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/128025
Anaheim. Califo....nia .. .Jenuery. 1 ES. 2CXJO AMA/EA Sports Supercross Series Round 2: Edison International Field of Anaheim By KIT PALMER PHOTOS BY KINNEY JONES dison Field, a capacity crowd of 45,050, Kevin Windham winning the first heat race, Jeremy McGrath winning the second heat race, McGrath winning the main event. Sound familiar? Perhaps the only real difference between last week's Anaheim round and this one was that McGrath made his main-event win look even easier than he did seven days ago, mixing it up early in the 20-lap race with David Vuillemin before romping off to victory with 13 seconds to spare ,over the French rider. Last week, McGrath had "only" a three-second cushion over Mike LaRocco, who again turned in a strong performance at Anaheim II, finishing third. "l don't see any reason I can't win a lot of races this year," McGrath said from his Mazda/Chaparral/Yamaha pits afterward. "I think I'm better than I was last year and the year before, and my bike is a hell of a lot better, too. Tonight was just awesome." That it was, but not for his competitors, who are perhaps benumbed by McGrath's renewed fire. Some have even gone so far as to say that McGrath is riding as well as he did in 1996, when he won a II but one Supercross round. Whether or not that is true remains to be seen, but no one can deny that he's red-hot right now; not even second-place finisher Vuillemin, who was the only rider in the main who had a clear shot at McGrath, could hang with the sixtime Supercross champ, though he did give it a valiant effort for the first eight laps. Vuillemin nailed the holeshot on his Craig Monty-tuned Yamaha and showed McGrath the fast way around the reconfigured Anaheim track for three laps before McGrath stuffed him in a turn and took over. Up until about the eighth lap, Vuillemin hung tough with McGrath, but he just couldn't maintain the blistering pace McGrath was setting. By the halfway point, McGrath started putting noticeable distance on Vuillemin, and the defending champ simply outrode everyone on his Randy Lawrence-tuned Yamaha to earn his 62nd career SX win. "David [Vuillemin] got a really good start," McGrath said. "I just kind of took my time and had a good line that I was saving for the final, and it worked. It [the line] was right after the quad - the step-over, then triple - and I think that was faster, and I don't think anyone switched and did that with me. I think that line was a second a lap faster, and I had the whoops down every lap. I think those guys were making mistakes in the whoops." The whoops McGrath was talking about were in an extremely difficult 6 JANUARY 26, 2000' "" U "" I section of the track where the moguls were deep, steep and long. Many battles were won and lost in the whoops during the course of the night. "I had a hard time in the whoops," admitted Vuillemin. "They were pretty high and deep, so I tried every technique - maybe I lost myself trying so many different things." But, overall, Vuillemin was happy with his ride. "First podium in the U.S. on a 250," he said. "I was tight a little bit, thinking of the podium. I didn't want to make mistakes, my mind wasn't on the track. Still, this is good for my e n e vw s confidence; I will just try to work on my bad things I had today and hopefully I can stay with him [McGrath] some more." LaRocco, the veteran who simply refuses to go away, once again busted out a strong ride at Anaheim on the Factory Connection/Amsoil/Jack in the Box Honda. Although he finished one position down the leaderboard from the previous week, LaRocco was happy with his ride apart from his start. "My ride went okay, but I'm pretty disappointed on how I started," LaRocco said. "I knew I needed to get Jeremy McGrath's on a roll. He's already won the first two Anaheim rounds, and now he's heading to his "second home," San Diego, for round three. The champ is going for a California sweep. out front with him [McGrath] to beat him; instead, I did exactly what I didn't need to do, and that was give' Jeremy the start." Indeed he did. LaRocco rounded the first turn in seventh place and spent much of the race fighting through the pack in a vain attempt to reach McGrath.