Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

Mike Kiedrowski who made his return to racing following a thumb injury suffered at the Gatorback National in Florida in early March. Team Suzuki's Greg Albertyn spent most of his race trying to get aroJ,lnd Emig but would end up finishing ninth after a small get-off, and Chaparral/Yamaha's Phil Lawrence rounded out the top 10. Eleventh place went to Primal Impulse/Honda rider Robbie Reynard, who had smoked everyone, including Emig, earlier in the evening in his heat race. Reynard was followed by. Nation'al Arenacross Champion Buddy Antunez, F&S Suzuki's Cliff Palmer, SMP's Grayson Goodman, Yamaha of Troy's Todd DeHoop, Ohio's James Eickel, Kawasaki Team Green's Mike Jones, Xtreme's Anthony Pocorobba and Oregon's Ryan Huffman, who crashed hard while running 15th late in the race. McGrath got the jump on the pack in the first heat race and beat everyone to the first turn, but coming out of the turn, Windham had the lead. Actually, a couple of other riders also got by an out-ofsync McGrath down the first tricky, doublet step-up/ singlet double section, but the defending champ quickly got by them through the next turn and settled into second. Windham opened up a modest lead but McGrath would match his pace. McGrath eventually stepped up that pace one step farther and began closing on the Yamaha rider. By the halfway point, McGrath was making attempts to get around. Windham held him off for a while, but McGrath's relentless attack would eventually take its toll on Windham. It took McGrath about a full straightaway to complete his pass and, once by, he simply pulled away from Windham. McGrath would go on and take the win, while Windham took a lonely second. A battle raged for the third- through fifth-place positions, involving Lusk, Albertyn and Hughes. Lusk eventually pulled clea.r, leaving Albertyn and Hughes to decide the heat's last transfer position. Two laps from the finish, Hughes cut underneath Albertyn in a turn and pinched him off in the following corner to take control of fourth. Albertyn was forced to go to the semis after finishing fifth, followed by Lawrence and DeHoop. One other notable non-qualifier was Antunez, who finished 15th after crashing. Emig led the pack into the first turn at the start of the second heat race, but Reynard cut to the inside and blocked Emig's line coming out of the turn to secure the· lead. Neither Emig, nor anyone else for that matter, could match Reynard's pace as he quickly opened up a sizable lead and would go on to take an uncontested win. Emig and Bradshaw would go at it for the last half of the race. After getting off to a fifth-place start, Bradshaw reeled Emig in and stuck his front wheel next to Emig's rear wheel many times but just could not find enough daylight to complete his pass attempts. Bradshaw's charge came to an end on the last lap when he bobbled in a whoop section, letting Emig get away. Bradshaw still finished a close third, followed at some distance by Button. Ward just couldn't get going after a seventh-place start, and he finished one spot out of a direct transfer in fifth. Ryan Huffman finished sixth just ahead of Palmer. Albertyn was running away with the first semi but suddenly things got close when the Suzuki rider cross-rutted and went down late in the race. His lead was so big, though, that he managed to get going again before the battling duo of Antunez and Kiedrowski could get by. Now it was a three-way race down to the finish with "Albee" hanging on for the win over Antunez and Kiedrowski. Lawrence passed DeHoop on the last lap for fourth, while finishing sixth, one position out of a transfer, was F&S Suzuki's Jeff Hedden. Ward passed Ryan Huffman, Mike Jones and Mike Katin early in the second semi before opening up a big lead and scoring an easy win. Huffman ended up finishing second with room to spare over Palmer, who came up from a midpack start. A three-way battle for fourth through sixth went down to the wire with Jones nipping Eickel for fourth. Tom Clowers just missed a ticket to the main after finishing fifth. The last two openings for the main event were decided in an all-out slugfest in the last chance qualifier. Hedden led off the start but was passed by Katin and Anthony Pocorobba by the third lap. Katin led for a while until getting stuffed in .a turn by Pocorobba. Moments later, Katin fell over, putting him out of con~ention. Texan Grayson Goodman worked his way into second after passing Hedden, who tried to get the Yamaha rider back but ran out of time. Pocorobba and Goodman went 1-2 and into the main event. It was a drag race between the two title contenders - Emig and McGrath going into the first, left-hand turn at the start of the 20-lap, 250cc main, but cutting to the inside and coming out with the lead was Lusk, followed by Emig and McGrath. McGrath, however, wanted to get out in front early and hugged the inside tine in the next right-hand tum to come out ahead of Lusk and right next to Emig. Charging down the next straight, McGrath drove Emig to the outside, resulting in Emig clipping a hay bale, getting out of shape and dropping to eighth. Emig would never be a factor among the leaders the rest of the race. "Jeff had already went to the outside and ] was on the inside," McGrath said. "He was coming in, and I j).1st kind of went over on him, tried to block him and we hit kind of hard. ] mean, that's my key right now. I've got to be aggressive the first few laps before anyone gets away." Suddenly, McGrath found himself well out in front, followed by Lusk, Bradshaw, Ward, Windham, Kiedrowski, Albertyn and Emig, though Emig would get by Albertyn before the first lap was completed. By the third lap, McGrath would own a three-second lead over Lusk, who managed to put some distance between himself and Bradshaw, who now had Windham breathing down his neck. Windham worked on Bradshaw for a while before finally getting around him by the fourth lap, and, right about the same time, Emig took Kiedrowski wide for sixth. For the next 10 laps, there was no passing among the top six riders and very little between the seventh- and eighth-place riders, Albertyn and Hughes. The two riders would trade places a couple of times whil~ keeping dose tabs on Emig. McGrath continued leading the way, though never gaining more than a foursecond cushion over Lusk. The distance ~ t-.. between the two constantly fluctuated ~ between three and four seconds. rl McGrath would gain time on Lusk over a series of doublet triple jumps, while ...... Lusk had the faster line through one I-< particularly tough section of whoops. 0... Three seconds, four seconds, three seconds, four seconds, and that's how it would go, lap after lap. "] made a lot of time up in the ..... <: 11

• Cover