Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

My 52 OWN RACE Greg Schnell 7th As much as he was in the thick of things, you'd expect that Greg Schnell would have finished better than the seventh that he was credited for. Actually, he did. Schnell was unable to find his way past a stubborn Brock Sellards in the main event. and he crossed the finish line sixth, but he was assessed a five -second penalty by the AMA for jumping an obstacle on w hich the crossed medical flag was shown. The penalty added [0 his agg regate time was enough to drop him behind Christopher Gosselaar in the final order. "I felt good, but my speed just wasn't there for the top three," Schnell said. "I know that I can get on the podium. and I'm jus going to keep w orking t hard. I didn't put a who le lot of effort into my [250] prog ram last year, but I am this year. I do n't want to waste any of my sponsors' time. I'm going to do the best that I can." 80 Joshu a Sum m ey 9th Summey was the higher finishing of the two -member Samsung/Radio Shack/Fly Racing (teammate M ichael Blosewas 12th). "I was in the top 10 off the start, and I passed a few guys. I raced with Johnny Marley a little bit, but pretty much it was me and Jeff Gibson going back and forth . We had a good race , and I ended up ninth, so I'm going into Anahe im [II] 13th in the points and shootingfor top 10. O verall, tod ay went really well, and I'd like to thank the guys on my team for working so hard." 514 Eric Nye 14th In his supercross deb ut, the Mach I Y amaha/ No Fear -bac ked , 18-year-old Nye missed the main event by one po sition , At Phoenix, he made up for it by qualifying for the main straight out of heat race number two. In the main, how ever, he was caught up in the first- tum pile-up that also claimed Nathan Ramsey. "There were quite a few peo ple in tha t [cras h]," Nye said. "I got bumped and just wen t flying off the track : I just wo rked my way up from there. The track was fun, but it got superslippery in the main event. It was really different than it was in the heat races. But I'm feeling more confident, for sure. I think that I can run in the top I 0 if I get a good start. to 41 Brian Gray 19th After almost falling at the hands of his Suzuki teammate, Steve Boniface, Brian Gray managed to sneak his RM2S0Z into the main event via a fourth-place finish in the LCQ , which garnered the last transfer spot. "In the main, I would have had a good start, but I packed a little too much dirt in my gate, and whe n I took off, it [rear wheel] spun down instead of forward ," Gray said . "That re ally hurt my jump off the line big-time . I started comi ng up th ro ugh the field, and I got about 12th when I lost the front w heelan the face of the step-up before the tunnel, and it caught and sent me the other way. I crashed. I bent some stuff up, and I had to stop and get some stuff fixed. I'm just glad that Igot some points ." 61 Troy Adams 20th After a strong fifth-place finish at Anaheim I, O'Neal/Pre Circuir/W8R-backed Adams was looking for more at Phoenix. Instead, he wound up leaving w ith injuries after striking a Tuff Blok that had been inadvertently knocked onto the track by Christopher Gosselaar. Adams tagged the barrier, which w as in the landing area for one of the jumps on the first-base-siderhythm section. "I was just in the w rong place at the w rong time: ' Adams said. "My hand is a little sprained, but I'll be ready for next weekend. I could have started out better, but I think I just rushed stuff too much. I wasn't ridingto my fullest ability I'm happy to just be walking away from this wee kend." . Aside from the hand, Adams w as sp orting a shiner, courte sy of a face-first endo that he had taken duringFriday practice. After that crash he was taken to the hospital to be X-rayed for a possible orbital socket fract ure, but that was negative. 87 Jeff Gibson 8th Star Racing's new top 12Scc West rider, former Arenacross stand- ou t Jeff Gibson , had a heck of a showing at Phoe nix. "I think I was like 17th off th e start , but I rode hard all race lo ng, and it paid off," he said. "It's not even my bike. The team ow ner is happy with how I rode here, so we 're trying to get one for me now ." Gr eg Sch nell - t he privateer riding a Pro Circuit -tu ned engine him se lf, w it h ad dition al bac king fro m Spy - fo r t he e nt ire first la p. Schnell pu t up a t o ugh fight , yielding th e lea d just lo ng enough over the finish-line jump that Tedesco was able to st ea l credit fo r leading the lap , but then Schnell ca me fight ing bac k. Not unt il they slammed through the whoop sectio n on lap two did Tedesco ma ke his w ay past Schnell for good. " I was kind o f surprised that he [Schnell] was kind of brake-checking and wasn't just le tti ng me by," Tedesco said. " I kind of bac ked down for a second and fo und a good place to get by him . That was that." Don't believe it , because Tedesco then w e nt o n to build up a lead that was as much as nine seconds ah ead of his teammate, Stephane Roncada, before backing off on t he last lap and yielding onl y about one seco nd of that advantage bac k by the finish . Roncada, who ra n seventh ea rly, w heeled his way past the Yamaha YZ25 0Fs o f Boost MobilelTroy Racing's Bro ck Se llards and the Sam sung/Radio Shack duo of Jo shua Summey and Michael Blo se be fo re ca tching up to Schnell and disposing of