Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

it~ . ltft ,8 .", . . . , '" • ¥ \,- ';:;~", 1 ...... ".' g • .S P R R S . Round 4: Seattle Kingdome U E C O S· . AMA Supercross Series . All .eyes focused on McGrath when th e gate d rop ped at the start of the 20-lap main, and those watching saw him an d Emig lock handlebars a few bike lengths off the line. "We tangled pretty hard," said Emig. "Up u n til then, 1 was p retty stoked. I was about even with Jeremy, and 1 had been havi ng trouble with starts all year long until tonight." "Jeff cam e into me an d 1 sla mme d int o Lawrence on the other side of me," said McGrath. "Then 1 guess Ph il ran into Brad sh aw, or something like tha t." While all of tha t ban ging was going on, Wa'rd ga ined th e advantage a nd thrill ed his hometown crow d by leading the field ou t of turn one. Lusk, Lamson, Swi nk, Bro w n and Albertyn followed . Huffman was LOth, McGrath 12th. "I looked over at the other side of the track when 1jumped over the finish line, and 1 saw Ward leading Yogi an d Lamson," said Hu ffman . "Then 1 knew tha t McGrath was behind me and 1 thought, ' Here we go. Now he won't run away:" McGrath began his journey toward the front of the pack immediately, and on the second lap stuffed his way past . Huffman. That's when the schooling began. "I watched how he Vo!as passing guys," said Huffman. "He just goes, (Above) Hometownfavorite Larry Ward grabbed the holesho t and led the first halfof the race. (l eft) Yamaha 's KevinWindham earned his third-consecutive Western Reglonal1.2Sccmain-event win with ease. 8 za p, za p, za p. H e ca tc hes th em off gu ard, do esn 't wa it for an ope ning. H e wo u ld s urp r ise them, a n d 1 wo u l d sneak in there right behind him. 1 jus t ke p t telling m yself not to let him ge t away." Me anwhil e u p fr ont, Ward rod e fla w lessly an d immediate ly began to pull a way fro m Lusk. Th e cr o w d chee red Ward on, hop ing tha t he would duplicate his Seattle '90 win. " I fel t g reat ou t fron t, and 1 kept telling myself not to ge t excited," sai d Ward. "I knew that McGrath wou ld be coming." . On the fourt h lap, LaRocco pu lled off the track after running as high as 11tho "The radi at or got smashed," sai d Suzuki's Ray Tethert on. "I guess Mike and Law rence collided, and Mike's bike lost all of its water." After hou nd ing the RM rider fro m the get-go, Lamson took over second from Lusk on the seventh lap over the triples. "He's a hard rider to pass," said Lamson of the former Eastern Regional 125cc Champion. "When you pass him, you rea lly have to slam the door or he'll come right back on you. He's real defensive." At the same time that Lamson took over second, McGrath and Huffman broke into the top five. It only took two laps for both of them to overtake Lusk, McGrath making his move before the triples and Huffman doing so in the "dragonback" section. "I had a real good line before the triples," said McGrath. "I was really hauling ass there." McGrath used his patented move before the triples to overtake Lamson on the next lap, and Huffman used the same move on the very next time around to move into third. Only Ward remained in front of them. "I knew they were coming," said Ward . " I was getting really tired out there, and 1 was riding as hard as 1 could:' Still, Ward offered little resistance as both McGra th and a slightly ou t-of-control Hu ffm an jumped past him in the "dragonback. " This set the stage for the dramatic final seven laps, and the crow d was rew a r d ed w ith a n ep ic batt le • betwee n the two lead e r s . Hu ffman gai ned time in the w hoo ps and in th e section fo llowing th e firs t turn, but McGrath was faster before th e t rip le jump . Huffman p u lled alongside McGrath for the first time on lap 13, and passed the champ for the first time on an outside line in turn one on lap 15. McGrath worked back past before the tri ples, and that's when Huffman's clutch began to sour. "The clutch started to get a lot of free play," said Huffman. "There was about an inch at the lever:' "Something went wrong inside," said H u ffm a n ' s mechanic Brian Lunniss. "We have to tear it down to know for sure, but it held up all during testing. We practiced a lot of starts, and this track has a lot of hairpin turns in it that are hard on clutches:' Huffman passed McGrath once more in th eir next trip through the whoops, the Kaw asak i rider passing McGrath wi th alarming speed. "I was watc hing Jeremy, and he was making some mistakes," said Huffman. "That was neat to see him bobbling a little bit. Heck, that' s the first time the guy has really been pressured in, wh at, five years? I got him in the whoops. 1 think he was hav ing trouble there:' Once again, McGrath used his line before the triples to retake the lead, and the battle came to an abrupt end on the next lap when Huffman stalled in the first turn. Huffman resta rted with time to spare, and went on to finish five seconds behind McGrath and two seconds ahead of Lamson. "I saw Damon near the end, but there was no time to make a charge," said Lamson. "I knew that some great racing was going on between those two . 1 could hear the crowd." Lusk flew home in fourth three seconds later, with Pichon at a safe distance in fifth. "Thi s is m y best 250 finish, " said Pichon, the reigning Eastern Regional 125ccc Champion. "I had a terrible night trying to qualify. 1 finally had some good luck in the main, but 1 was tired from all of the riding 1 had to do . Still, -I'm happy with fifth. 1 am just learning this year. 1 will be ready for the 250cc class in '97:' Emig came next, only a few seconds behind the tiring Pichon . "I clipped Jeremy big time and we both got crappy starts," said Emig. "He gets thro ugh the pack better than me, but 1 still felt pretty good. If my first 10 laps were as fast as my last 10, I'd be in there:' . Hughes, Ward, Craig and Lawrence rounded out the top 10. Bradshaw was a disappointing 11th. "I got hit off the s tart and just couldn't get my rhythm go ing," said Bradshaw. 125cc Clawson Motorsports' Rusty Holland grabbed the holeshot at the start of the 125cc main event and led heat-two winner Kevin Windham, SplitFire/Pro Circuit I Kawasaki riders Casey Johnson and Pingree, and heat-one winner Dobb through the first turn . Windham cut under Holland in the second turn, took the lead , and waved goodbye to everyone as he immediately began to outrun . the pack. Windham's dominance was apparent from the get-go - his lead was two seconds on lap one, four seco nds on la p th ree and five seconds on lap four. By the race's end , Windham had pu t eight full seconds be tween him self and the rest, and even had time to thro w in two heel clickers for good measure. "I got a so -so sta rt, and 1 was su rprised to come ou t of th e first tu rn in suc h good positi on ," sai d Windham . . "Once 1 got ou t front 1 knew that 1 could do the triples every lap, and that was im po rtant on this track. I'm def initely enjoying being up front." Joh nson hel d d own second for four laps while his teammate Pingree desp er-

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