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/127533
B m~~W~W~I~_m_~_&_ri~_:R_OO_~_ 4 ~_~ _ e Defend ing champ Bayle (I ) was third after a midpack start. For the seco nd week in a row , Jeremy McGrat h won the l25cc feature. In front of a record-setting crowd of more 44,700 at the Kingdome, Cooper (5) and Stanton clear a triple jump. Stanton passed Cooper and ended up second. Bradshaw proudly displays the number-one trophy on the victory podium. 8 half of the field and, for the third consecutive week, he sailed across the fin ish line leading the pack, with Sta nton a distant runner-up. "The start wa s th e race, that's all there was to it," sai d Bradshaw . " I kn ew I had to get a good start because of th e track. Bu t it was still a tough race becau se Stanton was always there. Brian (Lu nniss) does a good job on th e cha lkbo ard, so I always kn ow what's go ing on beh ind me and the times. " If I can win th is champions hi p it will be great , but I want to win it by a (big) margin ," sai d Br adshaw. " That's my goal righ t now." Sta nton said, " Once a gu y like tha t gets o ut in front. you have 10 get behind him as soon as possible . By th e time I go t around Emig, Damon wa s pretty mu ch gone. I just have 10 keep my head up and keep working hard. I have 10 sto p hi m." Bayle supplied most of the entertainment in the race. After rounding the first tu rn in II th , the Frenchman slowly pic ked off riders one by o ne, incl udi ng a fallen Micky Dymond, whose down ed Honda Bayle ra n over. Nea r the haUway point, Bayle was trying to get around fourth-place Emig in a turn but crashed into a hay bale and fell over . H e qu ickly recovered without losing a position, reeled Emig back in and then passed him over a step-up jump. A lap later, over the same jump , Bayle passed his next and ' last victi m - Cooper. Once Bayle had taken control of th ird, however, he had ' no chance of catching second-place 'Stant on. 'The track is too easy for everybody, so when you have a bad start, it makes it very hard 10 come back ,',' said Bayle. "They (the tra cks) need 10 be more tech nical. Tonigh t you had to wait 10 pass." . Cooper soo n lost sigh t of Bayle but began feeli ng pressure from behind by Emig. The duo battled to the fini sh with Cooper getting the upper hand for fourth; Em ig followed in fifth. "The track was so o ne-lined that I started trying different o nes," said Cooper. " I tried a di fferent li ne in the whoops but got really messed up and Emig really got on me. But all of a sudden it was Bayle right there! I was kind of ou t of rhythm and he (Bayle) passed me, I followed him for a whi le and he had some reall y good lines and I started using them. That 's what helped me stay ahead of Emig at the end, who had a second wind going there." " I got right on Cooper the last few laps, but I j us t cou ldn't pass hi m ," said Emig. " Yo u coul d n't p ass unl ess another ride r made a mistake." Taking th e checkered n ag a few , seconds behi nd fifth-place Emi g was La Rocco, the winner of th e ope ning rou nd in Orla ndo , T he Kawasak i rider got off the sta rti ng lin e in 12th , and like many o thers, found it difficult to pa ss on the "one-lined" track, Matiasevich could only improve two positions after hi s ninth-place start, end ing up sevent h, wh ile Dubach cam e from dead last after cras hi ng in the first turn to finis h a very respectable eig ht h. La rry Ward ended up ninth. an d Kiedrowski rounded out the top 10 after sta rt ing the race in 15th. " T he track was a piece of shit," said a very disgruntled Larry Ward. " It was one-lined everywhere, asphalt in the corners and rea lly rocky . There was no thing you could do , so I got disappoint ed out th ere a little bit. Somethi ng needs to be do ne abo ut the tracks. All this year, they've been too easy an d the leaders are running away . I' ve got to put this race out of my mi nd and get ready for next week's race in San Diego". , j eff Ward, wh o started the m oto in fifth , dr opped back to six th o n th e ninth lap an d then crashed on the 14th go-a round. Ward regrouped in 18th , but event ua lly fin ished 19th . one spot ahea d of Park er who also cras hed. 125cc The 125cc feature race was nearl y a mirror image of the 250cc main event, T his tim e, however, it was the defending West Coast 125cc Champion j eremy McGrath in th e spotlight. McGrath motored h is whitelblack/ blu e-col ored Tea m Peak Honda CRI 25 into the early lead and was never seriously cha lleng ed in the 15lap race. McGrath 's team mate Buddy An tu nez was the only rider who looked as though he might give McG rat h a ru n for th e money. but he could n't match th e defend ing cha mp . By the ha lfway point, McGrath, who won his hea t race ea rlier in th e evening, had stretched out a fivesecond lead over Ant unez. He increased tha t margin to seven seconds by the time the checkered nag waved. " I'm really happy," said McGrath. " I j ust hope to keep this string go ing because there's a lo t of tough cornpe. tition out there. I've got to keep trying my hardest." Fin ish in g approximately five seconds beh in d Ant un ez in th ird place was Yama ha rider Kyle Lewis, while even further back followed Suzuki su p port riders Phil La wrence and Dam on Huffman. Huffman finished just in ches ahea d of Nor th County Yamaha's (NCY) T yson Vohland. Despite endo ing o ver th e triples, Washington 's Lance Smail fini shed seventh, j us t ah ead of NCY 's Dana Wiggins , wh o tran sferr ed to th e main after winning the LCQ. Team Green 's T ommy Clowers and privateer Suzuki rid er Chris Neal ro unded o u t the to p 10, respe cti vely. ' Suzuki's j immy Gaddi s, who scored the win in the second heat race, was not a facto r in th e mai n . Wh ile running near the middle of the pack at th e halfw ay po int, Gaddis was sidelined wit h a bro ken chain .