Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

(Left) Winner Ezra Lusk (3) nailed the holeshot ahead of Larry Ward (4) and Doug Henry, but McGrath (2) swooped by Lusk on the outside. Lusk, separated shoulder and all, passed him back after the halfway point, posting his fourth win of the season. (Below) Henry challenged McGrath for the lead but would eventually slip back to third. fourth on the 16th lap when he bobbled in the whoops and handed that spot to Lamson. Craig held on to fifth, just a'head of Suzuki's top-placing rider, Larry Ward, who, like many, struggled in an exceptionally brutal section of whoops. Ward held down fourth for the first half of the race before both Craig and Lamson got him. Finishing seventh was Mike LaRocco on the Factory Connection/Jack in the Box/O'Neal Honda. The former 250 and 500cc National MX Champion started off in sixth and then slipped back to eighth before finishing in seventh. After tangling with another rider ~jght after the first turn, Hughes climbed from 15th to eighth, while Honda of Troy's Mike Brown checked in with ninth. Coming off a season-high eighth at the previous week's Charlotte Supercross, Canadian Jean-Sebastien Roy backed that up with another strong showing, placing 10th at Dallas, while Kawasaki of Carrollton's Cliff Palmer rode well for 11tho Once again, Jimmy Button, on the Chaparral/Mazda Yamaha, struggled: Already riding with a sore wrist and thumb which he injured earlier in the week, Button crashed on the first lap and crashed again later on, reinjuring his thumb. But he forged on and salvaged 12th-place points. Team Suzuki's Mickael Pichon, who nearly pulled off the main-event holeshot, finished 13th after crashing on the sixth lap. The Suzuki rider had just passed his teammate Ward for fourth when he went down. Yamaha rider Jeff Dement of Texas finished 14th, followed by Kawasaki of Mexico/Tecate's Pedro Gonzalez, Kawasaki of Carrollton's Grayson Goodman, GRP /Munn Racing's Cory Keeney, Great Lakes Airlines' Heath Voss and SMP /Ka wasaki rider Mike Jon,es. Pulling up the rear after crashing out of the race on the fourth lap was Kflwasaki of Mexico-supported Jeff Matiasevich. With just one race left in the 16-race series, McGrath leaves Dallas with a 26point lead over Lusk, thus clinching the title with one point to spare. Lusk also put a lock on second place in the series beca,u,se his nearest rival, Team Yama~ ~s Kevin Windham, failed to earn any pOJ,1,ltS at Dallas after crashing in a semi . and separating his shoulder. (See B~·efly...) HEATS ::Q;Ungs looked good for Windham, ~owever, in the first heat race, as he jumped out to an early lead, followed by Lusk, Hughes, Pichon, Gonzalez and Henry. Windham opened up a comfort- able lead and looked to be headed for an easy win - but, as they say, looks can be deceiving. On the third lap, Windham got out of shape in the 20-whoop-Iong section that gave riders fits all night long and couldn't reel his bike back in before going down, and Lusk, Hughes and Henry all got by. A couple of laps later, while running fourth, Windham went down again when his back end slid out in a turn. When Windham went down the first time, Lusk inherited a huge lead and cruised on to victory. Henry, meanwhile, charged hard the whole race, getting around Pichon, Gonzalez and Hughes, and he put a lock on the number-two position. A distant third ended up going to Hughes, followed a little ways back by Pichon and then Windham. Gonzalez settled for sixth. McGrath was certainly on a titleclinching pace in the second heat race, which was controlled early on by Brown. It was McG'rath's race, however, as the Chaparral/1-800-COLLECT / Mazda Yamaha rider took the point on the second lap and pulled away for good. Brown held down the second-place position for a while before dropping back a few positions, and his teammate Craig was also among the leaders before he crashed in the whoops. Meanwhile, Button found himself in second, but right behind him were a battling Ward and LaRocco. This furee-way fight went down to the fi~sh, with LaRocco and Ward trading places a couple of times on the last lap. When it was all over, the conflict for second wen t Button's way, and he was closely followed across the finish line by LaRocco and Ward. SEt.\IS Windham again jumped out to an early lead in the first semi but would suffer a bad case of deja vu when he came off a triple jump and endoed off the track on the third lap. Just as he did last week at Charlotte, Windham went down hard and was slow to his feet after hi tting his head on the hard ground and banging up his shoulder. Windham would slowly walk off the track fairly certain he would not return for the last-chance qualifier. Meanwhile, well-liked local rider Jeff Dement found himself in tlie lead and . managed to hold off Matiasevich, a rider with whom Dement had tangled in their earlier heat race, to score a popular win. Third went to SMP Kawasaki's Jones, followed by Gonzalez and Honda rider Heath Voss. It was a Honda 1-2-3 show in the second 250cc semi, with Honda of Troy rid- er~ Craig and Brown jumping into the first- and second-place positions and Lamson settling into third. Craig made a half-hearted attempt to challenge his teammate for the lead but was content taking second and buying a ticket to the main, as Brown rode on to victory. Lamson circulated the track in third and finished there. Fourth went to Palmer, while fifth went to the Two Wheels Kawasaki/MSR-supported Roy. LAST-CHANCE QUALIFIER Texan Grayson Goodman gave the partisan crowd something to cheer about as he passed Tom Morgan Racing's Ryan Terlecki halfway furough the race before riding on to victory. In his wake, Goodman left Terlecki, Kory Keeney and Jason Thomas, among oth. ers, to fight for the final transfer position. The battle for second came to a head on the last lap when Keeney and Terlecki locked handlebars in the whoops, with both riders going down. Keeney won the race to get back to his feet and went on to finish second for a hardearned trip to the main. . MAIN In the 250cc main, which fea tured a record 12 privateer riders, McGrath, Pichon, Lusk and Henry all vied for the holes hot, with McGrath, Lusk and Pichon entering the turn nearly side by side by side. Pichon drifted wide, and McGrath and Lusk cut underneath him. Lusk came out of the turn a half-bikelength ahead of McGrath, but by the time the first lap was completed, it was McGrath leading the way, followed by Lusk, Henry, Ward, Pichon, LaRocco, Craig and Lamson. Lusk began challenging McGrath for the lead right away, while Henry eyed the Honda rider from behind. Lusk soon lost a few steps on McGrath and had Henry breathing down his neck. On the third lap, Lusk surrendered second place to Henry when the Honda rider babbled ·in the whoops, lost momentum and sud.denly found himself a distant third. "At first, the guys set a pretty good pace:' Lusk said of the first few laps. "1 didn't really have all my lines together and didn't really feel that strong. 1 babbled a little bit in the whoops; as tough as they are, if you lose a little bit of ground, you lose a whole straightaway." On the sixth lap, Pichon passed Ward for fourth but crashed hard over a tabletop jump shortly thereafter. The Suzuki rider was slow to his feet and would eventually finish an unlucky 13th. Meanwhile, up front, McGrath seemed to be in control and enjoying a few seconds on Henry, but the Yamalla rider eventually turned up the boost and chased down the leader, who made a few mistakes of his own in the whoops, allowing Henry to get uncomfortably close. Soon, Henry was challenging for the lead. With the help of a lapped rider, Henry moved to the inside of McGrath and shot into the lead while McGrath was squeezed out wide by tl1e lapper. Before the lap was over, however, McGrath passed Henry back through a whoop section, but Henry retaliated a lap after tl1at. Another lap went by with Henry out in front, and then McGrath made another pass in the whoops. While all this was going on, Lusk sneaked up and eventually zapped Henry for second. "1 looked for lines, found a lot of good lines and tried to be smooth," Lusk said.

• Cover