Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

races, but riders were greeted with frozen puddles on the track in·the marne ing practice sessions. The winding, mountainous Mammoth track was ready, though, as gray skies turned to blue for the opening Vet motos. In the Open Pro class held on Friday the story of the race had to be whether the motocrosser-turned-off-road-star Davis could still hold his own on a motocross course with the likes of National contender ·Hughes. Hughes could not even stand the thought of being beaten by an off-roader. KTM's Lance Smail was riding his KTM 620 four-stroke that he campaigns in the AMA Four-Stroke Nationals and was also turning heads. When the 40-man concrete starting gate dropped for the first Open Pro mota, it was Hughes blazing off with the holeshot followed closely by Davis, Ty Birdwell, Smail, Tim Telford, and. Ray Crumb. Smail ended up getting pushed wide and back to apout ninth in the corner at the top of the Mammoth uphill, while Hughes and Davis freighttrained to about a five-second lead over Crumb, who was in third. The surprise of this race was 1S-yearold Team Green rider Dustin Nelson, whose first ride on a 500 took place in practice on Monday. He got a midpack start, but by lap four he was chasing down the leaders and had wrestled third away from Crumb. He was impressive to say the least. Smail was on a mission toward the front of the pack and on lap nine was pressuring Nelson for the third spot. Nelson waved Smail by in one of the back sections as he was ·not used to the 500 and getting tired, and Smail moved up to third. Soon after, Davis lost his front end in a III tted corner after' hounding Hughes the entire race, and dropped back to fifth. Team Honda of Troy's Casey Lytle had his CR500 going pretty well and also got around Davis for fourth. Hughes took the win going away, followed by Smail and Nelson, who tried some last-corner heroics on Smail before settling for third. Lytle took fourth, followed across the line by Davis, a hard-charging Rich Taylor, Pat Gomm, Justin Tierney, Ray Somma and Ray Crumb rounding out the top 10. The start for the final Open mota was all Davis as he raged to the front of the pack with Hughes hot on his tail, followed by Tim Telford, Ty Birdwell, and Tony Sulek. On the second lap Lytle and Birdwell took each other out at the bot- (Right) Team Kawasaki's Hughes and'Team Green's Ty Davis were this close for most of the Open Pro motos. They split wins, but Ryno took the overall win with a . better combined moto tally. (Below) KTM's Lance Smail also rode his 620 In the Open Pro class and finished second ahead of Davis with a 2-3 moto score. tom of the Mammoth downhill, which all but killed Lytle's chances of a topfive overall score. . Again, after four laps the duo of Davis and Hughes had put 15 seconds ahead of third-place rider Smail, who was on the gas and moving up fast after a start out of the top 10. Behind Smail, Tierney and Crumb were having a good battle and Taylor was moving up after a mediocre start, and was in seventh by lap nine. . Up front, Davis had no intentions of being beaten by Hughes this time and took the checkers with about five sec.onds to spare over Hughes. Smail would finish a distant third, followed by Nelson, Crumb, Taylor, Tierney, Somma, Gomm, and Sandstrom. Hughes' second place in mota two was good enough to give him the Open Pro overall win for the weekend, although he was not pleased with his second-place finish in the second mota. "They (the promoters) had a terrible layout for the matos," commented Hughes about the long gap between motos. "They had one mota at 10 a.m. and one at 4 p.m. How do they expect us to keep warm? Ty rode a great race, and I was right on him at th.e start, but I just wasn't warmed up - to go from zero to 100 percent is hard to do." Smail's consistent 2-3 mota tally was good for second overall for the day, and he was stoked to be on the big straker. "The bike worked so good," beamed Smail. "I was well out of the top 10 on the start and that 620 just pulled me towards the front. It's bulletproof - that four-stroke has held up for four motos (he also rode the Fqur-Stroke National races on it on the same day). It's even got the same clutch in it, and I'm really hard on clutches." With the second-mota win Davis

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