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(Above) Rick Johnson (17) and Ron Lechien (7) spent much of the main
this close. (Below) Third-place David Bailey (1) motors by Kenny Keylon.
Lechien gave Johnson quite a chase in the early stage of the main. Here he
leads Team Tamm's A.J. Whiting during one of the semis.
I~sport/Wrangler
Supercross
Series: Round 9
Ot1ando .joyride
for Johnson
By Tom Kolnowski
ORLANDO, FL, MAY 19
Victories have been few and far between for
Yamaha in 1984, but following factory team
member Rick Johnson's decisive win over
Team Honda's Ron Lechien at the Miller
High Life Supercross of the
South in the Tangerine Bowl,
morale in the normally somber
Yamaha camp had reached a
6
new found high.
Johnson and Lechien-who live
near each other in El Cajon, California - had a battle that was anything
but neighborly in the early laps of the
final. Johnson succeeded in breaking
away from the wheel-ta-wheel confrontation on lap five and led the remain-
ing 15 laps for his second Supercross
win of '84.
Reigning Supercross Champion,
Honda's David Bailey, watched the
Johnson/Lechien show from third
spot and stayed there for the duration, with current Wrangler Supercross Series point leader Johnny
O'Mara finishing fourth over Billy
Liles.
The win was especially sweet for
Johnson and Yamaha, the team
a,pparently strapped by the decision
to race basically-production YZ
machines this season, since the four
riders chasing Johnson to the checkered flag were on board full-fledged
works machines. And behind those
four came the rest of the Yamaha
team - Broc Glover and rising star
Keith Bowen.
Shuffled and tightened best describes the series point chase. O'Mara
still claims the lead - by 47 points but Johnson's win vaulted him into
second, 366 to 319, displacing Kawasaki's Jeff Ward who crashed in the
final and dropped to third in the
point standings with 310.
Warm tern peratures and clear skies
brought in a respectable gathering of
spectators; promoter Bill West estimated the crowd at over 26,000.
Heats
Lap times on the John Savitskydesigned course were well under the
6O-second mark for most of the top
contenders. Lechien, 17, had won
only one Supercross - last year in
the Tangerine Bowl- and was looking for a repeat judging by his performance in the first heat. Even
Johnny O'Mara, who has won four
Supercrosses this year, was unable to
match the pace of Lechien and found
it impossible to close the gap.
Lechien soared past the finish line
for the win, with O'Mara still charging but four seconds back. Billy Liles
held third all the way, with Floridian
Kenny Keylon punching through with
fourth after starting way off the pace.
Lechien's heat was the fastest of the
night.
Mark Barnett showed his prowess
in the next heat, leaving Jeff Ward a
second or two behind in the early
going. But Ward made up the deficit
in the late laps, moving into an
intense dice with Barnett, then copping the win after Barnett crashed.
Barnett remounted and took second,
with Tom Carson grabbing third
early and keepin~ it over Jim Holley
and Team Tamm's Eric Eaton.
Rick Johnson later admitted to
having been "a little too tense" at the
start of the third heat, which allowed
teammate Broc Glover to stake out a
lead over Johnson in the first few gorounds. But after a clean pass in a
whoop section which lined a 50-yard
stretch of the track, Johnson left
Glover in his wake and led the rest of
the way. A.j. Whiting got the upper
hand on Goat Breker on the final lap
to finish third, with Jeff Hicks fifth.
The start of the final heat read
David Bailey, Alan King, Keith Bowen
and Donnie Cantaloupi, and Bailey
immediately pulled away from King,
with King doing the same with
Bowen. Bailey took an "easy" win, or
so it appeared, over King, Bowen and
Cantaloupi.
"It's hot out there," Bailey said,
"and besides that the track is a bit
slippery in places." Temperatures
hovered in the low 80s.
Quarter-finals
Phil Larson totally outclassed the
rest of the field in the first quarterfinal in his bid to make the semis,
while Scooter Stafford pressed on in
second ahead of the Russ Wageman/
Eric Hall scuffle over third. While
Stafford clearly made up much of the
difference by the end, Larson still
won, with Hall edging Wageman for
third.
Floridian John Collins feltathome
on the sandy loam in the last quarterfinal and stayed out front for the win.
Californian Gary DePillo looked to
be a sure bet for second until lap five,
when he fell and Steve Pate assumed
second and stayed there. Steve Johnson maneuvered around DePillo to
finish third, with Ed Arnet copping
fourth.
Semis
Lechien was again unstoppable,
pulling clear of O'Mara, Ward and
Eaton after only a few corners into
the first semi. As Lechien set out all
alone, O'Mara was forced to deal
with increasing pressure from a persistent Ward. Billy Liles was on the
move - rapidly - from eighth.
The finishing positions were
cemented by lap four, with Lechien
scoring his second win of the night
over O'Mara. Ward stayed in third,
