Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

tube hit here, and his tire hit there [pointing at his right arm]. [The X-ray is] showing like a little chip in my elbow - like a piece floating around. Someone came to the inside of me so I couldn't step on the table, so I rolled it, and I went to go table-to-single and when I was going up, the guy came right down on my arm." That somebody was Mach 1 Yamaha's Nick Wey. "I had a good start, and then I kind of landed on Hamblin on the jump on the tabletop, and I think 1 might've hurt his elbow a bit," Wey said. "I hope he's all right, but he kind of pulled over to see if he was okay and kind of pinned me against the haybales and let everybody by." my Own Race: up into third, and I just rode about as fast as I could the whole race. I jumped every obstacle every lap, but I struggled in the whoop-de-dos. The whoops have killed me aU year, a",d I struggled in the whoops, but other than that, I felt the best I felt in the last month on the whole track. I'm happy with it . 33 years old finishing in the top lOin the series; I'm still having fun." 250cc ~71 Nick Wey 5th The Mach 1 Ya'maha star added another top-five finish to his resume in Vegas. "I was just trying get Ferry back, and I was right on him at the end, but I couldn't put a pass on him," Wey said. "There was a lot of lappers. I had a shot at him in the last tum, and I could've taken him out, but for what? Fourth place? It wasn't worth it. I could've had him if I'd have had a couple more turns. I'm kind of disappointed that I wasn't able to get on the podium this year, but I definitely made huge improvements over last year. I'm fourth in points, so I'm pretty happy with that." ®§ Keith R. Johnson 9th Star Racing's eldest Johnson clinched the World Supercross Top Privateer Award at the finale. "Once the pressure was gone (since Award-rival Ryan Clark didn't make the main], I just went out there and figured I'd ride as hard as I could, and unfortunately the track was hard to make up time, and I came from behind," Johnson said. "I was behind Voss and Ward, and I came from a little ways back to catch 'em, but once I got there, we all just ran the same pace, and I couldn't get 'em." (j))(O)o L::5~ Heath Voss 8th Voss got a big bonus for finishing second in the World Championship. "Me and Fon· seca got together real hard, and the first time we hit it bent my clutch lever straight up and down, and then he looked at me, and we hit going over that triangle jump, and it almost wiped me out - and him and two or three guys got around me right there, and it screwed both of us up," the Mach 1 Yamaha rider said. "I had a great five or six laps, and I'm just excited that I finished second in the World Championship, so it was real important to me tonight to have a good race and the $35,000, and it was close between me and Ferry." 1] @ Larry Ward 7th "My race was okay," said the MotoXXX veteran. "I spun really bad off the gate, but I recovered and got off about fifth or fourth and got §71 Greg Schnell know, get out there and just race a normal race, kind of like what we did at Dallas," Carmichael said. "I wasn't 12th Schnell already has more points this year than be earned all year long. "It took me about seven laps to get going before I started riding pretty decent. I was happy with the last half of the race for sure. Getting lapped by those guys, that's not going to cut it no more." §~ Jason Thomas ~® Josh Demuth Wey re-joined down in the ranks a bit, while Hamblin didn't re-join at all. Meanwhile, however, the top few riders quickly shuffled MotoXXX's Lewis back, and Carmichael began working on Wey's Mach 1 Yamaha teammate Voss for second while Reed was already stretching out a lead. Carmichael found his way around Voss before the end of the second lap, but he couldn't make much headway on Reed. "I wanted to race with Chad - you going to subject myself to anything, but he got a great start, and he rode really, really good, and I couldn't reel him in. Some laps I'd catch him a little bit, and I'd make a mistake in the whoops, and he'd pull back out, and every time I'd try to go a little faster in the whoops, I'd do something crazy. I just took a step back, and when you've got a guy that does the same thing or goes faster at times, it's hard to make up time." 11th "Me and Schnell were kind of in a points battle, and I wanted to pass him and Tortelli, who wasn't riding, in the points," said the Subway Honda rider. "After I qualified for the main, I just tried to put 20 solid laps together. I got about a 10th-place start, and I passed Lewis, but Wey got me, and it was kind of give and take a little bit. I just tried to finish out the series strong and get some momentum going into Glen Helen next weekend." With that, Carmichael slowed up a touch and collected his championship, allowing him the opportunity to win an unheard-of 10th AMA National Championships before he turns 24. Reed's Yamaha teammate Timmy Ferry sat eighth at the end of the first lap, and by the end of the third lap, he was already third. He was flying through the field, going around the likes of Fonseca, Demuth, Ward and Voss like he was in a different class. He even began to reel in Carmichael in second little by little, but then he hit the wall. "I got by [Fonseca] and about four or five guys real quick, and I felt like I was kind of catching Ricky like a quarter of a second a couple laps, and then I started getting tired," Ferry 6th The Arenacross champ had his best finish of the Supercross season at the finale. "I've just been kind of saying a lot of prayers and stuff, and I just wanted to do well, and the last couple weekends have just been getting better for me," said the Shogun Yamaha rider. "I just wanted to race with these guys, and it's a lot different than Arenacross. A different type of terrain and a different type of riding so it just took me a couple weeks, but I finally feel like I belong here, and it was good." cue I • n • _ S • MAY 14, 2003 23

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