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/128175
World Cup of Motocross (Left) Chad Reed (16) was dominant on the VZ450F at the World Cup. Here he fights off Timmy Feny (93), also VZ450F-mounted, In the first moto. Reed's 1-2-1 showing helped land the win for the Aussles. that bike is at racing level, and next week I go ride the 250 [two-stroke] and see how good we can make that. I'm just really proud to be a part of the Yamaha team. It's good when you can have two bikes to choose from." Reed's dominance helped his Australian team, which also included Reed's cousin Craig Anderson and Amsoil Honda's Michael Byrne, as the trio took an unexpected victory over the home squad of Tim Ferry, Sean Hamblin and Kyle Lewis. MOTO ., AUSTRALIA BEATS THE AMERICANS AT HOME IN AN ATTRITION-FILLED MXDN REPLACEMENT devised an altruistic and ambitious B forgiving as well. However, if this hadn't been a team event, the rider of the day would definitely have been Yamaha's Chad Reed, riding a three-man national teams against one another in order to name a World Cup Champion Team. Although many of the notable riders (European and American alike) ended up not making the journey, the race was about as big a success as could be expected on a week's notice. SAN BERNARDINO, CA, SEPT. 29 arely a week after the announcement that the Motocross of Nations in San Jacinto, California, was canceled, Glen Helen Raceway hosted the inaugural - and perhaps only - World Cup of Motocross as a sort of substitute for that event. By the time the decision to cancel the Olympics of Motocross was announced, many people had already landed in the United States with plans of attending and/or racing the MXoN, so Vintage Iron's Rick Doughty was not only original, but potentially plan to hold a three-moto competition at nearby Glen Helen Raceway (the MXoN was scheduled for Competition Park), where he would pit By STEVE Cox PHOTOS BY STEVE BRUHN YZ450F for his native Australia. Reed never faltered, going 1-2-1 on the day. "I felt good coming into today's race," Reed said. "I've been doing a lot of testing on the 450, and I'm more comfortable on the bigger bike. It does things that I want it to do, and when I'm ready, it's always ready. I'm really looking forward to next year. This is just a good race to see how In each moto, only the top two rider-scores from each team would count toward its score, so the format (Left) Sean Hamblin (92) and Grant Langston (25) got together early In both the second and third motos. Hamblin took out Langston In the second race, and Langston made a point of returning the favor In race three, when the two were battling for the lead. (Right) Langston (25) and Ernesto Fonseca (73) battled a couple of times throughout the three motos. Fonseca actually won the second moto on his CR250, only to crash out spectacularly In race three. 26 OCTOBER 9, 2002' cue I • n .. _ os After race one, it was Team USA in the driver's seat, much to the delight of the nearly 10,OOO-strong crowd. While Reed won the moto, Yanks Ferry and Hamblin finished second and fourth, respectively, and Anderson finished eighth. Neither the 12th-place finish of Lewis nor the ninth of Byrne counted, leaving the top two teams with scores of six (USA) and nine (Australia). Reed had actually held the early lead, only to lose it to Ferry. "I kind of thought Chad didn't want to lead that one," Ferry said, "because it seemed like he was almost slowing down. I really wasn't wanting to pass him. I was just hang· ing right behind him, and we had pulled out a pretty good lead over third place, so I had to go around him. I put a pretty big lead on him, and then with like 2'/, laps to go, I made a really big mistake. I went into a full tank-slapper and almost went down. That mistake was all Reed needed. "Timmy got by and kind of made a little bit of a break, and then I guess I started finding some lines and I caught him a little bit," Reed said. 1t