Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/127944
MOTOCROSS 250cc WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP MOTOCROSS SERIES Round5: European Grand Prix Sebastien Tortelli managed to put a stop to Stefan Everts' win streak, beating the Belgium on his horne ground In the Grand Prix 01 Europe. the long sweeping drive to the first real turn. Everts, whose recent tactic has been to hit the front early and crucify the opposition with scintillating early laps, was only fourth. Within half a lap he had nailed Marnicq Bervoets, bu t the ever-eb1.!lIient Pit Beirer proved a tougher nut to crack. The race was 10 minutes old before Everts could make second his, and by then Tortelli was six seconds clear. This was to be racing for the connoisseur rather than the lapstick fan who loves supercross. Even the leaders, reacting to each other, slackened their pace a second from the early laps and Everts seemed to close slightly (if not significantly) as the purist could marvel at the style arguably two of the world's fastest outdoor motocrossers. Tortelli was forcing hi bike through lines which no one else would even attempt (but whic.h th stopwatch proved were quicker!) while Everts floated over the surface a gear higher than anyone else with an engine note that could have fooled the less perceptive into thinking he was coasting. But neither of them were. At 20 minutes came the decisive action. "I was suffering with arm pump and let him (Torte IIi) go," Everts later claimed. "I guess I ten ed up, racing in front of my home fans." . Marco Decman's pit-board signals to Tortelli told the truth, however. Five laps before the leader hit lapped traffic, the Frenchman turned on the heat, dropped his la p times back down to 2:05.5 (successive laps varied on the official computer printout later by just one-thousand th of a second) and killed the Belgian's iron will. Half a minute down, Bervoets llad waited until midrace to find a safe wily pa t Beiter, while Frederic Bolley rode alone from the third la p on to fini~h fifth - a further 30 seconds down. Meanwhile, Vohland was on a mission. "I got a good jump at the start and was top six when we came to this strange new part of th track, which was incredibly narrow and with a deep rut in the middle," he said. "As we boxed together, 1 went to ride the outside to avoid a shunt in the rut. 1 don't know who it was - a Honda, anyway (it was Boiley) - came charging down the inside, slammed into Dewit and he shot into me and put me in the fence." From 26th on lap one, the American would finish 11th. Everts had handed out a warning at the first-moto postrace briefing - ''I'm always stronger in race two" - but he was already in trouble when they arrived in the first corner. As Tortelli took the holeshot again, Everts (even with him up the straight, but on the outside) got ridden high in the turn by Beiter and needed 17 (ninutes to finally dispose of the German. "It was a hard pass by Beiter, but so was mine," Everts said later. With a free track to Tortelli, Everts had six seconds to gain, but he couldn't do it. Indeed, complaining again of a,rm pump, it was Everts who had to cut his pace - a fact that was readily apparent to hear f~om trackside as he suddeI;lly dropped down a gear. ot By Alex Hodgkinson LEUVEN, BELGIUM, MAY 10 ebastien Tortelli paid Stefan Everts back for his defeat on home soil at the French GP two weeks ago when the French teenager spanked the champ in his own backyard as the World 2S0cc MX series paid its first visit to Belgium this year for the inaugural "European GP," held at the rugged Leuven track in claustrophobic heat. ~ The Kawasaki teamster's two-moto sweep reduced the deficit between nimself and Everts to just 12 points with 11 rounds of the series to go and made it eminently clear to even the most ignorant onlooker that the FIM had better not start writing anybody's name on the title-winning scroll just yet. American Tallon Vohland was again merely a shadow of his regular self, but battled on courageously to maintain his fourth place in the current championship point standings with 11-6 moto finishes. ''I'm not on the pace at the moment, but I'm not ~ quitter and I'm going to keep on fighting until I get back to the front," Vohland said. Tortelli's inside gate, earned with fastest qualifying time as he reaped the rewards of having contested the Easter Trophy race at this track the previous month, was the key to the holeshot on {