Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

eMOTOCROSS AMA AmateurlYouth National Championship_Fi_na_ls ~ New Yorker Scott Sheak (55) swept the 125 and 250cc Modified A classes, winning five out of six motos that he entered. Sheak nearly perfect at Loretta Lynn's By Davey Coombs /II 12 HURRICANE MILlS, TJil, AUG. 1(}-14 've been coming here for a lot of years, ever since 1was a little kid," . said Scott Sheak from the winner's circle at Loretta Lynn 's Dude Ranch. " It's about time 1 won a title here! " Sheak could have made .that same statement twice, as he posted a pair of overall wins in the 125 and 250ccA Modified classes at the 12th Annual AMA Amateur/Youth Championships. Sheak, from Germantown, New York, put on a clinic in mistake-free riding for the 1200 entries who were on hand to compete in 29 classes at the fiveday-long event, which was sponsored by Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki, Yamaha, Fox and Dunlop. Team Green /Pro Circuit /Dunlop /Fox / Bell/ Ren thaI / EBC/Scou/CTi/Ceet-backed Sheak combined quick starts and flawless riding to secure five of six moto wins in the talent-packed classes. Longtime eastern rival Davey Yezek was the only competitor to dent Sheak 's armor, winning the first 125cc A Modified moto. Yezek finished second all five times out in the other motes, rising through the field each time but never getting a break in the form of a Sheak mistake. , "The track was tough but I think riding aga inst the pros in the Nationals helped me once we got down here," said Sheak, who has campaigned his Kawasaki KX125 on the Camel Supercross and National MX circuits this year. "1 like a technical track like this. It really challenges you not to make mistakes, because that 's what it takes to win at this level. Starts are important, too, because the track's nice and clear when you get out front, and it makes it easier to ride smooth and con trolled." Sharing the spotlight with Sheak were fellow Kawasaki pilots Kevin Foley and Kevin Windham, and Suzuki 's rising star Greg Rand. Foley, nicknamed "Rocket Man" for his real-life job as a space shuttle engineer at NASA in Florida, collected his sixth and seventh AMA Amateur National titles, tying him with Tim Ferry, another Floridian, for the most career titlE;,s. Team Green /Fox /Oakley / Dunlop / Pro-Action/ Shoei-sp onsored Foley won the Junior (+25) and Vet A (+30) championships. However, Windham is bearing down on the record, and with six titles in the past four years, has a shot at catching Foley and Ferry in 1994. The Team Green/AXO/Maxima /Dunlop /Scott/ Renthal / FM F /N -Sty le/ Hammer head/No Fear / LC5-backed rider blitzed the 125cc Schoolboy classes every time out, winning each moto going away. Thor/Scott/Pro Circuit/1000/0/Bell/ Dunlop/Suzuki-sponsored Rand, a 16year-old Ohio native who has been at the top of the amateur heap for years, overcame a recently separated shoulder to nail down a pair of.Stock division titles in the 125 and 250ccA classes. The Loretta Lynn 's track opens to motocross bikes for just one week every Aug us t, and ,the full -service camping facility which surrounds the plantation home of the famed country and western singer becomes the capitol of youth and amateur motocross racing. This time, the mil e-long track featured the same layou t as in previous years, but with an added layer of sawdust to keep the dust down and the course rough. Lap times for the top riders varied from two minutes, 20 seconds to two minutes, 30 seconds, depending on the roughness of the demanding track . The weather also varied from day to day as heat and rain took turns testing riders' versatility. A fierce thunderstorm on Thursday night put the program into a six-hour rain delay, forcing the Racer Productions staff to cut the length of the remaining 38 motos from 20 minutes to 15. The event features a unique threemoto format, in which each race counts equally (with the third moto serving as the tie-breaker) . This proved to be a formula for disaster for at least four highly touted riders. Ricky Carmichael, Travis Pastrana, Richie Horton and Clint Latham each entered the final leg with a pair of moto wins, only to blow probable titles with third -moto crashes. Carmichael was able to rebound for another 85cc Jun ior title, but Pestrana, Horton and Latham were forced to go h ome empty-handed after their lastminute misfortunes. ' _ Sheak, on the other hand, was nearly flawless. "Scott's such good rid er on rough tracks like th is that it's hard to catch him once he gets 'o u t front ," remarked Yezek . "I wa s getting out of the gate in the top six or seven but it seemed like he was already out front pulling awa y by then. Maybe with some better starts we could ha ve had a few battles; the way it was the only time 1 beat him was the only time 1 started in front of him." Yezek's Kawasaki teammate Brian Deegan was thi rd behind Sheak and Yezek in the 125 and 250cc A Modified classes, while Corey Keeney, Ja son McC ormick, Damien Plotts and Roy Schnellenberger provided pressure all week long. In the first 250cc A Modi fied moto, Sheak su rged into the early lead ahead of the Suzuki-mounted McCormick, who recently posted a surprisingly strong fourth-place finish in the first moto at the 500cc National opener in Washougal, Washington. But McCormick's speed was hindered by a week-long penchant for falling. He crashed his way out of the top 10 as the Kawasakis of Sheak, Yezek and Deegan landed in the top three overall by the time the week's racing was completed. Michigan's Jeff Curry, one of the prerace favorites, was third in the first moto, but fell back to 11th in race two. After aggravating a previous injury, Curry decided to call it a week before the final race went off the gate. "1 endoed coming out of the whoops and bashed ~y knees into the tr iple clamps in the second 250 moto," said Curry, " then 1 hit my knee in the next 125 moto and jarred it p retty good. 1 decided that it might be better to just sit the third motos ou t." Fellow Modified class charger Jason Edwards suffered an even worse misfortune coming out of the same whoops, breaking his leg in the final 250cc A Mod moto after finishing fourth in the second race. Deegan ho leshot the first 125cc A Modified moto ahead of Anthony Amaradio and Damyn Swanepeol, but within a few laps McCormick, Yezek and Sheak had busted through the early traffic to press the Kawasaki-mounted leader. On the fourth lap the race changed dramatically when Deegan and McCormick fell in separate accidents within a few yards of each other, leaving Yezek and Sheak to settle the race amongst themselves. Sheak, suffering from a recent bout with an abscessed tooth, eventually fell off Yezek's frantic pace and settled for his lone defeat of the week. Sheak came out firing in the second and third rounds, clicking off two wins to add the 125cc trophy to his previously earned 250 crown. Yezek had a shot at knocking off the New Yorker in the final moto, but a spill at the halfway point cost him dearly. He closed the deficit from eight seconds to three at the end, but Sheak remained in control all the way to the finish. " Th at was a perfect moto!" said Sheak after uncorking the champagne on his second title of the week. "1 knew Davey was there and 1 knew he was going to ride as hard as he could, so that's what 1 had to do, too. 1 made no mistakes out there, so when Davey made his mistake on the whoops 1 just kept going." Yezek settled for second while Deegan was again third with a S3-4. Rand was not necessarily the fastest man on the track in the two A Stock divisions, but the crafty Suzuki pilot nevertheless found himself in .the winner's circle twice. Rand led a spirited John Grewe - 10 years his senior - to the

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