Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

T he series point stand ings, afte r five of 13 races, has Kiedrowski in fro nt wit h 185 points, Cooper second with 170, Brian Swin k th ird with 141, Em ig fourth with 126, and Lamson fifth with 106. The win was worth $1200 of the $10,000 125cc purse to Kiedrowski, who credited greater coo p era tio n within his team for his recent performances, whi ch incl uded the overall win at th e Red Bud Nat ional in Michigan and a two-mote sweep of th e 125cc Support class at th e Unadill a 250cc MX GP a week before th e Axton National. With the East Coast stuck in a stalled hea t wave , reco rd temperatures were bein g run up a ll along the eastern half of the cou ntry and Axto n was no excep tio n. Weather like this normally doesn't affect the race, but th is year th e event was moved from its u sual May dat e to mid -summer and the weath er had to be suffered. Ho w bad was the heat? It was so bad it actua lly caused the program to be dela yed for o ne and a ha lf ho urs wh en th ere was an ambulance shortage. One had taken two riders to the hospital with heat ex ha ustion and th e ot her o ne wa s stalled in the pi ts. Every effort was made to get repl acements and when they fin all y arrived, the second 125cc rnoto, schedu led for 3:30 p.m., was ab le to start right at 5:00 p.m. 125cc National When the 125s were brought to the gate for their first 30-minute plus twolap moto at 1:00 p.rn. , the temperature a nd humidity were so close to 100 that nobody was counting. It was hot, it was sticky, and it was a little dusty , though Gary Bailey's crew did a good job of keeping th e track wa tered througho u t the long day. AXO/Pro Circuit-backed private er Erik Kehoe go t the jump at th e sta rt of the race and tried to pull awa y, but Emig and Lamson wouldn't let him. Those two hung tight while further back Kiedrowski was making up for a bumping incident on the first lap with Cooper just behind him. " I got a good start; I was third the fi rst few turns," Kiedrowsk i said. "Then I got up sideways as I passed the guy in second and he hit me. It pitched me o ff a nd I was back to eigh th or ninth." Kiedrowski was quickl y on th e move and as he moved forward , Cooper stayed with him. By the sixth lap of what would be a 16-la p rnot o , they were fifth and sixth, and on the seventh circuit Kiedrowski moved past Emig for th ird in the wooded sectio n just after the sta rt straight. Severa l turns later , Cooper moved Emig back to fifth . Kehoe was still o ut front at the halfway mark with Lamson hard on h is tail, bu t it was easy to see that Kiedrow ski and Cooper were the fastest ri ders o n the tra ck. They would take over the top two spots; it was just a q uestion of when. Kied ro wski picked off Lamson on the eig hth lap and took over the lead early on the following lap. Cooper had a little mor e trouble and it wasn 't until the I Ith lap th at he was able to move past Kehoe. By then Kiedrowski had built up close to a four-second lead . Coo per knocked a few IOths of a second off of it, but he slowed as the race wore down, conserving hi s energy for the second mo to. The gap was over 12 seconds when the checkered £lag fell a fter 16 laps of racing. Emig finished about six seconds behind Cooper in th ird with Lamson fou rth and hi s Peak / Pro Circu i t Honda teammate Jeremy McGrath working up to fin ish fifth after a bad Bayle tries to coo l off after winning the first 250cc moto, H igh temperatures and humidity sent several riders to the hospital. start. Kehoe faded to seventh behind Suzuki 's Denny Stephenson. " It wasn 't too bad passing people," Kied rowski said between motos. "T he most important thing is the heat. I'm not surprised nobody mad e a ru n ill me at th e end." Between mot os many of th e riders stripped down to th eir underwear, hosed th emselves off, and rested in front of fans. But having to wait, many nea r the starti ng line, from 3:30 to nearly 5:00 n ega ted many of the salutary affects of the break. Em ig got the jump at the start of the second moto, and the top fo ur ran as o ne with Emig lead in g Stephenso n, Kiedrowski, and Lamson, with Cooper just off th e pa ce but leaving Doug Henry in h is dust, By the fifth lap Stephen son was in the lead, though it o n ly lasted for o ne more pass of th e · fin ish line as Kiedrowski sho t to the front. Cooper was up to fourt h on the same la p tha t Kiedrow ski too k th e lead and a la p lat er was into th ird and closi ng. On the seventh la p, near the halfway point, Cooper zapped Emig for second and q uick ly began to pull away from the Yamaha rider as he trie d to catch Kiedro wski. Cooper act ually loo ked faster through the long whoop sections and straightaways, but Kiedr owski was making tim e up in th e tighter portions of the track. " Coo per's going faster here a nd there, but Kiedro wski's pulling away," track owner David Bailev o bserved. On the l!th lap Cooper was a bo ut eight seconds behind th e leader Kiedrowski, but un chall enged from behind. From a distant third, Em ig no w led Lamson and Stephenson, wi th Jimmy Gaddis fronting a trio tha t included McGra th and Kehoe. When the two-lap board came o ut, the lead Kiedro wski held was close to 10 seconds and there wa s no way Cooper was going to shrink it, though he was six seconds in front of Emig, himself that margin in front of Lam - Erik Kehoe (33) led early in the first 125cc moto before fading to seventh at the finish , son. Double-rnoto victories en sured Kiedrowski the overall win a nd he knew what it also meant. "It makes me hav e a big points lead ," he said through a big sm ile o n the victory stand. Cooper, Emig and Lamson he ld on to the seco nd through fourth spo ts, while Gaddis pas sed Stephenson to pick up fifth pl ace. Stephens on fin ished sixth and was trailed at th e finish lin e by Kehoe, McG rath , Suzuki's Buddy Antunez and New J ersey's Barry Carsten . 250cc Natio n a l Kawasaki 's J eff Ward emerged in th e lead rounding the hairpin first turn at the start of moto on e with Stanton and Jeff Matiasevich close beh ind, followed by Bayle and Du bach. A pi leup j u st behind them effectively took Fred Andrews o ut of the race and by the end of the first lap both Suzuki 's Larry Ward and KTM 's Mike Fish er were also gone. J eff Ward would be th e next to go . Misjudging a seri es of jumps head in g along the northern edge of th e lak e, Ward crashed spectacu larly, riding on hi s front wheel dow n the second ju m p's descent before both he and th e bik e tumbled end over end. Ward remounted in eigh th , but was prett y banged up from the crash and soon pulled out of the race. H e would also sit out th e second moto. Ward 's crash elevated Sta nton to the top spot with Bayle his equal nearly everywhere. Local hero Bradshaw was 7

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