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Vuillemin moved up on fellow Frenchie Roncada early on, and the two went at it pretty hard. Carmichael was also mixing it up with Reed. "It's like the championship in the championship," Vuillemin said. "Everybody wants to be the first French guy, maybe. I lost my rhythm behind him, and I was getting nervous. I lost a little bit of time, but that's racing." "I had a few screw-ups the first lap with Chad Reed," Carmichael said. "His bike almost chopped my head off. He was putting it in on me the first couple of laps, and he got out of faded backward through the pack. The youngster then led past the halfway point, and as he appeared to be riding very fast but in control, a premier 250cc win seemed within the realm of possibility. Then, while trying to seat-bump through a series of plateau jumps, Pastrana accidentally knocked his Suzuki into neutral, and he was hurled to the ground hard enough to rip off his front numberplate. "That kind of hurt," Pastrana said. "I just hit neutral. We've been working really hard, actually, to get neutral out of the bike. I don't know - my big feet just don't fit in there so well." That allowed several riders to move by, and put the top five on lap 12 as Vuillemin, LaRocco, Ramsey, Pastrana and Lusk. Carmichael had moved up to sixth ahead of Roncada, with Windham and McGrath next. LaRocco was on a bit of a charge, riding quickly and letting others take themselves out. As he has for much of the early season, he haunted Vuillemin for several laps, then blocked the Yamaha rider in the final turn and jumped by over the finish line to start the final quarter of the race. "It was one of those situations where the fast line is outside and the block line is inside, and I took the block line," LaRocco said. "After Pastrana crashed, I was in the lead, and after that I didn't ride very, very good," Vuillemin said. "Behind me, Mike, as usual, was on top of it at the end of the race." The top three were now far ahead of Pastrana and Carmichael, and it control and hit a hay bale. His bike popped up and almost took me out, and I got passed by two more guys." Pastrana hammered at Windham for the lead, but Windham held strong through the first quarter of the race. Then Pastrana moved by over the finish-line jump, and Windham quickly (Top) Kevin Windham (14) and Michael Byrne (35) dice early in the main. Windham grabbed the holeshot and rode well before fading hard about midway through the race. Byme had a strong rlde going, but crashed out late in the race. (Right) $oBe Suzuki riders Travis Pastrana and Kevin Windham rode in fonnatlon in their heat race and early in the main. Pastrana looked to have his first 250cc main-event win In the bag until he hit neutral over a Jump and went down. He recovered to make the podium. eye I e n e _ S • JANUARY 30. 2002 7