Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

MOTOCROSS FIM M TOCRO SDES NATIONS O S ... ~- fA B ~ 00 0\ 0\ ,...... '<1" ,...... l-o (l) .o o ..... u o 36 By Davey Coombs FOXHILL, ENGLAND, SEPT. 27 h is o ne will go d own in th e anna ls of mot ocross hist ory as one of the strangest, most absurd championship races eve r held. The 1998 FIM Mo tocross d es Na tions at Fox hill, En g la nd, had i t a ll : rain , m u d , fog, dram a, trad ition , incom petence, upsets, heartbreak, streakers, and one d ominating performance by the self-proclaimed "King of Mo tocro ss." In the end, in front of 25,000 mu d-spl att ered fan s, the thr eeman team fro m tradition-rich Belgium took the ov er all h onors, follo wed by u nd erd ogs Finland, N ew Zealand and t he N e th erland s . The team from t he United States, the pre-race favorite, finished fifth. In a nutshell, here's what ha ppened: The rain started fa lling on the British midland s on Sa tu r day m ornin g an d never stopped u ntil late Su nday nigh t. Becaus e the Foxhill tra ck is built on heavy clay an d chalk and is lined with several stee p hills, th e track quick ly be cam e a n impas s ab le q u ag mi re. Cou rse ch anges w er e requ ired befor e the race even started, bu t in the middle of the second mo to (I25 / 250cc), one hill . in p a r ticul ar - fro m h e r e o n to b e referred to as "The Hill" - became so clu tte red wi th s tuc k bik es that the red flag was brough t ou t. Ho wever, the official who thr ew the ~ -, t. Stefan Everts (2) led his Belg ian team to victory at the rain-soaked MX des Nati on s at the Foxhill track In Engla nd. brakes on the race d id not have a radi o to inform the scoring towe r of his decision. The fog was so bad tha t no one in th e scoring tower could see down the valley to w he re the rid er s were bein g waved · through the crowded infield a nd back onto the track. So the race continued 'on one-half of the track. For three laps the riders raced on the track part of the time, th en p arad ed through th e m id d le o f infield fans in Tour de France sty le. Once th e race was fina lly sto pped and two streake rs had taken to en ter- tai ning the crowd - two hours and two sets of resul ts were required to straighten things out, though by that time most of the ' teams and organizers had given up trying to find any real resolution to the bizarre turn of events. After mor tr a ck chang es , the third moto (250cc/ O p en) finally went off in th falling rain and became a slow survival run. As for the results, recen tly displaced 250cc World Champion Stefan Everts led th e Belgia n tea m to its t hird Mot ocross des Nations win in the las t four yea rs. The graceful Everts dominated his two motos, winning by well ov a minu te in each mot o and firm ly laying clai m to the title of "World's Best Mud Rider." (Everts is already considered by many to be th e bes t sa nd rider ev~;) Joining the H onda-mounted Everts on the highest podium s tep was 250cc G J rival Marnicq Bervoets, who finished , 610 in his tw o mot e s, and 125cc unde rd og Patrick Caps, who was fourth oV.E;rall a nd top 125 in th e first m oto , bu t wh o then spe nt almost the en tire second moto stuc k on The Hill. Still, Caps' stunning first-moto performance meant that the Belgians had a moto to throw awhy, and wi th veterans Everts and Bervoets w aiti ng in the wi ngs, the ou tcome was . hardly in qu estion . The same could not be said for Amer ica. Even thou gh Team USA wa s armed with arguably this coun try's tw o best mu d r id ers - Ya m a ha fact ory p il o ts Dou g Henry and John Dowd - as w ell as two-time 125cc AM A N a tio na l MX Champio n Ricky Carm ic hae l of th e Split Fir e /Pro Ci rcu it/ Kawasaki tea m, the trio was only in co nten tio n in the early go ing. Team USA ro ok ie Henry ope ned the day with a su rp rising win in the first 125cc/Open mot o - surp risi ng because race lead er Garcia Vico of Spain blew a su re win on the last lap wh en he beca me a victim of The Hill. Carmichael ove rc a me tw o cras hes to fi nish 11 th overa ll, thi rd 125. However, in the seco nd m oto, a ll h ell b ro ke loos e when Carmi cha el los t h is m u d -ca ked fro nt nu m ber pl a te whil e lead in g the 125cc field . Th e plate dangled near his front w heel for th ree laps before he cras hed . K C. was still scored as second 125 in t he fi rst se t of r esul ts released, p a r tl y beca use late-race lead er Alessio Chiod i, a two-time 125cc Wo rld Champion, had become hopelessly stuck on The H ill; but later the scores we re adj usted after countless protests were lod ged and the American slipped to 14th (and fifth 125). In the final moto for 250cc/Open riders, Henry had problems kee ping the YZ400F upright and th e palms off his gloves dry. After riding as high as fifth, Henry finished two la ps down in 19th plac e. fi As for Dowd , the onlv mem ber of the Roger De-Cos ter -ma na ged American team with any MX des Nations experience (1997), he spen t th e latte r half of the firs t 125/250cc moto s tuck on The Hill after rid ers fell into him on each of his two attempts. Dowd did not regis ter a fini sh , joini ng exac tly one-ha lf of 'the field in the DN F ca tego ry . His secon d ou ting d id not go much better : ninth place in the com bined field , almost three minutes behi nd race wi nner Everts. 'I "lt was a hard day to go racing, that's for sure, " sai d H enry la ter. "T he ra in ma d e it t err ib le out th er e . I' ve seen worse rain , bu t that mud was so sticky that it was just rid iculous. We just d idn't get any breaks ." "That's jus t abo ut the toughest mud race I' ve eve r had, " said a d isappointed Dowd later. "The mud wa s greasy like ice in some places, sti cky as could be in

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