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Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/126781
Neither Ron Lechien (7), Keith Bowen (68) or Broc Glover (3) had a good.
night. They finished seventh. 11 th and eighth. .
.
by-side into the first corner and everybody held the throttle to the stop nobody backed off."
While the pack funneled safely
through the right-hand sweeper, the
next corner - a quick left - was the
site of a major melee. "I saw Lechien
and Barnett go down" said Johnson,
"and there were bikes all over. As
Lechien slid out he threw a bunch of
dirt into my face." Ward, Bailey and
Johnson came out clean and led the
parade.
"Barnett kept the gas on there and
ran into me," said Lechien. "I think
his bike got caught on mine somehow and it threw me right over the
. bars and onto the ground."
''I'm not sure what happened,"
said Barnetl. "I just went to the inside
of Lechien and something hookedthe bike went flying and I stayed."
A few seconds later Bailey made a
move that sent him to the front. "I
managed to make a clean pass on
Ward and Johnson in the whoops,"
said Bailey. "Basically, that .was the
race right there. I knew if! didn't pass
right away I probably wouldn't get
another chance. Had I been second
that would've been the end of the race
,for me. I just rode pretty consistently
from then on.
Ward assumed second over Johnson, Liles, O'Mara, Keller and Hannah, and that order held through lap
two, when Keller came to an abrupt
halt at the side of the track. "There
were only a few rocks on the entire
track," said Keller, "and one of them
got lodged in between the frame and
the brake pedal. I rode a few laps
slow Iy but it was pretty ridiculous to
try to ride without a rear brake, so 1
dropped OUl."
Bailey smoked to a four-second
lead over Ward, with Johnson a close
third hea~ing into lap five. "I worked
pretty hard," said O'Mara, "but I
managed to catch and pass Liles."
That 'made the 'order Bailey, Ward,
Johnson, O'Mara, Liles and Hannah, with Ward and Johnson trading
spots the next lap.
"I was riding really well in. the
early going," said Ward, "then started
to make mistakes at every corner or
every jump. I slowed down a bit and
Johnson,~asilywent past through the
whoops. .
Johnson, while in second, found a
larger five-second gap between himself and leader Bailey. "About all I
could do was wait for a mistake by
Bailey," said Johnson. "It seemed
like every time he would make a
bobble and I'd move in closer, that I'd
just make another mistake." Ward,
O'Mara, Liles, Hannah and Lechien
trailed the front pair.
On lap 10, Bailey very nearly lost it
all. "I was in the whoops and didn't
get a good enough drive off the first
whoop," said Bailey. "I nearly 'squirreled out,' but managed to save it
before I went down all the way. I
came out of it pretty good and took
off."
The last 10 of 20 laps saw little in
the way of passing, at least among the
top seven positions. Bailey lost a few
seconds to Johnson after his mishap
but gr'adually stretched it back out;
Ward, Liles, Hannah and Lechien
were never close enough to one
another to make any sort of pass.
Glover snuck inside of Holland on
lap 12 to nail down eighth, and that's
how they stayed.
As Bailey took the checkered flag
he raised both fists high into the air.
Johnson finished four seconds behind
Bailey, while Ward, O'Mara, Liles,
Hannah, Lechien and Glover
straggled in behind him.
"Jol1nson and Ward were riding as
well as I was," said Bailey, "but I won
the race simply because I got ahead
right on the start. Still, it feels great to
win. I was especially trying hard
since I wanted to make a good
impression on my girlfriend's (Gina
Rick Johnson avoided a second-turn pile-up in the final, passed Ward and
ended the evening in second.
Plagued by injuries throughout the year, Bob Hannah could only manage a
sixth and is currently ninth in the points standings.
Damone) parents and family since
they were all here tonight. I think I
did!"
"I worked hard all the way," said
Johnson. "Bailey was riding well he deserved to win tonight."
"I'm in the position where I can
afford to lose a few points," said
O'Mara, "so fourth isn't so bad. I still
go into each race trying to win it, but
I'm still pretty comfortable with my
point lead since we only have three
rounds left."
"I mink I should've made it into
fourth," said Liles. "Still, I'm happy
with fifth and seem to be getting the
hang of Supercross. I wasn't doublejumping a set of whoops early on and
that's where O'Mara got me. I tried it
later and made it, so I managed to
keep Hannah behind me all the way.
It was a Rood weekend for me."
•
Results
20·LAP FINAL: 1. David Bailey (Han); 2. Ricl