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MOTOCROSS
Nations
Everts and Smets up against Brits Eastw o oc a nd Nicoll a nd Italians Chiodi
s
and Bartolini.
At the start of the third moto - the
combined 250/ 5OOcc showdown - Emig
gated well alongside the 250s of Beirer
and Bolley , and Smets' big Husaberg
bomber. W a y ., th e ba ck ca me th e
unluckv Dowd.
" I '{ad a terribl e gate with a bi g
chu n k of ro ck u ndern ea th me th at I
could not do anything with," sa id Dowd
of hi s ga te a ssignment. (Unlike in th e
United Stales, rid ers are ass ign ed gates
by th e number they draw, not by
choice.) " It was a little slab of concrete
or something and I was kicking at it so
hard it made my foot sore. I tried to dig
at it w ith a screw driver to make notches
in it, but nothing worked . I ju st spun
and came out really bad: '
Emig stayed with Beirer for one lap ,
going ba ck and forth with him briefly
before some thing seemed to snap, and
the four-time U.S. Na tio na l Cha m pion
put it into slow reverse . For the next
seven laps, Emig seemed to lose a positiun per lap and was outside the top 10
by the mote's end.
Of the bad moto, Emig said, "1 don't
know what happened th ere, I s ta r ted
first, go t passed, passed the guy back for
first, then I ju s t started going backward s. It just seemed like I was going
nowhere all dav, In the mud (in the first
moto), I was fairly successful , bUI it still
felt like I was d raggin g my feet or something. I d on ' t know, man. I tried reall y
hard, bUI I wasn't comfortable on the
track aod nothing went right. It was as if
every line that I took was the wrong
line: '
Emig wou ld s p ira l dow nward to a
(Above) Belgian Stelan Everts rode well and tUrned in a 2-3 to help his Belgian team to
the win.
(Below) Jeff Emlg (3) leads Belgian Joel Smels In the llnal moto. Emig eventually laded
to 12t h after finishing second In his fi rst outing. Smets eventually moved up to f ifth.
career-low MX des ations moto finish
of 12th place by the time the flag mercifully fell. "It was one of my worst rides
in my ca ree r, but I feel fine. I wasn't
tired, I didn't have arm pump, and the
bike wa s wo rki ng pretty good, but I just
could not get the groove on . I was just
no t comfortable, a nd my mi nd was
telling me to back off of it."
Up front , Beir er pretty much ran
away with it again on the se mi- works
Pamo Honda, easily winning the event
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12
overall and his thi rd ca reer mot o wi n
(he also wo n a mo to in Slovakia in '95) .
Sweden's Karlsson raced up to second
afte r starti ng seve nth and the n wen t into
a defensive po sture to hold off the hardcha rgi ng Ever ts, who had started six th
and was passed early by th e Honda of
Kar lsso n , h is o ld tea m m a te a t JH K
Kawasaki in '94. But after a fa iled 20minute attack, Eve rts fi nally le t the
Swede go.
"1 go t a ba d s ta rt in th e last mo to
because I go t too much tractio n out of
the gate," said Everts of his mediocre
starts. " It was very hard to co me u p
through beca use the track was one line
ev erywhere, especially in the tight corners, so it was really hard to ma ke passes . Like in th e last m o to, when I was
beh ind (joakim) Karlsson. I passed him
a few limes by half a bike but then he
had the line in the tum. I even hit him a
little bit but it was no good, so I too k it
easy and rod e for my th ird place and the
.
team win."
Everts coasted across the lin e third
o verall, ahead of Belley, who was followed by the jubila nt Smets. T he big
Belgian rode into the arms of Everts and
th e hundreds of fans who jumped the
fences, and he was lifted up above the
crowd .
"1 jumped up and stood on top of my
bike with Joel and it was incred ible how
the people were yelling and screaming
for us," said Everts. "It was amazing. -
maybe one of the biggest days in my
career."
As for Dowd, the Yamaha rider was
19th at the end of the first lap but !lever
quit trying until the very end .
"1was taking some pretty funky lines
trying to pass people because I must
have been las I in the first turn,"
explained Duwd . "1 was all o ver the
place trying to pa ss groups of guys at a
time. After that, it wa s hard to pass anyo ne because i t was just o ne line th e
whole way arou nd the track . I could reel
people in qu ick but it took me a while to
get arou nd them, and with the rocks
and stuff, it was kind of d eadl y to stay
behind them, so it wa s almos t h op eless ."
The last gu y. that Dowd passed was
his teammate Emig, who was just going
through the motions. "Even going intu
the last moto, I knew we were out of it,
but I st ill felt like rid in g fo r myself,"
said Dowd . "He wasn' t looking like he
wa s really try ing . I think he was so done
raci ng a t tha t poin t. I was just kind of
mad at the whole day so 1 still felt like
trying hard, bUI it was hard to mo ve forwa rd .
" It was su ch a grea t ho n or to be
as ked to come and I feel like I gave it
my all, but I just had a bu nch of ba d
luck," sa id Dowd. "Man, I would love to
come back next yea r and give it another
s hot. We 're be ller t ha n th e re su lt s
turned out. All we can do is loo k for."
ward to. next year."
1997 Motocross des Nations
Nismes, Belgium
Results: september 14, 1997
125/500 MOTO 1 (30 m inut" + 2 1.011"'): I. Kurt
Nteu ll (CB /SOO/ KThO; 2. JMf Emi g