Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

My OWN RACE: 58 Tyler Eva ns 9th Evans' ninth-place finish wasn 't a surprise this week. but he's having trouble racing with the superstars. "O ne th ing I need to stop do ing is. I'm still getting a little star-struck with those guys - like Lusk and Vuillemin," about the 12th lap, it kind of startled me because I was ahead of t hem the whole race. That's one thing I need to stop doing. When I was yo unger. I looked up to those guys, and now I'm racing against them. But top - 10 and to p privateer, tha t's my goal for right now, and I'm still in the World po ints lead, so I'll take it." I Ith Moto XXX 's o nly active 250cc rider had a seesaw race . " I start ed up fron t pretty m uch - I think I ra n about seventh for a wh ile - right there w ith W ind ham o ff the start, and then it seemed like I was alway s on the outside of the corners, and there we re so many guys co ming in; the re was a lot of slamming o ut there tonight ," Huffman said. "Yo u had to use a lot of o uts ide line s to tri ple ou t and stuff, and the re were a lot of open op portunities fo r guys to come in o n you . It was intense out there." 43 Ryan C lark 18t h Team Solitaire 's pr imary rider had a beginner mo me nt on the start line fo r the main event. "I don 't know , I was just really concentrating on the gate , and I had had problems earl ier bu rning clutches, and w e put a new one in before the main - kind of ru shed down there," he said. "I adjusted it on the parade lap, and on the line I w as co nce ntrating o n the pin, just w atc hing it, but my rear w heel was spinning, and as soon as the gate dropped , I we nt to go , and the wh eel was spinning so fast, I loo ped out. I pro bably sho uld've let off and rolled over the gate . It was definitely a Kodak moment that hopefully nobody caught." 31 Keith R. Johnson 15th Star Racing's to p rider had a hard time in Phoenix. "I felt a lo t better ton ight, because last week we had a co uple problems w ith the power valve malfunctioning pretty bad, but somehow I was able to get 12th ," he said. "To night, I made it as hard on myself as I could, having to go to t he LCQ and nabbi ng the final transfe r spot. I th ink I was up in 10th or I Ith , and I wen t for a pass o n Mike Brow n, and I lost the fro nt end and slid o ut off a jum p off the track. I came back from dead last to 15th with ben t handlebars , so I'm hap py w ith how I rod e . It just was a pretty ro ugh night." 28 Heath Voss 13th Mach l's 450cc pilot is feeling mo re and more com forta ble all the time . " I rode thr e e da ys on my practi ce bike last week, but I'm disappointed that I finished 13th ton ight because I'm actually fee ling a lot better on the four-stroke ," he said. "Hopefully next w eek w illbe better. I started last in the sem i again, and I rod e my butt off to get fourth. I w ish I co uld ride like that for the who le 20 laps ofthe ma in. That's just what I have to kee p wo rking to wa rds . It's hard to ride a four-stro ke really aggress ive for 20 laps, because if you blip the throttle on that thing - in pra ctice , I blipped the th rottle on the tr iple and over jumped the thing by like 40 feet and hurt my ankles, my knees and my back . It's incred ible: ' 15 Timmy Ferry and everyone was just stuffing eac h other. Every time yo u try to go up underneath som ebody and gas it ou t of the corner, it's just spinning. I w as making a few mistake s. Me and Yogi went at it for a wh ile. He stalled it, I passed him, and then I fell, and he passed me back, and t hen I w as back on him again. I cou ld only get to fifth place. I w as rea lly bummed, because in second pra ctice today I had the fastest lap time . I expected to w in ton ight." 26 Michael he said. " Wh en they passed me 20 Damo n H uffm an Briefly··· 250cc 5th Yamaha's Fer ry wa s having a hard time of it early, but he picked up the pace cons iderably as the laps wore o n. "I think everyone was bobb ling," he said. "The track was so slippery, and it seemed like the fast guys w ere in the back , and we 're trying to make passe s on a slippery track , Byrne 10t h Chevy Trucks Kawasaki's lone WestCoast ride r had to come from behind on a circuit that made passing difficult. "Bad sta rt . Y can't do it with a bad ou start. My starts weren't there like they usually are, so that cost me ," he said. "We' llgo out this week and work on it. It was very impo rtan t ton ight. It was a ve ry hard track to pass on, and once you got caught back the re , it was impossi ble. I think I rode good, but yo u can't do it fro m 20th. I either shifted too late or shifted too early off the start; I act ually got out of the gate good. I got pinched , and that was pre tty much it." 46 Daryl Hu rley 19th Motow