Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

will capture his second straight 125cc National Championship title, as he currently enjoys a solid 108-point lead over Windham, the only rider to have taken an overall victory other than Lamson. Windham moved into the second spot in the standings, displacing teamm'ate Dowd - who had an off day at Troy - to third. A record turnout of approximately 15,300 spectators filled the infield of the scenic Kenworthy's MX Track, featuring its characteristic long layout on flat ground. Part of the course runs alongside a river and weaves in and out of trees. You'll never hear the words uphill or downhill at Troy because there are none, so most of the obstacles are manmade, including a new section of whoops that was added. Luckily, this year's event saw much cooler temperatures as compared to last year's steamer. 250cc NAllONAl Emig edged out Canadian JeanS.ebastien Roy for the holeshot in the ''I'm .feeling good," said Hughes. trying to get back up to speed. I think I showed that I've got it (the speed) but can't (maintain it) the whole race yet. At first, I couldn't hang at all, but now I can for a while, and that's improvement, so I'm happy." Filling out" the top five overall was Unadilla winner Albertyn. The threetime World Champion ran as high as second in the first moto and at one time led the second moto before settling for 3-5 moto finishes. Sixth went to Suzuki's Mike LaRocco, who rode well but never got a good start (what else is new?) that would enable him the chance to run with the leaders; he went 5-6, while Team Yamaha Damon Bradshaw (8-7), Honda of Troy's Brian Swink (7-10), privateer Phil Lawrence (9-9) and Team Noleen's Kyle Lewis (13-8) rounded out the top 10 overall. With four rounds left in the series, McGrath leads Emig by 47 points, 42637'1, while LaRocco sits in third with 297. McGrath's teammate showed no signs of any motivational problems as defending champ Steve Lamson trounced the field in the first 125cc National moto with an unchallenged, wire-to-wire victory. Lamson, though, could not match that performance in the second moto, much of which had to do with a bad start and Team Yamaha's Kevin Windham, who smoked everyone. Lamson did finish third in that mota to collect his sixth overall win of the season. A terrible start in the first mota held Windham back to fourth in the opener, but his second-moto win was more than enough to give the West Coast 125cc Supercross Champion second overall, one position ahead of Team Kawasaki's Damon Huffman, another rider who is on the comeback trail. Huffman injured his knee in a supercross race earlier in th.e year and this was his strongest performance since. The two-time West Coast 125cc SX champ finished third in the first moto and 'beat Lamson to the ch.eckers for ~Tm move on Albertyn for second and suddenly realized that Emig had already built up a fairly sizable lead. But for McGrath, the distance wasn't impossible to make up, after all, as he has reeled in riders from greater distances many times before. Everyone was waiting for McGrath to make his move, but, instead, was kept waiting and waiting and... Surprisingly, rather than gaining ground, McGrath was' actually losing gr01md on Emig, who seemed to have the track wired. Even Albertyn was hanging with McGrath - for a while. Later in the race, Albertyn began dropping.back, and the top three riders became quite spread out by the time the checkered flag flew .. Emig crossed the finish line with approximately 10 seconds on McGrath, who had about 13 seconds on Albertyn. "I felt really good that moto, plus the bike is working awesome," said Emig. Despite knowing he would have to settle for second, McGrath still clicked a naccnac over a double for the large crowd on the last lap. opening 250cc National mota, but it wasn't long before Albertyn, McGrath and Ward had moved in and occupied the second through fourth positions. After the fir'st lap, Roy had dropped back to fifth, just ahead of Swink, Hughes, Bradshaw, Rich Taylor and LaRocco. Emig set the pace up front and began pulling away from Albertyn ever so slightly, while McGrath stayed in close touch with Albertyn. Well into the third lap, while stretching out his lead even more, Emig developed a problem that he didn't even know he had, when his rear wheel snagged a long stream of plastic banners useq to line the track, and the banners eventually got sucked up into his rear hub. "I saw the banners laying in the track and thought to myself, 'someone's going to get that caught in their wheel,'" Emig said. "The next lap I saw that it was gone and thought, 'ha, someone caught it.' Little did I know that som,eone was me. I didn't even know I had the banners wrapped up in my wheel; it never affected me the whole race." A few laps later, McGrath made his Hughes ended up a distant fourth after dicing with Swink, Ward and LaRocco for much of the race, and just did take the checkered flag a few bike lengths in front of LaRocco. After starting the race off in 10th, LaRocco struggled through the pack. He battled back and forth with Hughes before Hughes got the upper hand late in the race. Ward ran a strong race, running fourth for a while before succumbing to the Hughes/LaRocco onslaught. Finishing a distant seventh was Swink who also was a victim of Hughes and LaRocco's battle. After getting passed by the factory riders, Swink found hirnseU all \0 alone in seventh, a safe distance ahead 0\ of Bradshaw, who spent a good chunk 0\ ...... of his race dicing with the Canadian, Roy. Bradshaw eventually won out on that battle for eighth, while Lawrence ended up ninth after executing a laterace pass on Roy. Eleventh went to Suzuki rider Cliff Palmer who started out the mota in the exact same position. KTM rider Lance Smail improved one position from his start to take 12th fol- • (Above) Steve Lamson led the 125cc pack to victory in the first moto. A third in the finale was enough for him to capture the overall win. (Right) Jeff Emig (2) holeshot both 250cc National motos. He would win only the fir'st and finish second overall. Larry Ward (6) gave his team - Honda of - Troy - Its first podium finish in the 250cc class. Ward went 6-2 for third. runner-up honors in the finale. Despite finishing second in the second mota, Huffman was happier about his thirdplace performance in the first mota. "Lately I've been having good second motos but have been having problems in the first motos - arm pump," said Huffman. "Today, I felt great in the first mqto. To me that's important." Another somewhat surprising ride was turned in by Primal Impulse/Bill's Pipes/Honda's Robbie Reynard who edged out Huffman for second in the first moto. An eighth in the second mota gave Reynard fourth overall. Honda of Troy's Mike Craig ran up front with the leaders in both motos before running out of gas, physically, in the later stages of both races. Still, Craig hung on to finish fifth overall, by way of two fifth-place fiiUshes: Sixth went to Suzuki's Tim Ferry (66), followed by Team SplitFire/Pro Circuit/Kawasaki's best finisher Chad Pederson (7-7), Team Yamaha's John Dowd (8-10), privateer James Dobb (8-14) and Honda of Troy's Mike Brown (39-4). Barring any huge disasters, Lamson

• Cover