him on la p three to take over second place. T he Sam sung bo ys would drop bac k into the field be for e the race w as half ove r. "T he only place where I was really able to pass was in the whoops tonight," Roncada said . "T he t ra c k was pretty o neline ." Even so, the Frenchman appeared to ma tch sp e eds w ith his team mat e fo r mu c h of the re st of t he ra ce, leading you to be lieve th at if th e two get o ff the sta rt together. t he re could be fire works. Don't . Ronc ad a sa id th at he fee ls no pressure to be at Ted esco, though he said that he believes he ca n do just that. "Yeah, defin itely," Roncada said . " It w o uldn't be re a lly easy because Ivan is going really fast right no w. It's just good for Pro C ircuit that both Ivan and I are o n t he podium. It means that if one time Ivan messes up . then I w ill be t he re , an d if I mess up , then he will be there. We can always ke e p the bikes on th e podium . So it's a good t hing. It doesn't really matter who is the fastest rider on the team . As lo ng as we all do well on th e te am , then everyone is going to be happ y. That is w hat we are working fo r." Le st you t hink t ha t Pro C ircuit Kawasaki's desert do minat io n m e ant t hat the rest of the racing action at the BOB was un believably du ll, the n don't be lie ve that, e ither. The main event started with a veritable bang w he n last w eek's runner-up. Team Honda's Nathan Ramsey, got tangled up at the start and crashed, then crashed in the whoops again about three laps into the race. Despite putting a hole in his e xhaust sys tem and having a piece of his own muffler packing flop around in the rear spokes fo r m uch of the race. Ramsey sold iered around th e track to finish 11th . "T hat was kind of a weird thing to have happen, but it was just o ne o f them d eals," Ramsey said in re ference to the mu ffler. www.cyclenews.com Briefly··· feel that I have the chanceto win a few races this year. That has been my goal ever since I was in the B class and thinkingabout turning pro. You want to hangit out, but then you know that you have to race at every race, too. There we re only a couple guys last year w ho finished the whole season [uninjured ], so that's part of my goal, too. " Speaking of injured riders, it turns out that w orst of the injuries to Boost Mobile/Yamaha of Troy's Brock Sellards was not the sprained ankle that he was complaining of after hitting the ground in his qualifying race at Anahe im I. "I popped my ribs out of place," Sellards said Friday. "I haven't been able to breathe. Even getting out of bed hasbeen tough. I've been to the chiropractor all week , just trying to get set up. I fee l pret ty decent. I do n't want to push it today. I think I'll be okay for tomorrow." Wh ile he's certainly takingadvantage of the formula, St eph ane Roncad a said that he is disappointed to see as few 125cc machines in the two main events as there have been thus far. "I'm really pissed about it ," Roncada joked. "The reason that I switched to the 250F is so that I could get an advantage. N ot anymore." As if the perfo rmance advantage of the 250cc four-strokes in the 12Scc clas w asn enough, s 't Boost Mobile{TroyRacing's mechanic M ark Fara baugh saidthat they are als much more o durable. "We're gelling 10 hours - usually about three races - on a piston and rings," Farabaugh said. "O n the 125s, we changed them after every race. We still tear it dow n after every race and go through the who le thing, but we 're just not replacingasmuch." Chad Reed's sixth consecutive AHA Supercross Serieswin was also his first with new mechanic Darrin Sorenson, the fanne r mechanic for another Australian supercross ride r, Michael Byrne. '''''''ually that [Anahe im I] was my first [National] win as a mech anic," Sorenson sai . "I've had mota wins and heatd race wins, but never a main event or overall." Sorenson was tapped as the replacement for former Reed mechanic D ave Dye . "It w as kind of weird ," Sorenson said. "Th ey [Yamaha] called me, and when I was interviewing, I asked them if the y had a rider in mind. They sai , 'D oes it matter?' I realized that it didn't d and that I really wanted to be a facto ry mechanic. This is who they put me with . It couldn't have w orked out better." Travis Pr esto n admitted that he may have spent too much time engaged in his "rarnfest' with Greg Schnell at Anaheim I. For Phoenix, Preston said that he plannedto take a different approach. "T he approach for thisweek is that if anybody does that to me again, then I'm just going to shoot 'em," Preston joked. "It seems like I always get caught up in that stuff. I don't know if it's just the way that I ride or some thing I do . That [last week] was partly my fault, too - I started looking back instead of looking forward." For his part , Gr e g Schnell didn't let Preston shoulde r all the blame, either. "I talked to Travisthis weekend about it," Schn said. ell "Me and him have been friends for a long time. If we would have put our headsdown last week, then for sure w e wo uld have gotten in the top frve. but when you're out there block -passing each oth er, it's kind of hard to focus, becauseyou're atways looking behind you. It was kind of meaningless, but that's just racing. We both understandw hat w e need to do. " C Y CLE N EWS • JANU A RY 21, 2004 2S

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