oridRacing.com Suzu ki's New Zea lande r was having tr oub le , but he's just trying to get into the groove for the I25cc East . "Dude , I'm just st ruggling in the w hoops right now. Th at's all it is, d ude," he said. "I'm using all my energy right there. I don 't know what it is, but I can't ge t the whoops down . RickJohnso n's going to come ou t and he lp me out th is week - hopefully that'll make a d ifference. I th ink maybe I'm not committing enough to the whoops. But I'm only do ing these 250cc races until the East series starts up. So I'm going to start riding a 125 soon anyway 36 Sean Hamblin 8th Suzuki's star pup il put in 20 hard laps to co me fro m be hind for a solid top - 10 finish. "O bviously, the start was n't w hat I wanted, and it's not w here I'm usually at ," Hamb lin said. "I kind of wh eelied out of the gate and got st uck beh ind some guys that I no rm ally do n't ride with . My first 10 laps were slow, but my last 10 laps we re good. In the middle of the race , I didn't fee l so good, but at the e nd the whoops we re my st ro ngest po int - but in the mo rn ing they were my weakest. I think w e' re go ing the right directi o n with the setup and everything, and I feel good. I feel t hat we' re overdue for a pod ium and a win , so I think it's definitely com ing our way. I'll come out swinging next week." 12 David Vuillemin Yamaha 's TI mmy Fe r ry had the fastest lap time in pra ctice, partially due to tripling into a rhythm section he was one of only thr ee or so riders to do it . He cou ldn't do it during the night program, tho ugh. "It's a sore sub ject with me, because they took the dozers out o n the track and just rolled the whole track in and just turned the dirt all over, and when they did that , they sq uashed the face s of the jumps , and the n yo u had no takeoff - not to men tio n, in the previous turn , they moved t he bales in like probably five fee t," he said. "So to go outsi de wou ld've been so stu pid. So every body just we nt to t he inside . They need to stake it and keep the track like it is. Fro m prac tice to the race, I guarantee the bale s were in by at least five feet . It was de finitely faster but with the bales mo ved , and I tried it in the heat race , and they squashed the jump so bad that you could n't even clear it." At racetime in Phoe nix, the Bank One Ballpark Mastercard Poo l Pavilio n (a swimm ing pool over the right -field wall) was filled with at least IS o r 20 Hoote rs girls in o range bik in is. Our reporter's binoculars were passed around the press bo x like a spliffat a Phish co nce rt . 7th After the ea rly crash w ith Windh am, Y amaha's French impo rt recovered nicely - he even caught his teammate Timmy Fe rry at one point . "I w as last, and my levers we re all bent, and I go t back to seventh," he said. "I thought I rode pretty good. I cou ld've got sixth if I didn't make a coup le mistakes , but seven th is o kay after all that drama." 24 Ernesto Fonseca Both main-event holeshots this wee k belonged to Honda four-st ro kes. The But terfinge r Hol es ho t Award -w inners we re Amsoil/C haparral Honda's Kevin Windham ($ 1500) and Honda privateer Greg Schnell (pictured) ($ 1000). 20th Team Ho nda's o nly health y 250cc rider ran fou rth for a big ch unk of the main eve nt be fore he slowed and started looking down at his C R250R o n the 13th go-around. He pulled into the mechanics' area w ith a be nt shift lever and re -joined the race a lap down. Unfortunately for Fonseca, there were no DNFs at Phoe nix, so he finished last. During the riders ' prese ntatio n, Suzuki privateer and THQ World Superc ross Ser ies points leader Tyler Eva ns rode onto the stadium floor o n a ch o ppe r m in ibike, muc h to the crowd's appreciation. New AMA Pro Racing Supercross/Mo tocross manage r Steve Wh it elock made quite a fuss in the mandato ry riders' meeting, re po rtedly taking roll call and the n berating riders for everything from Tyler Evans and Gra nt Langston's antics in the ir heat race to Ivan Ted esco 's jumping off his bike in the mechan ics' area after his win last wee k at Anahe im I. "Wh at prompted it is, before the start of the season, we had a meeting with all of the manufactur ers, and they said th at they wa nte d to make things a little bit clearer and e nfo rce the rules a bit t ighter and to make things a bit fairer," Wh itelock said. "I explained to them what I was go ing to do and that as we got into the season things wo uld get tightened up. In the ride rs' meeting. I did somethi ng that's never been don e before - I named names . I said what. in my opin ion, each one had do ne as an offense and named names. That upset som e people, but I w anted to make an impact

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