Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

THQ World Supercross GP Series/AMA Supercross Series Round 4/2: Bank One Ballpark Qualifying enough to stuff Reed on the berm until it was time to make a move, and he made that one mistake, and I was lead. uOD@W @®li uDu@[?@ Clark, and I got right back on him. I just tried to stick right on his tires before the finish-line jump to take the (Jf]®w and used the momentum he was carrying through the whoops to get close able to get by him there." "At first, I didn't want to do any- Visions of an Anaheim I rematch danced in the heads of the fans at Bank One Ballpark as Travis Pastrana grabbed the holeshot in the first heat race, followed closely by Honda's Ricky Carmichael. Carmichael pressured Pastrana until lap four, when the SeBe Suzuki rider cased a triple he was seat-bouncing, allowing Carmichael by. But that wasn't the end. Two laps later, Carmichael lost the front end in a comer, and when Pastrana tried to shoot the gap between Carmichael's bike and the Tuff Blox, he clipped the fallen bike and went down as well. This gave the lead to Carmichael's teammate Emesto Fonseca, who then crashed after the whoops, handing the lead to Red Bull -_ - - -- - IM's_GranLLangston. Langston didn't fall, although second-placed Tim Ferry did, and the final order was Langston, Carmichael, Fonseca and Pastrana going to the main. It was KTM's first-ever 250cc heat-race win. "I was sitting in fourth, and then Travis and Ricky went down, then Fonseca went down and I just tried to hold on from there," Langston said. "I'll take any win I can get, and right now it's a heat race, so I'm happy." Ezra Lusk led Chad Reed early in the second heat, but the Yamaha rider got by on a Lusk mistake with two laps to go. Lusk retaliated wjth a stuff after the whoop sections, in which he was faster than 'Reed, to take the win, followed by Reed, David Vuillemin and Sebastien Tortell!. Lusk reflected on his qualifying performance from last week. "Last weekend, I went all the way to the last-chance qualifier and made it in, and it just proves if you put your head down, you can win," he said. "I had a great race with Chad." The first semi sent Yamaha's Ferry, So Be Suzuki's Stephane Roncada, Boost Mobile/YamahafTroy Racing's Brock Sellards, Team Solitaire's Ryan Clark and Mach 1 Yamaha's Nick Wey straight to the main, and the second semi saw AmsoiljChaparral Honda's Michael Byrne, Sellards' teammate Ivan Tedesco, Byrne's teammate Mike LaRocco, Pro Circuit's Mike Brown, and new MotoXXX team member Damon Huffman move on. The LCQ was won by Keith R. Johnson, while Red Bull KTM's Steve Boniface got the last transfer to the main. Lusk held off Reed for the remain- thing stupid," Lusk said. "I didn't ing few laps of the race to take the want to block-pass him or try to mess win by just over a second. Ferry up our flow because we were going trailed in for third, while Carmichael pretty good. I wanted to try to just held his own without a front brake for stick with him [Reed] and try to get fourth. away from the pack and then later on "I think that we're all about the make a-race of ·it. I· just-tried 'to stay same [Speed]," Ferry said'. "Ezra, there, and then we got into some lap- Chad and Ricky were all riding good, pers, and he got hooked up with Ryan but Ricky got into trouble and fell, my 1] @@ Own Race: 250cc Travis Pastrana SoBe Suzuki's superstar looked really strong as he led a chunk of his heat race, but he struggled in the main event for J 2th overall. "I just wasn't able to get over a couple of those seat-bounces out of the corners," he said. "It's just lame. I got stuck behind laRocco again and just got frustrated, got arm pump for the first time in my life, and I really fell apart. This is the most devastated I've been in my life right now." § Mike laRocco Wily veteran LaRocco had an off night, no thanks to nagging injuries suffered at last week's event. "I just struggled tonight. I had to go to the semi, and then I got the bad gate pick on the start," the AmsoiljChaparral Honda rider said. "I was on the outside, and I didn't get the jump, so I got pinched off. It seemed like the track was too patterned, everybody was doing the same thing and had about the same times, so I just couldn't really make anything happen." 1] @® Sebastien Tortelli 1] 1] 1] Grant Langston "I wheelied out of the gate, and I was completely last in the first corner, and I hung tight and passed a few guys on the first lap, so I was pretty stoked about that," the SoBe Suzuki former world champ said. "I was feeling great, in shape, and everything was going good; I just was lacking a little bit of speed." South African Langston had a hard get-off in the main event. for the second time in two weeks. "It's kind of frustrating because when I'm practicing at the test track, everything goes well," said the Red Bull KTM star. "When I'm out there racing with those guys, the heat race was pretty good; Europe went well, but I think I make some stupid mistakes here, now and then. You know, I've had two DNFs out of two, so that's kind of disappointing." 0~ Ivan Tedesco ~(] Nick Wey ~~ Ernesto Fonseca 1] ® Brock Sellards Boost Mobile/yamahafTroy Racing's New Mexico native has shown flashes of brilliance on a YZ250, dating back to the U.S. Open in October. "I think I started about 16th or J 7th," he said. "I just started to make my way through the pack and made some kind of scary moves, made some good passes, and came through, and I ended up ninth. That's decent for where I started, so ... " (Above) Travis Pastrana (199) did all he could to hold off Ricky Cannichael (4) in their heat race, only to run over Cannichael's downed bike and crash after the champ finally made the pass. Cannichael got fourth in the main, while Pastrana finished 12th. (Left) The Invisible Man: David Vuillemin quietly finishes near the front every week. This week, he finished fifth. Wey looked strong aboard his Mach 1 Motorsports Yamaha, but he dropped out of the main after seven laps. "I was riding, and I felt all right, and I was coming up on a pack of guys, and just the bjke started dying," he said. "I guess it turned out that the spark plug broke." Honda's Fonseca fell while running third in the main. "Ferry took me out, but I guess it's racing," he said. "But I'm sure he'll have his time too. I had a pretty good start and I was riding up front, but it's kind of hard to make up time - everybody was going real fast. It just seems like the track· it was good for racing, and it was awesome for everybody, but everybody was very close so it was hard to make up time." Tedesco's teammate Sellards rode well in his season debut, despite nagging back and neck injuries. "I got off to an okay start, but it about ruined the night when Pastrana got all squirrelly on that jump before the triple and I had to back off - kind of jump off to the side: he said. "But I came and did what I wanted. I was hurt last week, and I was still hurt this week· my back was real sore - but I went out and put in 20 good laps and finished in the top 10." 10 JANUARY 22,2003' cue • II! n • vv s

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