Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

. At the start of the 250cc main event, Lusk again pulled the trigger fastes t to get the ho leshot but th e Suzu ki pilot oversho t the first turn and gave up the insid e to Emig. Lawrence, Craig, McGra th, laRocco and Lusk then filled in the top spots. After a lap of juggling, the orde r was Emig, Lawrence, Lakocco, McGrath and Lus k, and it wou ld s tay just that way for five straig ht laps. " I tho ug h t i t was a Yam a h a guy behind me a t first, but then I realized it was Phil," Emig said of the early pr ess u re he rece ived fr om fri end ly riva l Lawrence. "Phil was going really good." Lawrence was, but he ju mpe d too far outs ide ex iti ng a co rner dou ble and la nded o n a ha y ba le alo ngs ide the track, end ing his cha nces to be "The Guy Wh o Beat McGra th ." La wre nce d ropped eight positions and then spe nt the rest of the main event wo rki ng his way back up into fifth-place. "I w as ha ving problems w it h that section all night a nd in my hea t race that's w here Jeremy passed me on the last lap," said Law rence of the q uick double that the riders jumped while still cornering. "I felt good and I felt comfortable, but then I just cased it, threw me sideways and righ t into a hay bale I we nt . It was pret ty d iscouragin g but I tried to keep going." . With Law rence out of the pictu re, the top th ree of Emig , La Rocco a nd McGrat h shaped u p the way many were expecting it to be in the first few weeks of the series, no t in the waning laps of the season. LaRocco immediately go t a hook in to Emig and pulled McGrath righ t up to the Kawasaki rider's silence r wit h him. Then began a three-way series of swerve, pass a nd block moves tha t had the crowd on its feet for the last 10 laps of the race. laRocco started to put some heat on Emig and the former two-time outdoor National Champion immediately picked up the pace. Howe ver, Emig threw up a road block in laRocco's path. For several laps th e two battled fiercely for the lead, with laRocco often getting a whe el up o n the man who replaced him at Team Kawasaki but was unable to compl ete any pa ss attempts. "He was cutting me off pretty good," LaRocco said. "I was racing with him for a little whil e but th en I was tired o f his ga me so I . tried to mak e some moves - actua lly a couple of mo ves. I d idn 't run it in on Emig because tha t was for the lead and I was being pat ient. " But th en LaR occo was s u r p r ised wh en McGrath zap ped him in a U-turn . laRocco responded quickly, slammi ng the H onda rider in the very next comer to re take th e runn er-up p o siti on . " I didn't want to blow it earl y in the race. I just w anted to be there and make it count. I didn' t wa nt to fall ba ck afte r McGrath passed me so I decided to fire it right back up and go for the lead ." To ad d eve n mor e exci tem en t was the un expected rise of Honda of Troy's Mike Craig, who from the eighth lap to abo u t th e 14th mi gh t have been the fastest rider on the track. "I reeled righ t in to those gu ys and it seemed like right w hen I got there McGrath and LaRocco wer e r eally railing .each o ther and I didn't wan t to try to pursu e a pass on them becau se I knew the cha nces we re good that one of them would fall," said Cra ig o f hi s mom entum loss once he rea ched McGrath ' s back fe nder. "It never happened but now I think I d efinitely could have beat them if I would have pu shed it a cou ple more laps. Two more lap s with good lines and I would have had them ." Lakocco's bid for his first supe rcross victory since the first week of Ap ril last year (a t Pontia c) ended when he tried to sneak past Emig Emig (2) w ithstood ag a in down the the cha llenge of an inside of the w hoops on-form Mike but could no t get a laRocco (8). wh eel up on the Jeremy McGrath (1) stubborn leader . In ran thi rd behind the left-handed corlaRocco but ner tha t foll o w ed , passed the Suzuki LaRocco 's front ri der to fin ish whee l went into a second. Ezra Lusk tigh tly cornering (34) rode to Emig a nd it nearly seventh, caused th e Suzuki rider to h ig h- sid e . He stepped over the rig ht side of his bike and ran alongside it up th e face of t he nex t jum p . In th e pro cess McG rath roared by and LaRocco's last bit of go juice seemed to evapo rate . " I d o n't kn o w what laRocco thinks abo ut o u t 'th e r e sometimes but he rode a g reat r ace; too," McG rath said of t he eventual thi rd-place finisher. "I'm happy for him and Su zuki because I think they needed it." "La Rocco was a ma d man, " remarked Emig of his rival ' s aggressive attacks. "I know how roug h he rid es beca u se m e a nd h im ju st d on't get along th at well, es pecia lly on the track. I kn ew th at he was going to be taking the typ e of shots that he did but I just stayed focused on winning the race. I guess I finally fig u re d ou t th at you only hav e to lead the last lap to win a race. It just work ed ou t that I led all of them tonigh t." By the time LaRocco mad e th e mistake on the missed pass of Emig, Cra ig was fading, which left the victory to be d ecided between Em ig , who had one career 250cc SX win, and McGrath, w ho has more than 40. McGrath kept the heat on, but Emig kept hi s wits ab out him and did not make any big mistakes. But as the race was winding d own and the fa ns were g oin g at fu ll throttle alo ng wi th the lead ers, Emig almos t mad e two fatal mistakes. " I go t a littl e b it sq uir re lly th ere goi ng int o the comer after the s tep-up jump and I wa s really lucky that there wasn' t an yone inside of me to pass me," Emig said of one of two near -crashes he had on the last lap . 