Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

By SCOTT ROUSSEAU PHOTOS By BLAKE CONNER MONTEREY, CA, JULY \\·13 wo American motocross titans clashed with a former World Motocross Championship Grand Prix star in a thrilling AMA Red Bull Super· moto final at Mazda Raceway in Monterey, California, and when the smoke cleared, former multitime AMA National MX and AMA Supercross Champion Jeff Ward was the premierclass winner in the first new AMA professional discipline in 25 years. The 42-year-old Ward, who also enjoyed a successful career as an Indycar driver after retiring from T the paved, 180-degree right-hand turn known as Sidi Corner. Ward would go on to win the race by a scant .620 of a second over his former Motocross des Nations rival, four· time World 500cc MXGP runner-up Kurt Nicoll on the Red Bull/HMC KTM. "It was a good race," Ward said. "Jeremy's good at starts, and he got me off the start and just set a decent pace. 1knew that Kurt was behind me there, and I just wanted to get settled in and see where I was quicker. There were a couple spots where I was a little quicker, and I was going to wait a little longer, but then Jeremy made a mistake. Kurt was pushing so hard . , Hleo" negatilltes.the jump en route to his runnerup fini.... He the....iy man to make the podium in ~th ~lasses during the weekend. , . motocross, got his "third career" off to a good start by taking the win in front of a huge crowd that had also come to watch the World Superbike events at Mazda Raceway. And he earned it. Ward ran second, behind his Troy Lee Designs Honda teammate and fellow legend Jeremy McGrath for more than half the race before making a pass for the lead in that I just had to get by him [McGrath]." The pass came on lap 18, with McGrath drifting just a little bit too high while rounding Sidi Corner. Before the seven-time AMA Supercross Champion could bat an eye, he lost two positions. "I felt pretty good," McGrath said. "I was trying not to give Jeff the inside over there. I was making a few mistakes in the back section, and that time I came in a little hot and messed up my apex there. As soon as Jeff went around, I turned down, and there was Kurt. So they both got me in the same second. Running in the lead like that, you're the one who has to take the pressure and do what you can with it. I made a mistake, and those guys got around me." Second-place finisher Nicoll came away from the inaugural AMA Supermoto weekend as the only man to land on the podium twice, backing up his win in Saturday's KTM Super· moto Unlimited final with the runnerup finish in the Red Bull Supermoto final on Sunday. "Today's race was run at a much hotter pace than yesterday's, that's for sure," Nicoll said. "I thought that Jeremy was maybe riding a little bit slower than me and Jeff were, so it kept it real tight there, and when he made his mistake, we both dived inside him. It was a hot pace for the last five laps." Still, McGrath showed that he has cue I e was the raw speed for Supermoto - no surprises there. All that is left is to hone his track craft, which can only come with more seat time. McGrath said that the most important thing was that he had a ball racing Supermoto. "I had a great time," McGrath said. "This [Supermoto] is the next big thing. All of us are having a blast. This gives us something to do, keeps us out of the house. I'm probably going to race the whole series. We're just going to have fun with it, go play and keep it as low pressure as possible." Ward has landed the pole for Sunday's main event with a wire-to-wire win in his Friday heat race that produced the fastest time of the four 10lap races. Nicoll was in that one as well, the two speeding away from the rest of the pack to run one-two on a Laguna course that offered a virtual 50/50 mix of pavement and dirt. Ward crossed the finish line first, posting a time of 8 minutes, 11.550 seconds. Ward's time was just over 12 seconds faster than that posted by heat-three winner Alex Thiebault on a n e _ so • JULY 23, 2003 41

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