Semics on an LOP Yamaha rounded out the top five who transferred directly to the final: New 250cc National Champion Kent Howerton was never headed in the second qualifier, but Yamaha's Matty Tripes, twice a Superbowl winner, made sure the Suzuki teamster didn't make it a runaway win. Honda's Jim Gibson and Yamaha's Donnie Cantaloupi finished third and fourth while U .S. Norstar/Kawasaki rider Goat Breker got by Team Race Ready Honda -mounted Jeff Jennings on the last lap for fifth . Honda's Steve Wise and Chuck Sun jumped to the front on the third qualifier. Sun, however, stalled his bike at the top of the Tornado and was back in the pack by the time he was able to restart.