'Then I hit the triple and drifted wa y right and was thinking, 'Oh shit!' I couldn' t believe it." Em ig ac tua lly la nd ed on a hay bal e o n the right side of the track and rolled the bale over, bu t somehow kept the bike on two whee ls. When as ked wh at was going thr ough his mind on that last, seemingly end less la p, Emig sai d, "I was still racing up until the point that I turned the last corner . I was twisting the throttle so hard I'm surprised the grips d idn 't wear off. And I d id n' t even know that I was going to pull a no-hand er at the checkered flag until I was in the air. I had pictu red win ning this race for the last three d ays an d I pictured that finish so many times, but I never actua lly pictured myself goi ng past th e finis h lin e. A no-hand er just seemed real appro priate." ted fou rth-placed Craig. "I do n' t really care who won, even thou gh I d on't like Emig, just so long jls it was n' t McGrflth again. Four th is not what I wa n fed tonight - I really wa nted the podium. I guess I have one more chance to do that." Lawrence finished a distant fif th w hile Larry Ward settled fo r six t h after a run-in with Lusk. "I caught up rea lly good but Ezra was m ore worried abo u t me getting by th an he was abo u t catching the leaders," Wa rd sa id about his inability to pass Lusk. "We ended up crashing together and it was just silly." The res t of the top 10 was led by an out-of-sync Bradshaw, followed by Button an d Bud dy Antunez. " I g rew up partly in Missouri a nd partl y in Kansas," said Emig. who now lists Riverside, California, as his home. "This is about as close to my hometown race as they can get, unless you want to go do a little Friday night race with me. A lot of my friends and family drove over here to w a tch tonight, so that ma kes winning even more special." "I was pumped up th e whole race and th e track w as really easy," sai d McGrath. "I couldn't get a wh eel up on anyo ne. I had to .wait for mistakes but Jeff rode a great race and didn't make very man y mistakes. It was jus t basically a stuff-ma tch a nd Jeff d id what he had to do by getting the holesh ot." "Next week is going to be a br eeze becau se the pressure is finally all off. I kno w that everyone is treating this (first loss) like it's devastation, but there' s still some wo rk to do," McGrath reasoned. "I do n't think an yone's been on the podiu m every time be for e, or even got 13 wins and one second or wh atever . I've got to be the most fortunate gu y there is in this spo rt, or even in the w hole wo rld . I'm luc ky to ha ve something th at I'm goo d a t a nd w het he r I wo n o r lost tonight I still get to go rid ing this week. What the hell- second ain' t bad . It's better tha n third ." "I felt really good tonigh t and I think I worked with my bike a lot better," said a not-quite-satisfied LaRocco, w ho was the fastest guy on the track in the middle pa rt of the race but simply unable - or un willing - to make a risky .stuff-pass on Emig . "I felt like myoid self a little bit tonight. I hate to see Emig win bu t it's better than McGrath. I definitely was out there to win an d I certainly had my shot but I just messed up. Maybe in Denver." "I'm glad that Emig won just because I'm sick of seeing McGrath win," admit- 125CC The 125cc heat races in S1. Louis were a crash-fest. Th e first hea t, w hich was eventua lly won by SplitFire /Pro Circuit Kawa sak i' s Casey Johnson, saw Team Chaparral's Greg Schnell drill his Suzuki RM125 into a the face of a triple-jump la nd ing, a nd wa s then land ed on by Kawasaki p rivateer Sha u n Pero lio. The contact resulted in a broken arm fo r Schnell and some evening-ending cutsand-bruises for Perolio. Team Yamaha 's John Dowd also went down and had to go to the 125 LCQ, wh ile his teammate Windham a nd Sp li tFir e /Pro Circuit Kawasaki's Rusty Holland got toge ther in a big cras h. In the second heat the crashing continued, with Suzu ki rid ers Tra vis Preston and Grayson Goodman coming together on another trip le. Preston suffered a broken rib and a partially collapsed lung, causing this race to be red-flagged. Twenty minutes later on the res tart, Pro Circuit-backed Jeromy Buehl cased the same triple that finished Preston's evening and "choppered" his KX 125 when the triple clamp broke upon imp act. Pichon eventually won this qualifier. All the crashing in the h eat rac es mean t that the LCQ would include four riders wh o have previously won a 125cc SX main event: Dowd, Buehl, Team Prim a l Im p u ls e' s Pedro Gonzalez a nd Honda of Troy' s Jeff Willoh. Minnesota privateer Heath Voss ended u p beating everyone an d poo r Willoh got the sho rt end of the stick, continuing his unfortunat e streak of havi ng not made a ma in eve nt since he won the San Diego round in the first week of Februa ry. A hu ge cras h coming out of the first tum in the 125cc main event left Dowd a nd a ll of Team Sp litFi re /Pro Circuit Kawasaki (Pic hon, Jo hnson a nd Ho ilan d) lying on th e groun d . That meant clear sailing for Windham, w ho started up fro n t with Team Cha pa rral's Brian Deegan and Michael Bran des. By the end of the first la p, Wind ham was in control of the race; by the last lap he was 25 seconds ahea d of everyone doing his soon-to-be-patented heel-clickers. .l -. P-. < 17

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