Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

GM0IOCR0SSAMAIDirt Shirts Fall Dassie SerieslS.E.Regional MegaSeries( 'ship: Rounds 6/Final ~ Neese, Windham sail toMd C kwins u dy r ee 0\ 0\ . . rl holeshot and quickly p ulled out a lead that went unchallen ged to the finish . "The start is 7S% of the race here," said Kawasaki Te a m G reen/Barr's Competition /Hammerhead Graphicsbacked Neese. "I trie d to ge t out as far as I cou ld . It was a long mot o and you never know what can happen." Nothing happened to p reven t Neese from winning, and not a whole lot happened behind him, either. Brown passed Lough for second early in the race, but cou ldn't gain on Neese. " I didn't ride like myself this weekend," said Brow n, who rode to second. " I jus t wasn' t riding th e course hard enough." Lusk dropped ou t with mechanical prob lems while DeHoop also passed Loug h past the halfway poi nt and slowly closed o n Brown la te in th e race . (Left) Jim Neese (314) leads Mike Brown (54), Joshua Steel (90) and the rest of the 250cd Open class throu gh turn one in the main event. (Below) M ike Brow n, who no rma lly dominates at Muddy Creek, . finished thi rd in the 125cc class an d second in the O pen d ivision. By Nate Rauba BLOUN1VlLLE, lN, ocr.23-24 im Neese and Kevin Windham shot down local favori te Mike Brown at the Honda Top Gun Showdown at Muddy Creek Raceway. Neese won the Open Pro class while Windham topped the 12Scc division. But it was Windham who was perhaps the most impressive on the undulating, n or th eas tern Te n nessee tra ck. The Bato n Rouge, Lou isiana, teen ager was riding in his first major pro race an d led the 125cc main from start to finish, b eatin g Suzuki's Ez ra Lusk and Brown to the checkered flag. Windham w as arguably the fas test rid er on the track in the Open main as he charged back from a first-lap fall to finish fou rth beh in d se ries leader Todd DeHo op, Brown and winn er Neese. " N o t a lo t of p eo p le b e at Br own here," sai d Neese, who lives a few hou rs away in Wh itsett, North Carolina, and competes aga ins t Bro wn on a reg ular basis. The even t was the penultimate round o f th e AM A /Dirt Shirts Fall Classi c Series, but th e race format was alt er ed si nce it w a s a ls o the tradit ional MegaSeries finale. Saturday ' s racing was the Fall Classic amateur day, while Sunday served as the Top Gun Showdown, presented by area Honda dealers. Using the traditional Top Gun format, Sunday's program fea tu red one showdown moto for both the amateurs and pros. The top IS riders in th e MegaSeries Championship were automatically qualified for the Showdown. The remainder of each class was filled by the top overall finishers from Saturday's motos. . Each Pro class ran a five-lap qualifier to determine the starting gate selection order for the ma in. It was no surprise when Brown, the local from nearby Gray, Tennessee, who wins regularly at Muddy Creek, led fro m start to finish. Lusk passed Neese at the finis h line to get th e second pick while Barry Carsten and Windham rounded . out the top five. Wh en th e final roared off the lin e, Windham pa ssed N ee se on the first downhill and quickly sped aw ay . By lap two of the 25-minute plus two-lap mo to, Windham wa s four seconds ahead of Brown. The Kawasaki Team Green rider continued-to stretch his lead to nearly 10 J 26 seconds, and only backed off near th e end when the win was nearly assured. . "For the first half I charged as hard as I could to o p en a lea d , " sai d th e lanky, s o ft-spo ke n IS -y ea r -old . " 1 backed off towards the end . I saw where second and third were a n d p aced myself." If he had th e tim e to look closely between the tre es in the wood s section of th e course, he would 've seen Lusk pass Brown for second place on the last lap. Lusk started p oorly but charged the entire distance. His fiercest battl e came as he fou ght to get around N ee se for third. "He covered the track p retty well," sa id Lusk, who passed the N or th Caroli ni an on th e ei ghth of 13 la ps then quickly closed on Brown. . "I slacked off the last few laps," said a disappointed Brown, who hungon.to finish third ahead of Neese. On e of the best battl es was be tween title rivals DeHoop and Carsten for fifth place. The two started the moto tied in points and sp en t much of the race chasing one ano ther. "I passed DeHoop and went to get by Cha d Loug h when he pushed me off the track," said Carsten. "I thi nk he (Carsten) thought about cutting the track there," said DeHoop. "He rea lized 1 was behind him, stopped and turned around." They b oth passed Lough a n d DeH oop later fell, giving fifth and a two-p oint lead in the series to Carsten. Windham a ls o ran away with the fi ve-l a p O p en Pro qualifier while DeHoop, Lusk and Brown finished 2-4 in close forma tion. But Windham's luck ra n out when the 36-rider field left the gate at the start of the main. "The front end ca!TIe up and I let off," sa id Windham. "Then some body went down; I hit him and went down too." As Windham re-entered n ear the back of the pack, Neese had grabbed the Windham was the rider every one was watchin g a s he charg ed th rou gh th e pack after h is fi rs t-la p m ishap . He reached 10th on lap three, and few laps later had advanced to sixth. Windham kept charging until he wa s in fourth and quick ly closing on DeHoop when the check ered flag halted his charge. . "I didn't expect to do this well," said Windham. " I expected to fin ish about fourth all da y without falling." Fifth was as far as Lou gh dropped, St eve Childress fini shed si xth, and Carsten was se venth, which 'd ropped him from six points up on DeHoop in the series to six p oints behind. Ca rsten cleaned up in the 25-Plus A class, w inning both motos on Saturday then dominatin g Sunday's Show down ma in jus t two races before the 125cc Pro final. "The race wa s onlysix laps, so it was like practice," said the 27-year-old from New Jers ey. "I was able to try a few different lines ."

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