Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

(Left) Antunez showed championship style in the 250Cc main. (Above) Husky-mounted McGavran avoids a wayward haybale on his way to • come-frombehind fourth-place finish In the 125cc main. (Right! Pingree was the evening's bridesmaid, finishing second In both main events. bale immediately upon landing. The bale tore his left foot off.the peg and sent the champ sprawling. "Basically, there was no blue flags out there and I think I had a real good shot at winning," Antunez said. "The Bill's Pipes/Axo/RG3 Suzuki was running great, and a lapper cut over on me on the double, and I moved over and landed on a hay bale. It just kicked my foot off, and I crashed." Antunez remounted quickly to recover momentarily in fourth, only to have Tedesco dive into the tum 15 feet from where Antunez fell to try to pass the Suzuki rider and fall, sending Antunez - deeper into the field as he waited for Tedesco to get out of the way. Buckelew held his lead to the finish, and Pingree could never regain the ground he lost to the diminutive Yamaha pilot in traffic and had to settle for second. Johnson rode his YZ250F without major incident to third, while Antunez caught McGavran in the final laps but couldn't make a pass stick and had to settle for fifth. "It went all right, considering what place start I had," McGavran said. "I just don't know what happened on the start. At least I went forward instead of backwards." "I [started] about sixth, and I just took my time and picked off a couple guys, and a couple guys fell," Johnson said. "I just found myself in third and tried to ride my own race." "Well, I felt pretty good," Pingree said. "I was trying to just stay close [to Buckelew] and hopefully make a pass on him. Once 'Budman' [Antunez] got close to me, I had to start covering my lines, and it slowed me down a little bit. Once Buddy fell, I was too far back from Justin to do anything. It was kind of so-so· ho-hum." "I got the holeshot and I think Antunez stuck with me for a while," Buckelew said. "I had a lot of fun. I'm happy to win. Ivan [Tedesco] told me [the winner takes] $800. That's pretty good for 10 minutes of work, I guess." 2S0cc MAIN When the 250cc main event took to the starting line, Pro Circuit/ Motul/S&M Bicycles/Trick/ Hahm Motorsports' Ty Kady pulled a bigger holeshot than most people can even dream of. He had a whole bike-length lead on the field 10 feet into the race. He credited his reaction time - and his eventual finish - to his steady diet of doughnuts and coffee at his fulltime job at SDG Seats. When the pack rounded the first corner, Kady, Pingree, Reif, Mike Sleeter and Antunez rounded out the top five. Exiting the whoops on the first lap, though, Reif took a digger that would've made a spelunker proud, going face-first into the dirt. That moved everyone up a spot behind him, and Antunez wasted little time getting around YZ426F-mounted Sleeter for third. Kady's lead lasted three glorious laps, but then his arms began to pump from the pressure being applied to him by Pingree, and the KTM rider rode around him on the start straight and into the lead. Antunez soon followed suit and set out after Pingree. Buckelew started poorly but was working his way through the field when he came into contact with Chaussee and fell, only to have his bike and body run over by a couple of motorcycles before he could continue. "I kind of got a bad start," said Buckelew, "but I started passing a few people. I tried to slide it in to cover up my line and I washed out and got run over by a couple people. So it was just hectic. I got up, got going again, and there was a lot of other crashing going on, so I'm not sure what place I ended up." Where he ended up was ninth, good enough for another $250 - and $1050 total for one night's work. Slow-starting Donald Upton took his IMS/Maxxis Tires/Shock Therapy-backed RM250 to sixth after only a handful of laps, having passed riders both racing and on the ground. The only thing that seemed to be able to slow Upton's progress was the lapped riders, but he k~pt moving forward. Kady began riding a very wide Suzuki while YZ426F-mounted Johnson applied the pressure for third. By lap 12, Johnson had made the pass stick while, at the same time, Upton made the pass around Sleeter for fifth. Johnson pulled clear of Kady in the final laps, and the race became mostly processional. Antunez