Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

led riders over a small stutter jump and then back onto the asphalt section before the start/finish line. "I thought it was a great race," Fillmore said. ") went down and got a little bit excited, and I lost some time. Then I just got relaxed and settled in. The track was good. It's a lot of dirt, but it was still a lot of fun." Nicoll said that he liked the track as well. "It was pretty slow, with a lot of off-road, but that really suits me," Nicoll said. "So although it's not like a typical European Supermoto track, it's one that would be very good for me if it was at home as well." Fourth place went to White Brothers/Moto Master Honda-backed Steve Drew, the Southern California Supermoto specialist putting in a respectable ride aboard his Honda XR650L-based entry, a bike that was in pieces just a few days before the event. Drew hung with the lead trio off the start but then started to fade before the race was six laps old. He would lose about a second a lap on the leaders in the early going before settling in and upping his pace as the race progressed. "I just started off a little too slow- my own Jeremy McGrath (2) again, this time in the air over the tabletop. McGrath admitted that he needs more practice on the asphalt, while teammate Ward (3X) said that he feels better on the tarmac than he does in the dirt. RACE KTM UNLIMITED 0~ Larry Pegram @~ Casey Yarrow 7th After having the worst two draws of any single rider contesting both classes, Pegram had to fight his way through the field from the back all weekend. He would transfer from his heat race, but he still faced a lot of traffic for most of the race. "Me and Doug [Chandler] both had to race with guys that we shouldn't have been racing with because the AMA doesn't have transponders and they put us at the back of the grid," Pegram said. "All we were doing was passing guys for the whole race. It was no fun. It's fun if you're racing with guys that are going a similar speed and you're actually racing with them, but not when they're just holding you up all the time. Hopefully they [AMA] will step up to the plate. They've got all these big sponsors like KTM and Red Bull, so don't cheap out and not buy transponders. My local go-kart track has transponders. Maybe they can borrow them." 8th Yarrow is the reigning Open Class Champion in the STTARS series promoted by Cycle World magazine editor Don Canet, who also served as the race manager for the AMA at Mazda Raceway. Yarrow acquitted himself well in the Unlimited final, finishing eighth after starting on the fourth row. "I just figured if I could stay consistent, then maybe some guys would fall down and drop off, and that seems to be what happened," Yarrow said. "Our bike was basically stock. We had stock motocross brakes on the front, and they started to go away just a little bit at the end, but our Maxxis tires worked great." Doug Chandler 1Oth The fomner AMA Superbike Champion put himself in the hole right from the start after failing to transfer directly out of his heat race on Friday. He would win the semi. but that left him with a back-row starting spot for the final on Saturday. -I knew it was going to be a bummer," Chandler said. "1 thought that I was going to be able get through [the pack] a little bit better, but I caught up to Benny [Carlson], my teammate, and on this track it was almost kind of bump and run. I couldn't do that. I just had to wait for him to make a mistake, and it took a while. Then I got going and made a mistake of my own trying to make another pass. I totally missed the halfway fiags. It would have been nice to do a little bit better for KTM and here at Laguna Seca, which is my home. It was all about the luck of the draw here. I wish they lAMA] would do it the correct way, with timed practices. That way you'd have the guys that are going good all start up front and not have some fast guys get a break by starting up front and have others have to come from the back." Iy," Drew said. "1 was a little nervous top five. Hopefully we'll go on to the out there, and the first five laps I just next one and go get 'em. I want to beat them orange bikes." wasn't upping the pace when I should have been. Then we got into the lap- East Hills Motorsports' Leonardo pers, and it seemed like they were cB® Mickey Dymond 16th The former 125cc AMA National MX Champion said that he was not yet comfortable on his KTMs, and it showed, as Dymond crashed hard twice during the main event, the second one coming after he pulled a radical, desperation bermshot in an attempt to pass other riders in the first sweeper. He was unhurt, but he was a little dejected. "I was just trying to do something," Dymond said. "There was just nowhere to pass on this track. I was down a lap anyway at that point, so I just tried to do that to see if I could at least get by one guy. They were bunched up so bad. I don't think those guys that won are that fast. It was just a bad day all the way around. Nothing I did today worked welL" getting the lappers a little bit before Bagnis completed the top five. Bagnis was aboard a Vertemati 570. Then the tight stuff, and I was getting them came Fasst Company/Pro Valve Honda in the tight stuff. It was kind of one rider Gary Trachy, followed by HMC Supermoto Racing KTM's Larry line out there, and you had to wait for them. I thought I could get up to Fill- Pegram, McAllister Honda's Casey more, but it was a good race. This Yarrow and Chisum Racing KTM rider Josh Chisum. HMC Supermoto Racing was our first time riding this bike, and it is good to put a red bike up in the eye I e KTM's Doug Chandler finished 10th. CN n e _ s • JULv23,2003 47

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