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/128142
AMA EA Sports Supercross Series Round S: RCA Dome that really was kind of impossible." Pastrana was diplomatic in response, saying, "I had trouble with that section, and when I tried jumping in the rut, Ricky didn't do me any favors. He could've avoided taking me out, but that's racing, so no hard feelings." The end result set up the battle of the defending champ against the ascendant challenger. Carmichael was out front, Vuillemin incrementally inching for· ward until he was close enough to make incidental contact two laps from the end in the 270·degree bowl corner just after the finish jump. By this point in the race, Carmichael was sagging slightly, not hitting his jumps cleanly, vulnerable to attack. He knew it. More importantly, Vuillemin knew it. Starting the final lap, Vuillemin made the move that Carmichael saw as inevitable. "I thought I had a little bit more distance than I did, but he put a brake pass on me," Carmichael said. "I seen it coming the whole race, and I just made a stupid mistake, and he capitalized on it." By H.ENNY RAY ABRAMS PHOTOS BY STEVE BRUHN INDIANAPOUS, IN, FEB. 9 avid Vuillemin went from villain to hero in a matter of hours. All it took was a daring last-lap pass of defending AMAlEA Sports Supercross Champion Ricky Carmichael, a move which gave the fleet Frenchman his third win of the year, this one in round six before an Indy crowd of 57,883. Only hours earlier, that same crowd had booed the Team Yamaha rider mercilessly during rider introductions. They'd been a little more kind to Carmichael, which meant that ambivalence reigned in the race when the titans clashed. Bad feelings toward Carmichael, possibly lingering from his team switch, were triggered by what was perceived as a rough pass on SoBe Suzuki's Travis Pastrana. Pastrana was leading just past the halfway point when he clashed with Carmichael, then crashed, falling back to eighth. For his part, Carmichael said Pastrana "tried to make something happen 8 FEBRUARY 20, 2002' cue • e n e _ s "I saw the door open, and I just went for it," Vuillemin added. At the end of the night, Vuillemin had stretched his lead on Carmichael to 28 points, 137-109, after six of 16 rounds. In between them, with 119 points, is Amsoil/Dr. Martens Honda's Mike LaRocco, the Indianan who fin· ished fifth at Indy. LaRocco got off to a slow start, then had troubie making passes as the track rutted up. Team Chevy Trucks Kawasaki's Stephane Roncada finished third, his second consecutive podium. The Frenchman moved into third on the 11 th of 20 laps, but had trouble with what many felt was the longest whoop section of the year, and couldn't move forward. Fourth went to Honda's Nate Ramsey on the CRF450R four-stroke. Like Roncada, Ramsey struggled with the whoops, but he still finished in front of LaRocco. Then came Chevy Trucks Kawasa· ki's Ezra Lusk, who fought his way up from a 10th-place start. Bud Light Yamaha's Jeremy McGrath was seventh. The bright spot on the night was that the seven-time champ had scored his first heat-race win of the year. In the final, he was among the first riders into turn one, but got shuffled back to seventh by the end of the lap. After moving up to fourth, McGrath lost the front end and fell on the 12th lap. Pastrana was next to the finish, in eighth. Blackfoot Honda's Heath Voss and MotoworldRacing.com's Damon Huffman rounded out the top 10. MAIN Vuillemin, Carmichael, Pastrana, and McGrath all hit the hard left into turn one at about the same time. McGrath got squeezed to the outside, with Vuillernin and Carmichael on the inside, and Pastrana somewhere in the middle and the quickest through the tough whoop section. "I got a kick-ass start in the final, and Carmichael just wouldn't brake," McGrath said. "I was in front of him, but he was gauging everything off me, and he pushed me straight to the bales. I got the worst end of it because he was on the inside." Carmichael said he hadn't gotten a holeshot in a while, but this time he may have been too aggressive.