Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

'.. AMA -t2&25Occ National ChalllpionshiP MOtocross.Series Round 8: Unadilla Valley Sport Center MOTOCROSS'. back to fourth after posting 6-5 moto finishes at Unadilla, a track he dislikes. "1 don't know, I've just never done well here," said Brown, "but the remaining races are all at tracks I like, so I'm not e too worried." Lamson, who finished second overall at Unadilla and was at one time this season over 30 points down on the leaders, is now in second place, just four points behind leader Hughes, 301-297. Former series leader Damon Huffman, who went 4-3 on the day, is third with 192, and Brown is fourth with 288. LaRocco's win at Unadilla was his first of the season and he did it without even topping a moto. The key to his success was consistency, finishing both motos in second place. "It just doesn't seem right winning the overall without winning a moto," LaRocco said. "But I'll take it:" The defending champ's win had little effect on the series standings, though, mainly due to the fact that LaRocco missed so many races earlier on with a broken arm and is currently way back in fifth. McGrath, the series leader, saw his points lead momentarily shrink to just nine points after he crashed during the first lap of the first moto while Yamaha's Jeff Emig, the series second-place holder, sailed out in front. Emig went on to win the moto ahead of LaRocco, teammate John Dowd and Kawasaki's Mike Kiedrowski, while McGrath salvaged fifth. The roles were reversed in the second moto. A pair of crashes relegated Emig to sixth, while, McGrath ran away with the win. When all was said and done, McGrath had gained one point on Emig, and now the three-time Supercross Champion leads Emig by 19 points with four rounds and eight motos left in the series. Sixty-six points behind Emig is Kiedrowski in third. "I was a little nervous after that first moto," McGrath said. "But now I feel much better:' Unlike 1993's dust-plagued event, this year's National a t Unadilla had ideal racing conditions for the better part of the day. Rain clouds threatened all day, preventing the sun from drying out the loamy, rocky and technically demanding track. Many riders mounted hand guards to their motorcycles, no doubt remembering Kiedrowski's season-ruining hand injury last year. It wasn't until halfway through the second 125cc moto that the rains finally did come in the form of a brief downpour, but it was enough to saturate the track and make it a sloppy mess for the last few laps of the 125cc race and for the first half of the final 250cc moto. 250cc NATIONAl By Kit Palmer Photos by Karl Ockart and Palmer NEW BERLIN, NY, JULY 23 t was beginning to sound like a broken record - McGrath and Lamson, scathump, McGrath and Lamson, scathump... but Team Kawasaki's Mike LaRocco and Team SplitFire/Pro Grcuit/Kawasaki's Ryan Hughes combined efforts to fix the skip in the AMA National Championship MX Series circuit that· had seen Team Honda/l-BOOCollect/Fox Racing riders Jeremy I McGrath and Steve Lamson score the overall wins at the previous two Nationals. For LaRocco and Hughes, Sunday's wins at the infamous Unadilla MX track must have felt like deja vu, as they both won here last year in their respective classes - LaRocco in the 250s and Hughes in the 125s. "I just really like this track," said Hughes, who easily scored the win in the first moto and had the second moto all but won before a small miscue cost him a trip over the handlebars. Despite having his handlebars pushed so far down that the crossbar nearly touched the top of his gas tank, Hughes still finished second in the moto behind Lamson, who crossed the finish line in third in the first moto. Hughes, all smiles'after the race, had plenty to be happy about; not only did he win his second National of the y~ar, but he also became the fourth different rider to assume the lead in the 125cc series standings, overtaking Honda of Troy's Mike Brown, who took over last week at the Troy, Ohio, National. Brown slipped all the way McGrath's hopes of winning his fifth National of the year lasted three turns into the first moto, where he and leader Team Noleen/Sizzler /Xtreme/Yamaha's Larry Ward came together in a £a:;t, sweeping left-hander. "I was right behind Larry when he gassed it too hard and his back wheel slid out of the rut," said McGrath. "Then his back end came back into the rut where 1 happened to be and my front wheel hit his back wheel, and I sort of high-sided:' While McGrath sorted himself out at the back of the pack, Ward opened up a big lead over a tightly knit group of riders made up of Emig, Dowd, Kiedrowski and LaRocco. As the four riders diced, their momentum had carried them up to Ward's back fender, and by the fifth lap, Emig had overtaken the leader. Now it was a five-way battle for the lead, but it would soon shrink to

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