Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

ilie lead was too far gone. "I came up and caught Isaiah Johnson and tried to make a pass," Pingree said. "Maybe 1 rushed it a little bit, because it didn't work and then he gapped me a little." Johnson gapped Pingree just enough to take off some pressure as he rode to the checkered flag. Pingree held on for second,-followed by a high-flying Lytle. Evans survived ilie abuse he had taken from Lytle earlier to finish fourth, followed by Stone and Brandes, who was riding with the flu. Schnell finished seventh, Suzukimounted Jacob Martin rolled in for eighth, and the Yamaha of Keith Johnson grabbed the final qualifying spot in nintll. AMA Western Regional 125cc SX Series Round 6: Texas Stadium Ramsey • Wins, Texas-style By Matt Freeman Photos by Jeff Hain IRVING, IX, FEB. 27 fter spending the past two weeks riding a 250 at the Atlanta and Tampa rounds of the supercross series, SplitFire/Pro Circuit/Kawasaki's Nathan Ramsey returned to 125cc Western Regional action and ran away with the main event. By doing so, Ramsey also passed the series points leader, Yamaha of Troy's Casey Lytle, to take a mere onepoint lead in the series. Finishing second and holding up the lead for a while before being passed by Ramsey was none other than Lytle, who grabbed the holeshot but gave up the lead to DeMarini Honda-mounted Rusty Holland in the second tum. Lytle passed Holland back at the end of lap two and held the lead himself until lap seven, when a hard-charging Ramsey ran him down and made the pass. Posting his best finish of the year was Suzuki /Prima l Impulse / Bill's Pipes"David Pingree, who showed th1lt, given a decent start, he can finish on the podium. Fourth went to New Mexico's Ryan Clark, and fifth place belonged to Motoworld Yamaha rider Greg Schnell. Charlie Bogard's Team Stiffie deal may not have panned out, but it did not slow the young Texan down any. Bogard finished sixtl, in the main and led heat one until giving way to Ramsey, the eventual heat-one winner. Behind Bogard in the main was Holland, who made his debut ride on the Honda DeMarini team after spending the first five rounds on a Clawson Motorsports Suzuki (see Briefly...). Ramsey's teammate Scott Sheak rode injured to finish eighth, and the Kawasakis of Gio Tedesco and Erick Vallejo rounded out the top 10. LAST-CHANCE QUALIFIER Travis Hodges twisted the throttle of his KX hard enough to exit tile first turn in the lead, followed by the always faststarting Kawasaki of Mexico rider Erick Vallejo. Steve Andrich held third, with Gio Tedesco hot on his heels. Hodges and Vallejo checked out, but not before Vallejo moved into the lead, where he would stay. Tedesco also got around Andrich, leaving the Yamaha rider all alone in the fourili and final transfer spot, which he held all the way to tile finish. A HEATS Bogard jumped out in front at the start of the first heat race, with Ramsey, Holland, SplitFire/Pro Circuit/Kawasaki's Billy Payne, Clark and Sheak'in tow. Before the race was two laps old, Bogard would find himself a victim of Ramsey's fast pace. • "I came' out second in the heat race behind Charlie Bogard," Ramsey said. "We battled for a lap or two. Then I passed him and got a pretty good, comfortable lead." Once Ramsey got out front, nothing short of a mistake on his part could stop him from taking the heat win. Bogard held on to second as Payne moved by Holland to claim third. Clark, Sheak and Yamaha-mounted James Povolny also made it around the fast- tarting Holland before the race was over to claim transfer spots in the main. Holland's seventh was good enough for a transfer pot, as was Team IMS' Donald Upton's eighthplace finish and Doug Parson's ninth. The 10th-place finisher, Brad Strunk, was on his way to ilie last-chance qualifier with the rest of the field. MAIN Lytle got yet another main-event holeshot, but, when all was said and done, it was Holland who was in the lead after tile second turn. Pingree was -hot on Lytle's heels, with Payne, Stone, Sdmell and Ramsey in tow. "I almost went down right off the start," Lytle explained about giving up his early lead. "On the second left, my feet were off the pegs. I bobbled there and Holland went right on by." Holland was not the only one who (Above) For the fourth time this season, Nafhan Ramsey prevailed, winning yet another round of the 125cc Western Region series, Ramsey now leads the points race. (Right) Casey Lytle (33), Brian Stone (77) and David P.ingree (60) lead the charge at the start of the 125cc main. Heat two proved to be a closer race, as a four-rider pileup in the first turn worked to Yamaha-mounted Isaiah Johnson's-advantage. Johnson led the 20-rider field ou'! of the pileup and beyond. The KX of Brian Stone, Suzuki/Primal Impulse/Bill's Pipe's Michael Brandes and teamma te Pingree all bunched together to chase Johnson on the first lap. Lytle was back in the mix of riders. "The heat race, I got off to a bad start," Lytle said, "just out of the top 10, so I started going crazy and started jumping everything. I actually came through to third place on the last lap, but I collided with a few people. I bent my clutch lever when that happened. I tIlought I was going down a couple of times. I hit Tyler Evans hard enough one time that I thought both of us were going down." Lytle's charge through the pack was impressive, but by the time he emerged from the banging in the back of the pack, the Johnson-and-Pingree battle for thought he could take ad vantage of Lytle's mistake. Payne shot past Pingree and set out for Lytle, but before ilie lap was over Payne crashed, falling out of the top 10. Witll Payne off his back, Lytle began to work on passing Holland, which he did just before completing the second lap. Moments later, Ramsey went by Pingree to move into third. It did not take long for Ramsey to catch Holland, eiilier. With Lytle and Ramsey out front, the lead duo began to pull away from

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