Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

BS~ERC~SS~cmcls~~~_~_~_se_~_S:R_O_~_dl_5~~~~~~~~_ e Robbie Reynard's supercross debut ended with a broken right wrist. A near sell-out crowd of 29,663 filled San Jose's Spartan Stadium for the next-to-Iast round of the Camel SX Series. Phil Lawrence's chances of earning the Western Regional 125cc Supercross Series crown all but ended when he crashed on the second lap. crowd on its feet. For six laps, the two put on a show that won't be soon forgotten. Cooper tried every trick in the book to pass his teammate cleanly, but Matiasevich matched his every move. The two riders raced side-by-side until Cooper finally got around Matiasevich over the finish-line double jump that Matiasevich was single-jumping. "It was a good battle," said Cooper. "He parked me a few limes but nothing really bad. We were going at it, that's for sure." 8 "Now that was fun," said Matiasevich. While Cooper and Matiasevich were mixing it up, McGrath had opened up a three-second lead over Stanton, while Bradshaw had snuck into fifth after passing Kiedrowski. Swink was seventh and LaRocco eighth. By the midway point, the battle for third involved Cooper, Matiasevich, Bradshaw and Kiedrowski and it was a tight one. Then, on the 13th lap, all hell broke loose. While charging down a long section of doubles and triples, Dubach, who was about to be lapped by Cooper, suddenly endoed while jumping up onto a tabletop. Already committed over the same jump and with nowhere to go, Cooper slammed into Dubach's downed bike, and went sailing over the handlebars. Caught in the same situation as Cooper, Matiasevich augured into Cooper's bike and crashed. Then came DeHoop, who was also being lapped, and he plowed into Matiasevich. Narrowly escaping the horrific pileup were Bradshaw, Kiedrowski and the rest of the pack. Amazingly, no one was seriously hurt, but Matiasevich, Dubach and DeHoop all called it a night at that point. "Something happened to my bike - it bogged just as I was going over the jump," said Dubach. "I feel bad for Guy (Cooper), because I looked back and saw them coming, so 1 was going to move over and go wide around the next tum. But I went over the jump, went over the bars and landed on my feet on the face of the tabletop. My feet are hurting." "I thought 1 was okay, then 1 saw his (Dubach's) arms in the air, and 1 knew that wasn't normal," said Cooper. "His bike flipped in front of me and there was nothing 1 could do. Someone ran over my thumb and hit my arm." "Doug went down, Cooper went down," said Matiasevich. "I landed and stopped to go around them when someone plowed into me from behind; I think it was DeHoop." The incident advanced Bradshaw and Kiedrowski up to third and fourth, respectively. "I jumped right over those guys," said Kiedrowski, who narrowly missed the downed bikes and riders. Oblivious to all the crashing going on behind him, McGrath just kept on rolling along at a comfortable pace, but Stanton was beginning to close the gap ever so slightly. "I got a little nervous," said McGrath. "I looked back and he (Stanton) was still there. My arms pumped up a little bit and 1 had to talk myself out of that." McGrath picked up the pace a little during the last few laps, gained some distance and ended up scoring the record-setting win with room to spare over Stanton. Bradshaw finished a distant third, but Kiedrowski, who was running fourth going into the last lap, crashed and dropped back to sixth. "The tum after getting the white flag, 1 just barely clipped Damon's rear wheel and 1 went over the bars," said Kiedrowski. "Oh well, at least 1 have second place wrapped up in the series." Inheriting fourth from Kiedrowski's crash was LaRocco, while Swink, who at one point was running as far back as seventh, moved up to fifth. Kiedrowski ended up sixth; Lusk seventh; Lamson eighth; Ward ninth and Henry lOth. Cooper, who tangled with Henry a lap after the crash with Dubach, ended up 12th, one position behind Palmer. 125cc Team Suzuki's Damon Huffman made it look easy en route to a wire-towire. victory in the 15-lap Western Regional 125ee Supercross feature. After winning his heat race earlier in the evening, the Team Suzuki rider returned in the feature and nailed the holeshot ahead of 20 other riders. He edged out Kawasaki Team Green's Ray Crumb through the first turn, and from that point on, Huffman never looked back. Jimmy Gaddis, the series points leader riding a Team Pro Circuit/Hot Wheels/Splitfire-backed Kawas,aki KX125, passed Crumb for second place by the end of the first lap but could never make a dent into Huffman's lead throughout the race. Meanwhile, running in fifth was Gaddis' main concern, Phil Lawrence. However, Gaddis didn't have to worry about him for long, as the Team Suzuki rider clipped Crumb's rear wheel and crashed on the second lap. Lawrence got back up in 16th, but he now had to deal with a broken clutch lever perch. In spite of not having a clutch anymore, Lawrence continued charging and would climb back up to seventh by the end of the race. Crumb, too, would crash and eventually finish 20th. Up front, Huffman continued to stretch out his lead over Gaddis, while Reynard had moved into third and Dobb fourth. Glued to Dobb's rear fender was Kawasaki-mounted Gonzalez. By the sixth lap, Reynard had dosed the gap on Gaddis and began challenging for second place. At this point, though, the leaders were beginning to catch the tail end of the field, but Gaddis used this to his advantage and began pulling away from Reynard slightly. At the halfway point, Reynard fell but still held control of third, although not by much, as both Dobb and Gonzalez were now breathing down his back. Three laps from the finish, Gonzalez passed Dobb and began pressuring Reynard even harder until the last lap, when Reynard came up short over a double jump and injured his wrist. The Kawasaki rider simply stopped in his tracks, climbed off his bike and bent over, wincing from the pain of his broken wrist. Reynard's misfortune gave Gonzalez third and Dobb fourth. Huffman sailed over the finish line jump a good five seconds ahead of second-place finisher Gaddis for his third win of the season. Approximately five seconds back finished Gonzalez in third, just a few feet ahead of Dobb. Pro Circuit/Hot Wheels/Splitfire/ Kawasaki's Mike Chamberlain rounded out the top five just ahead of NCY Racing's Tom Clowers and Lawrence. "1 knew that getting a good start tonight would be very important," said winner Huffman. "The rain made the track kind of one-lined, so I knew I had to get away quickly. I felt a little slow at first, then I figured things out and found some good lines." Gaddis was content with second, knowing that he had gained valuable points on Lawrence in the series point standings. ''I'm happy," said Gaddis. "My arms

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