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/127656
(Left) Jeff Stanton (5) finished second at the Georg ia Dome, matching hi s season best. Here, the threetime champ dices with 19th place fin isher Jeff Matiasevich (21), who crashed later in the race.(Be low) Ezra Lusk (17) and TIm Ferry (28) diced for the lead early in the Eastern Regional 125cc feature. Lusk went on to win the 15lap race to keep hi s perfect record Intact. second pl ace cleanly by goi ng deep er ยท in to th e next co r ner. Th e contac t appeared incidental, somet hing Emig and Stanton agreed on. "I cut to the inside, we came togeth er, it was no big deal," Emig-sai d . "It seems that lately I've come out on .the short end of the stick. I'm not a bad guy . I'm just out there to race." "Nobody wants to lose a line. I didn 't want to hit him and take him out," said Stanton, who started slowly before getting up to speed and finishing second. "I'm jus t a little bit cold in starting . I need to improve on th at to get on the top spot on the podium, instead of the sid e." Stanton's runner-up spot equalled his best finish of the year, a second in Anaheim. The intervals among the top 10 increased as the race wore down and Em ig was a safe third - like Stanton, tying his best performance of 1994. Four th place was taken over by Mike Craig with five laps to go, the Yamaha rider having spent mu ch of the race mak ing up for a bad start, then compounding it with a few ridin g mistakes. After completing the first lap in eighth, Cra ig began to in ch forwa rd , taking over sixth at the halfway point, then getting the best of Dou g Henry as Henry began to tire and Craig accidentally hit his front wheel. "I came up short on a step-up jump and it took a lot of energy out of me," said Henry, who faded to ninth. "It was a pretty tough jump. 1don't think everyone was doing it every lap. When Craig wen t by he too k my fro nt w heel ou t. There was nothing 1could do ." "I was real sorry for that ," Craig said. "I don' t like to play tha t game. It was difficult to pass because we we re all going so fast." As Henry recovered, Team Honda/ 1-800-COLLE CT's Steve Lamson an d Kawa sa ki 's Mike Kie d ro ws ki a lso forge d p as t with Kawasaki' s Mike LaRocco joining them a lap later. Lamson was enjoying the benefits of some suspension changes he'd worked out in practice sessions d uri ng the week. " It seemed like I was struggling in the corners, " said fifth-p lace d Lam son . "We made a few little changes and that definitely improved it a lot." Despite having had a bet ter finish this year, Lamson felt this was his best race. " It was the best race I'v e had yet," Lamson said. "It was the best 20 laps of riding consistently and hard . Other races I could go five or six laps good, then really bad at other times." The har d-charger award had to go to Kiedro w sk i. The 25-year-o ld 250cc National Ch am p ion w en t down in a first-turn pile-up and sp ent the rest of the race catching up . " I felt good com in g o ut. I think I was ab ou t six th or seventh off the start b ehind La mso n," Kiedrowsk i said. "The pack just all came from the inside to th e outside. I bounced into LaRocco and cau ght his footp eg in my front wheel - I th in k it broke a few spokes." Kiedrowski was in to the top 10 by the fifth lap , then improved incrementally until taking over sixth with five laps to go. Despite having to make up so much ground, Kied ro wski didn't feel worn out at the end . . "I felt good the who le time," he said. " I wa s really working the bike. There were a couple of places on the side to pass if you stayed out of the ru ts." Kiedrowski finishe d one spo t bet ter thanhis teammate laRocco, who made it up to fifth place before crashing on a tabletop jump along the eas t end zone. -.:t< Th e mi shap, which happened on the 0\ 14th lap , dropped him back to eighth. ~ He would recover one spot and finish in front of Suzu ki 's Brian Swi n k, who crashed two turns from the end of the third lap while in second place. "I just slid out in the corner. 1 was on the gas too hard and too early and the rear spun around," eighth-place finisher Swink said. "After 1got up 1floundered,