Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

AMAIChevy Trucks 125cc U.S. Motocross Championship Series (Above) Last year's winner Tim Ferry (15) cuts undemeath Roncada en rou1e to 3-3 moto finishes for third overall. Roncada wen1 4-6 for fifth. (Left) Tortelll gave Carmichael a run for his money in the second moto before crashing. He still took runner-up honors with a 2-2. (Below right) Local rider Sean Hamblin had an outstanding day at Glen Helen, spending most of his day within the top 10 until pulling off late In the second moto with a jammed wrist. think about for a while early in the second moto. After winning the first moto handily, Carmichael felt some heat from Tortelli in the second outing, and things were beginning to look pretty interesting. But Carmichael was up for the challenge and never let the Frenchman get any closer than about four seconds; when Tortelli went down at the halfway point, the race for the overall win was all but over. Carmichael went on to win the second moto by more than 20 seconds over Tortelli to take the first win of the 2002 outdoor series. "Sebastien was in second there," Carmichael said. "He would put in a fast lap, and then I would put in a fast lap, and he was making me work, for sure. It was good to have somebody push me like that. When you win quite a bit, you kind of get into a mode to where you don't have to ride hard. That's kind of a bad habit to get into. I was answering to all of his calls, he made a mistake, and the rest is history after that point. He was down for a while, so I made up a lot of time there." 10 MAV22,2002' a n U a I e e _ s The first moto had been a breeze in comparison, though Stephane Roncada did give some pressure early on. "I got the holeshot, but RonRon [Roncada] was behind me there for a while," Carmichael said. "Man, he was putting it on. He caught me one lap, and then about the fourth lap, he started dropping off two or three seconds a lap and I started to pull away. I just started to keep an eye on everything and just put in hard laps to get a good workout. I haven't been riding outdoors much, so I just tried to make a moto out of it for myself." Carmichael gave a lot of credit to his motorcycle for his win. "My bike was working awesome today," Carmichael said. "I think you can tell that Sebastien's bike and my bike were the two fastest bikes out there. I think we were the only two-strokes that didn't have a disadvantage against the four-strokes." Tortelli was looking for his second career victory at Glen Helen and actually had a fairly good shot at it after finishing second in the first moto and getting off to a good start in the second moto. "The first moto, you know, that was the first moto of the season, and I was kind of tight a little bit," Tortelli said. "I spun crossing the [starting] gate and was eighth or something off the start. At first I was riding tight, and it took me like 15 to 20 minutes to loosen up; after that, the other guys were a little tired, and that was easier for me to pass them and come up to second place." In the deciding second moto, Tortelli got a much better start and held the number-two spot early on and was just a few seconds behind Carmichael with a lot of racing left, but the former 250cc World Champion just couldn't get any closer to his teammate. And when he cross-rutted and was put into the fence at the halfway point, Tortelli's bid for the overall win was over. Luckily for him, however, he had built up enough insurance to keep second in the race and second overall for the day. The Frenchman eventually finished out the race 30.9 seconds behind Carmichael. "The second moto, I got a better jump, passed a couple of guys, got behind Ricky, but he had already pulled away a little bit," Tortelli said. "I guess I was trying just a little bit too hard, doing some mistakes, and then I crashed. I cross-rutted onto the ruts and hit, with my rear wheel, the hay bales, and that threw me over the bars." Yamaha's Tim Ferry was hoping to open the series with a win just like he did last year, but a pair of third-place finishes wouldn't do it for him this time. Ferry was solid in both motos but never really got close enough to Carmichael to be an actual threat for a win in either moto. In the first moto, Ferry settled into fifth after the first lap, passed Travis Pastrana for fourth and then ran down David Vuillemin for third. He held that position for many laps, until a surging Tortelli got him late in the race. "I got a good start; 1 was pretty stoked actually, because I'm not very

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