Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

Round 7: Georgia Dome TOYOTA TRUCKSfTHORIPARTS UNLIMITED AMA U.S. SUPERCROSS SERIES (Left) Jeff Emig finished fifth for his best finish of the year. (Above) Ezra Lusklaunched his factory Honda to a fourth-place finish. McGrath and Pichon swapped back and forth for more than a lap, with McGrath getting the better of it before setting out after Carmichael - whom he p.i'ssed by sneaking under at the base of the finish jump after Carmichael had struggled through the preceding whoops section. The six-rider train started the second half of the race with Albertyn now in front, having taken the spot on the second lap, and then Windham and McGrath. Windham bobbled in a 90-degree right, giving McGrath an opening, which he took - Witll Carmichael following suit. Albertyn continued to set the pace up front and he took the win with some breathing room. On tp.e final lap, Carmichael closed on McGrath and went for the pass over a harmless-looking double jump. He landed short, hitting the face of the second jump and not only losing contact with McGrath but falling back to seventh, where he would finish. McGrath took second in front of Pichon, Noleen Motorsport's Tim Ferry and Windham. Emig was sixth. SEMIS Lamson made quick work of the first semi, jetting to the lead and heading a mostly processional cast into the main. The lone flourish was a crowd-pleasing heel-clicker at the finish. "In the heat race, I went down pretty hard:' Lamson said. "I regrouped. It's tough au t there righ t now. There are ruts forming really quickly. Whoever wins the race is going to have to ride 10 smart." Second and third didn't change from the first lap on, with Great Lakes Aviation's Heath Voss finishing bellind Lamson, with Ramsey third. LaRocco was fourth, tl,e last direct transfer. Kawasaki's Damon Huffman went around the outside of the pack at the start of the second semi. Windham went to the inside and, ultimately, took the quick lead. Windham tried to check out, but Yamaha's Jimmy Button wouldn't let him, closing incrementally until he overflew the final jump before the 180 right into the whoops and fell into the berm. Tha t allowed Emig to move past for ecand. Button held on to third, with Kawasaki Mexico's Pedro Gonzalez fourth. "Tonight, I wasn't quite feeling as comfortable as I was in Tampa:' Windham said, "so riding the semi was good for me." His semi win was 10 seconds faster than Lamson's. The only factory rider in the lastchance qualifier was Carmichael, alld he lived up to his billing. The Floridian went out at the start and none of the other 21 riders could matcll his pace. He was in the main. Second place was a battle between two self-sponsored riders: Planet Honda's Jean-Sebastien Roy, and Ryan Huffman. Roy was second on the first lap. Then Huffman went by, doing a better job on the jumps. The two were relentless, with Roy taking second for good on the third of six laps. Once clear of Huffman, he was able to gain some breathing room while qualifying into the main. MAIN If theJlight's racing had proved anything, it was that a good start was everything. The start chute, which was designed to be shorter than normal, led to a 180-degree left onto a series of small jumps. Getting bottled up at the start would mean a long night's work. McGrath would have none of it. After quickly cashing in the 1-900PRO-RACE Holeshot Award, McGrath ran, as they all too often say, his own race. For the first half of the 20-lap race, Ward was a constant presence, not threatening, but not backing down, either. Then the track took its toll and he ran into physical problems and lost any chance of a win. "That was my fault, not my bike's fault:' Ward said. "My bike was running grea t. 1 just had a little arm pump. 1 followed Jeremy and the ruts just kept getting deeper and deeper. I just pumped up a little bit, and 1 was damned lucky to get on the podium, to tell you th truth." On the 17th of 20 laps, Dowd was able to make the pass that would give him second place, his best finish of the year. Still, he was too far adrift from McGrath to make a run at him. '1t's kind of been an easygoing year:' McGrath. "I got my second win. Hopefully I can keep it going." ''The track's really tough and there's a lot of fast guys:' McGrath said regard- ing why he wa n't able t-o pull out a bigger lead. "A few years ago I could get out front and 1 had a pace that no one could really match. Now these guys are fast. It's not so easy anymore." From the start, it had been McGra th . and Ward, with Button a booming third. That lasted until the eighth lap, when Button was yet another victim of the whoop section, dropping him 10 spots, from third to 13th. He would gain one spot to finish 12th. His demise moved Dowd and Emig up a notch. Dowd stayed in the top three while Emig dropped as far back as sixth before finishing fifth, in the middle of a pack that was always five or six riders long. "Basically, you go out there and start up front and you don't make any mistakes:' said Emig, describing his race strategy. "And the only time 1 got passed is when I made mistakes. I got passed, I think, three or four times. Ricky (Carmichael) actually passed me twice. He was hauling ass. That put me in the position where I was at, in fifth." Emig was one of the riders who patiently mastered the difficult whoop section. ''They weren't hard:' he said. "A lot of guys went down. If you were just patient through them, you could jump three, three, three, three, one. They had a little bit of grooves, so if you made a little mistake, they'd bite you. I made a mistake in the whoops twice and made a mistake after the first turn through a section that was pretty necessary to jump or you lost a bunch of time. Overall, I needed to have something to build on so that I can start. Next week, now I need a fourth - one place better." Emig was passed by Lusk on lap 13. Lusk would take fourth, lamenting his early malaise. '1 didn't make quick-enough passes early on and just kind of got frustrated and probably should've been a little more aggressive:' Lusk said. It was Carmichael's second crash of tl:\e race, on the 18th lap, which put him in fourth, in front of Emig. Behind Emig came LaRocco, who was not happy with the outcome or how hard he'd had to work to try to pass Emig. ''The track was very difficul t to pass because everybody rode the insides and there was no room to get in and make an aggressive move:' LaRncco said. "It was very tough to pass." The last rider LaRocco passed was Pichon, whom he got by on the 15th lap. AHe,r starting ninth, Pichon had worked to get near the leaders, and he was a presence from before the halfway point. What he found was that he couldn't break out and the pack wasn't going very quickly. "I was happy with the way I rode, but I'm not happy with the result:' Pichon said. "If I would've got fourth the way I was riding, it would've been better. I just need to get better starts, because everybody was kind of riding the same speed and it was pretty hard to pass. I think the start was really, really important tonight. We were like maybe five, six guys, bars to bars. The problem is, also, when you're riding this way, you kind of slow each other down. At the same time, the guys who were in front were puJling away, and the guys from behind are coming back. Like Jeremy - 1 don't think Jeremy was much faster than everybody else tonight, but he started in front and pulled away pretty quick and he had his own lines and he was riding smooth. Everybody behind him were hitting each other and slowing down each other." The slowdown allowed Windham to continue his forward progress. It would stop at eighth place, but a well-earned eigh th, considering he came from dead last. "The start was okay," Windham explained. "I was about eighth or ninth, and going into one of the back sections

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