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/127992
top in a fiercely contested 250cc race when the Steve Hengeveld/Oakley Lehman team took the class win and ninth overall on their KX250 in five hours, 38 minutes and 29 seconds. The Tonopah 300 has a reputation for being a high-speed course. Of the 125 bike teams that entered, ultimately only 85 would finish. Promoter Casey Folies started sending racers out at one-minute intervals in the predawn light. Just before 6:00 a.m., the Eron Boyer/Matt Burroughs team consented to lead the way on a Husky 610. But by the first pit - near Goldfield, Nevada, 39 miles away - the running order was quite different. It continued to shuffle around to pit two, 28 miles later, just outside of Tonopah. Ty Davis (who was partnering with Donnie Book) put his Montclair Yamaha/Moose/ FMF /Oakley /Dunlopbacked YZ400 into the unofficial lead on corrected time, though he trailed Honda's Jonah Street (who had ridden to .pit three before handing off to Torsten Bostrom). "[ reeled him in," Davis exclaimed, "he looked back and saw me - and he did the big chicken-wing deal and just started dusting me out. He was going slow; I was in his dust. Then Brown reeled me in; he was in my dust. Everybody just kind of got all together. The guy that's behind gets the advantage of it, because he started a minute behind, so he's already a minute (ahead) on you. I finally got around him in a pit. I did a quicker pit, got in front of him and went. [ thought, 'Great - now Destry has to deal with him.' Well, he (Street) was fagged out by pit two, so Destry got around him real quick, and I saw that Destry was in second. I just started riding as hard as [ could, just trying to be smooth, and [ put time on him." The Book/Davis team worked into the physical lead less than 100 miles into the race, but by pit four, 148 miles into the race, it was a different story, with the Abbott/ Brown team in the lead and Book limping a broken Yamaha into the pits. "Book ca me riding into the pit, and it (his YZ400) looked like a Trophy truck, with pieces just hanging," said Liz Roeseier, Larry Roeseler's wife, who was waiting to pit her husband, who was contesting the Vet class with Mike Healey. "1 saw him come in, and my mouth dropped," Davis said. Davis and the rest of his crew faced replacing the subframe, exhaust and various other destroyed pieces before Davis could rejoin the race in about ninth place. Book, in only his second race back after suffering an injury in February, wa dOlle for the day, the victim of a hidden rock in a sand wash. "1 actually didn't think we'd be able to pas them - they were riding really good," Abbott admitted about the early success of the Davis/Book team. "Then I came around a corner and saw Donnie picking up his bike. He cartwheeled it pretty hard, [ think. 1 topped for him, a nd he sa id he was okay, so' he just waved me on. From that point on, we rode a really good pace." Esposito inherited second, though it took some effort. Riding solo because his partner Dave Ondas was laid up with a cast on his wrist, Esposito eventually got around the KTM LC4 620 of Russell Pearson, who consequently rode with Scot Harden because his regular partner, his brother Nick, was out with an injury as well. "It went okay," Esposito said. "Every time I'd catch Russ (Pearson), I'd crashtwo times because. of the dust. He MOTa VllEAR D.I.D DUCAn @brembo 1J.(.9)(~TITE fJ EarlhLlnk