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/127993
Round 16: Sam Boyd Stadium TOYOTA TRUCKSITHORIPARTS UNLIMITED AMA U.S. SUPERCROSS SERIES By Kit Palmer Photos by Kinney Jones LAS VEGAS, NY, MAY 1 ike fine wine, Jeremy McGrath just seems to be getting better with age. L At the final round of the AMA Toyota Trucks/Thor/Parts Unlimited AMA U.S. Supercross Series in Las Vegas, the 27-year-old six-time supercross champ reached into his already well-used bag of tricks and somehow managed to pull out one of his strongest supercross performances ever. Will he ever slow down? That's what his rivals must be thinking. On a typical hard-packed, dry and slick Las Vegas track and in front of a sellout crowd at Sam Boyd Stadium, McGrath found himself face to face with one of his biggest challenges of the year when both he and one of his toughest rivals of the season, Ezra Lusk, got out of the gate together in the 20-lap main. It was the scenario tha t everyone had been longing for: a straight-up, head-ta-head duel between McGrath and Lusk. But the anticipated dogfight never really materialized, as McGrath, on his Mazda/Chaparral-backed and Randy Lawrence-tuned Yamaha, simply pulled away from the factory Honda rider and blitzed out to an unimaginable 20-second margin of victory, lapping more than half the field in the process. It was McGrath at his best. IIThat was an awesome race," McGrath said. "[ wanted to cap it (the 1999 series) off with a win. I had a great time out there - 1 was in the zone tonight. It was like I could do no wrong." The win wa McGrath's eighth of the year and the 60th of his career. There wasn't much Lusk could do about McGrath on this night, but, in his defense, the Honda rider had other thoughts on his mind - to name one, the start of the upcoming outdoor National Series, a series in which he is expected to do well. And with the supercross series already sewn up, he really didn't have to tell anyone that he wasn't about to take too many chances at the supercross series finale. Instead, Lusk said from the podium, "I got smoked tonight by Jeremy." But so did everyone else. "I take my hat off to him," Lusk added. "He rode an awesome race." Joining McGrath and Lusk on the podium was Jeff Emig. It was a podiumfirst for both Emig and Team Kawasaki this year. Emig made good use of a topfive start, eventually moving into fourth, where he dogged Suzuki's Larry Ward for many laps before getting past him on lap 13. He spent the rest of the race trying to get away from Ward (but couldn't) while closing in on Lusk. At the finish, Emig had caught a noticeably slowing Lusk, with Ward till on his tail. The three riders sailed across the finishline jump (second, third and fourth, respectively) within a few bike lengths of each other. Emig - who just couldn't get things going this year - was -all smiles afterward. "It meant a lot for myself to have a good ride and for Kawasaki," Emig said, "because, as a team, we've been struggling. We haven't had a bike on the podium all year, and that's kind of what I was thinking the whole time: Just get that Kawasaki up to third place." Chaparral Yamaha's Jeremy McGrath and tuner Randy Lawrence celebrate their eighth win of the year at the supercross finale at Las Vegas.