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The second mistake came just before the finish line later on. In a slow, heavily bermed left with virtually no run-up to the finish jump, Carmichael spun the rear tire out by getting on the gas too hard. For the most part, Carmichael was totally in control, winning by 8.17 seconds and lapping all but the top six riders. "Everybody's goal is to win, and my goal is to win this title," he said, admitting that crashing in the first Anaheim was a serious setback. "We don't put in effort in the off-season to get second. When you work so hard and everyone puts 100 percent into it and it can turn around that quick, it's very tough, mentally." Carmichael didn't know why Pastrana had pulled off and didn't really care, except for the championship implications. "It really didn't matter to me," he said. "I didn't know what happened. I could see him out of the corner of my eye when I was turning some corners, but the next thing I knew David [Vuillemin] was second on my pit board. I just need to worry about myself, so I really wasn't trying to focus behind me." Vuillemin's race was less eventful than Carmichael's. He, Pastrana and Carmichael had pretty much hit the first corner side by side, but the other two were able to pull slightly away. Once Pastrana pulled in, on the eighth lap, Vuillemin was playing out the string. Now able to practice during the week, Jeremy McGrath notched his first podium finish of the year. "He messed up a little bit in the rhythm section," team manager Roger DeCoster said. "It wasn't so bad, but the bike chased him." DeCoster later said that it was a clean break. "Everything is stabilized," he said after Windham was put in traction. "Our personal doctor is with him. We should be all right. It's a clean fracture." Travis Pastrana had only slightly better luck. Having suffered with a severe case of the flu all week, he wasn't certain whether he'd even be in Atlanta. In the end, he came and rode valiantly, but in vain. Pastrana took second in his heat race and was running a solid second to Carmichael in the main when he pulled off on the eighth of 20 laps. "We knew he has been sick all week," DeCoster said. "He tried to save as much energy as he could. He didn't want to drop back to 15th. He didn't want to crash and have people say, 'That's Travis doing something stupid.' He started feeling like he was getting light-headed and pulled in." Pastrana's mechanic, Lee McCullum, also flu-struck, didn't make the trip to Atlanta. Recently off the injured list, and in his second race this year, Team Honda's Sebastien Tortelli was fourth, getting the better of fellow Frenchman Roncada. And Roncada was involved in a dust-up with yet another Frechman, Vuillemin, earlier in the night in their heat race. "I got taken out, totally taken out, straight T-bone, so that wasn't very nice," Roncada said. "And we won't talk about what happened after the heat race; I just got punched a couple of times - three times." For his part, Vuillemin said, "I was so mad, and I never took anybody out in my career. That is the first time it happened." Vuillemin blamed Roncada's aggressive riding for instigating him. There was more. After the race, Roncada slid into Vuillemin's Yamaha on the pavement just off the track. He said it was accidental, but Vuillemin reacted differently, punching him. AMA Motocross referee Duke Finch fined Vuillemin $2000 for the incident. The Roncada-Vuillemin dustup wasn't the only altercation. Team Honda's Emesto Fonseca and Chevy Trucks Kawasaki's Ezra Lusk came together in the tight left just before the finish jump on the first lap, each blaming the other. "I jumped and I had the inside on Yogi," Fonseca said. "I had the pass made, and he went to the left and hit my front brake a little bit, and I went down and he went down too." Lusk saw it differently. "I'm not going to really make any comments on it now," Lusk said before commenting. "All I know is he came in way too hot. There was a turn there. I beat him through that turn. He hit my arm first." Fonseca went on to finish lIth, Lusk eighth. MAIN Carmichael had won the first heat with a time that was 11 seconds faster than the second heat, won by Lusk. Now on a roll, Carmichael made a beeline for the first turn and was never headed. To say his race was flawless would be a mistake, but none of the mishaps were fatal, though they caused a few moments of anXiety. One came in the whoop section, when the rear swapped violently. "The whoops were really tough tonight for me, I thought," Carmichael said. "I was going through them, and my front end just dropped. I tried to jump back, and my back end just kicked out a little bit - I don't think it was too bad. It didn't feel like it was too bad." Whether it be the close points ch~se or some other reason, tempers seem to be running high this season, ~nd they came boiling over in Atlanta. The most not~ble incident involved Frenchmen D~vid Vuillemin (right) and Stephane Ronc~da, who got together in a heat race. Roncada put what he called "~ nice block pass" on Vuillemin, but later in the race, Vuillemin took out Roncad~ in ~ comer. "He ran into me, so he st~rted it," Vuillemin said. "Since eight weeks now, he st~rted it. I guess I pl~yed his own game - I stuffed him up. When he did it to ~nybody else, Ricky [Carmich~el) never complained ~t An~eim, Jeremy [McGr~thJ never compl~ined." Roncada saw it differently: "What I didn't know is that he actually aimed straight at me," the Chevy Trucks Kawasaki rider wrote in his weekly post-race upd~te. "[He) hit the right side of my bike right before the t~e-off of the double, which threw me over the hay bales and over the b~rs. This was ~ total dirty and intentional move, not a block pass. I have never taken anybody out, so I don't even think this was a payback." "I was so mad bec~use I don't w~nt to get hurt," Vuillemin added. "I don't want to be in a wheelchair because somebody just bumps into me before I jump something. So, I just want to race clean and stay healthy." "DV w~s just pissed ~t I p~ssed him, ~nd he thinks that everybody should get out of his way because he's the 'points leader,'" Roncada said. "This is BS, and everything he said reg~rding the incident was a good excuse for acting the way he did." The action didn't end with the r~ce. Roncada slid into Vuillemin's factory Yamaha, which hit the ground, ~nd Vuillemin c~me out swinging." "After the race, I ran into his back tire," Roncada said. "He threw his bike on the ground, jumped on me and started punching me in the helmet three times. I didn't [retaliate] bec~use fighting like ~t on national TV doesn't make anybody look good." Despite the aggression, VuilJemin seemed to think that he ~nd Roncad~ are not riv~ls. "We've been really good - very, very dose friends. Uke in GPs, we were traveling together, ~nd we were practicing between GPs together in Eastem Europe. I've been sharing rooms at the tracks, at races with him. So we've been very, very close, ~nd since months, it seems like there's something wrong between us. But that's no big deaL" AMA motocross man~ger Duke Finch fined VuiIJemin $2000 for swinging at Ronca~, or ~s he put it, "for ~ctions deme~ning to the sport." "I wouldn't c~l1 it a fight," Finch said. "It was more of a slap match." The other incident occurred In the m~in, when Chevy Trucks Kawasaki's Ezra Lusk ~nd Team Honda's Emesto Fonseca went down together. As Lusk got up, he pushed Fonseca over backward. "I ~Iked to Ezra ~bout that," Finch said. "I told him that I know he was exclted in front of his home crowd, but th~t ~ctions like th~t are not accep~ble. Hands off." a U a •• n • _ S • MARCH 6, 2002 9