Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

IAI ~lfi/."L "., 'I'II111Jfh. I/IJ/JIi .,~" made the dec ision to penalize Windham 10 points for his heavy contact w ith David Vuillemin early in the main. Windham had a clear holeshot , but two turns in, Vuillemin made an aggressive pass on him, push- '6.. IIt'lll'ln 'lid '""1iA ~;O~g~nd:nri~~: h~~~ l6ell""... "., JII II!!!"";" Kevin Windham liter· ally left everyone else in the dust an the dry Phoenix track, but he only earned 15 points for the win. He was docked 10 for an early· race co llision with David Vuillemin. degree berm that Windham knocked a I/IJC~a'l/ Tuff Block off the top .~ with his front wheel. Windham goosed his 450 through the ensuing rhythm section be hind Vuillemin before jumping aggressivelyacross the inside of the corne r and riding directly into Vuillemin's path . The Y amaha rider seemed to race to the expected intersection, but Windham got there first, and Vuillemin was knocked off the track in the collision. "I got a second-place start, and Kevin was in the front , and in the rhythm sect ion before the triple, I jumped way far and kind of block-passed him in turn three ," Vuillemin said. "We went to the rhythm sect ion and into the next turn, and he kind of squared the turn and T-boned me . I don't think it was really necessary. But now it' s the call of the AMA. Everybody 's there talking abo ut it, but I'm kind of disappointed. I wanted to race and do good again - be on the podium, at least. So that's a bummer to get seventh place: ' What the AMA came up with was an unprecedented and controversial 10-point championship penalty against Windham for the maneuver. "I t hink there's not any controversy aro und what he did because I backed out and didn't go down," Windham reto rted. "I So il/ c ha p a r r a l Honda's Kevin Windh am showed at Phoenix that he 's no t go ing to be pu sh ed round. Afte r a disappointing sta rt to the year last week at Angel Stadium , he came out swinging at Bank O ne Ballpark , round two of the TH Q AMA Supe rcross Series. The CRF4S0R pilot led all but one straightaway of the main event to win over Yamaha's Chad Reed and top his first supercross main since th e Dallas Supercross in April of 2000, gainingvaluable ground on the Aussie in the fight for the championship. However, hours after the checkered flag flew in front of an enthusiast ic Phoenix crowd, new AMA Supercross/Motocross manager Steve Whitelock showed that he's not going to allow any pushing over when he A 20 JANUARY 21, 2004 • CYCLE NEWS ing 40th An niver sary think that , if he did what I expected him to do , then we wouldn't have hit. He hod to hear me coming up the inside - the 4S0's a loud bike - and I figured he'd have shut down and went to the inside, which he didn't do . Our lines collided . I tell you, I'm not going to be pushed around. If I wouldn't have backed out [in the first incident), I would've been pushed off the track - I knocked a bale off the top of the be rm. I think that the re can be all the controversy you want , the only difference is that he went down and I didn't , but the move itself was exactly the same - except that he did it in a 90-degree turn , and I did it in a 180. If he didn't hear me coming, he needs to have his ears checked . "I think I had a good chance to win tonight, and I think I proved that I did, and I was upset w ith the move he made ," Windham added. "What wou ld he have done for the rest of the season if I'd have just rolled over and played dead? I wasn't going to do that. Everything that we do in racing is contingent upon anot her perso n's move in the pack, and I feel bad that he went down, but I think that ultimately, if he'd have done the move I expected, we would've never tou ched : ' As Vuillemin picked himself up off the gro und and re-joined the race , Windham just plain split, putting over five seconds on his teammate Mike laRoc co in the next two laps. Nick Wey, Emesto Fonseca and Reed rou nded out the top five early, but it was Reed on the move. Reed was ridiculously fast through the whoops, and on consecutive laps he used that speed to move by Fonseca early on lap two then Wey in the same sect ion a lap later, and he pulled up on laRocc o when the Honda rider bobbled near the end of the section a lap after that . He com pleted the pass on laRocco for second thr ough the

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