was leading by about four seconds, and then Pingree came by with six seconds over Johnson, who had an additional five seconds on Kady by the white flag. Upton pulled up on Kady with two laps to go, and Kady dug deep, using every ounce of coffee and doughnuts he could muster to hold off his longtime friendly rival. Upton was on a mission, though, and he had momentum on his side, but every time he stuck his nose in, Kady shut the door, knowing it was Upton behind him. In the end, Antunez put in a nearperfect performance, leading the consistent Pingree and Johnson home for the podium spots. Kady finished a hard-fought and well-deserved fourth, ahead of the charging Upton, and none of the riders could've been happier to take their considerable cash prizes home at the end of the night. "I got a good start," understated Kady. "That Pro Circuit bike those guys built for me was running really good. I just timed the gate perfect and got to the front and ran up there for a little while." "I just kind of tried to hold my pace," said Upton. "It was faster than the guys in front of me. I just tried to weave through traffic. People were going down everywhere. I think this is maybe my second arena cross in three years, so I didn't do too bad." "That race surprised me," said Pingree. "I haven't spent any time on that 250, so I didn't know how I'd do. I was happy with second on that. If this was a real [National] Arenacross, I'd leave here with the points lead. So I'm pretty pumped on that." "It went great," said Antunez. "Once I got into second, I reeled 'Ping' [Pingree] in, put a good move on him, then just put my head down and pulled away. What can I say? I felt good. It was a lot of fun. I think the crowd was into it. On the last lap, they were yelling and screaming. It was, all in all, good. I hope the show went over well, and hopefully we'll be back." CN Orange County F.illlrounds Costa Mesa, Califomi. Results: M.n:h 31, 2001 DFC: 1. Buddy Antunez (Suz); 2. Justin Buckelew (Yam); 3. Jeremy Chaussee (Hon); 4. Iva" Tedesco (Hon); 5. Michael Young (Hon); 6. Kevin Johnson (Yam). 125 MAIN: 1. Justin Buckelew (Y8m); 2. DtJvid Pingree (KTM); 3. Kevin Johnson (Vern); 4. Brian McGavran; 5. Buddy Antunez (Suz); 6. Jeremy Chaussee (Hon); 7. Turbo Reif (Hon); B. Ivan Tedesco (Hon); 9. Michael Young (Hon); 10. Brandon Morgan (Yam); 11. Steve Eugenio (Yam); 12. Jeremy Santoro (Yam); 13. Michael Sleeter (Yam); 14. Jon Oler (Yam); 1~. Mike Meadows (Hon). 250 MAIN: I. Buddy Antun" (Su,); 2. D.vid Pingree (KTM); 3. Kevin Johnson (Yam); 4. Ty Kady (Su,); 5. Don.ld Upton (Su,): 6. Mich.,1 Young (Hon); 7. Michael Sleeter (Yam); B. Jeremy Chaussee (Hon); 9. Justin Buckelew (Yam); 10. Ivan Tedesco (Hon); 11. Jeremy Santoro (V8m); 12. Joel Nelson (Yam); 13. Mat Bateman (Yam); 14. Warren Tittlemier (Hon); 15. Turbo Reif (Hon). BRIEFLY••• The purse for the first-ever Hilton-West Arena-Motocross event was hefty even by Supercross standards. Why? Each class offered a lotal of $5050 (that"s $10.100 total - cash) to be split among the 15 riders competing in the respective main events. with the top five paying out as follows: first $800: second - $725; third - $650; fourth - $575: fifth - $500; and so on. all the way to 15th. According to some of the experienced Supercrossers on hand, third place in the 125cc main at a Supercross only pays about $850. so the riders who were riding both mains stood to make more money at this nontelevised race with 2000 fans than they might at a prime-time televised Supercross in front of more than 50.000 screaming fans - and Hilton-West paid up in cash at the end of the night. Needless to say. most of the riders vow to retum. The Dash For Cash featured the top three qualifiers in each 250cc heat race. and Papa John's Pizza put up a starting dollar amount of $200 to get the bidding started in the crowd. Unfortunately, there was miscommunication between the announcers (who were supposed to be encouraging the fans to donate the cash) and the promoters. so the race was run with just the original $200 up for grabs. It was all the same to Buddy Antunez, though. as he trounced the competition handily to win the first cash prize of the night. The top money winners were buddy Antunez ($1500>, David Pingree ($1450>. Kevin Johnson ($1300) and Justin Buckelew ($1 050>. cue I e n e _ S • APRIL 18. 2001 37

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