Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128314
only had like four hours to break in the bikes be fore the first race:' Blose said, " Now I'm beginning to get more used to them. I'm having a lot more fun now. " Blose is not e ligible for points in the East , alt ho ugh most points collecting seems useless since Stewart seems headed to an easy championship. He now lea ds He ple r by 18, with a perfect 7S atop the standings. Because he was setting lap times that were consistently two seconds a lap qu icker than the rest of his class, the only thing that could stop Stewart in the main eve nt was a crash or a bad start. He had neither, immed iate ly tak ing the lead from MotoworidRacing.co m Suzuki rider Steve Boniface and putting on a riding clinic for IS laps. The first tum was not as kind to some. The very tight left was preceded by a very long start straight, and some riders, like Boo st Mobile/Yamaha of Troy 's Danny Smith , were unab le to stop in time to negotiate the corner. Smit h went down and found himself in dead last early. O t her favorites, like Pro Circuit Kawasaki's Eric Sorby and Team Suzuki rookie Davi Millsaps, found themse lves way back early as well. Josh Hansen got a good start, though . He sneaked into second place and began pulling away from the rest of the field. Seven laps into the race Hansen th rew it away when he cased a jump at the end of a section of tab letops. This put Boniface back into second, but he came under attack from Hepler, who seemed to find his rhythm midway through the race. Hepler ex ecuted a slick pass by outjumping Boniface over a jump combo that drew the riders past the mechanics' area, Briefly... I Conrinued from page 23 sprained ankle or something, and it never gets better because I just keep riding; I keep overjumping jumps and hurting it. Plus, I alwaysliketo have an excuse on the backburner in case something happens, so... My wrist doesn't even reallyhurt, off the record:' he joked. After Preston was docked five seconds in his heat race, he said, "I just know that there's so much action goingon, and they 're starting to break out all these rules. I have to ride the bike, and the track, worry about the people around me, and now I have to think about the AHA rules, 'What happens when I do this or this or this or that?'" David Ping ree came out to ride the 250cc class in Atlanta. "Every team I've ever ridden for has been a 125 team , so I figured if I was going to come and do something, it'd be in the 250cc class," he said. "I haven't ridden it since '97, plus I'm not really into the four-stroke thingon a supercross track. I wa nted to have some fun and w rite a story [for Racer X] about this whole trip I'm doing. I'm riding the GNCC on Tuesday , and then Daytona." According to Mot oXXX's lamey Grosser, desp ite a se riou s ru n of bad luck , Kyle Lewis will be returning soo n. "He started off with a punctured lungand some broken ribs from a race over in Portugal in the middle of October:' Grosser said. ';6,fter that , he finds out he tore some ligaments and some stuff in his shoulder and decides to have that operated on to tighten everything up. Then he has a mountain-bike crash and splits his left arm from his wrist to his elbow, has to have 150 stitches to put that back together, and now he's gett ing back. Look for him in St. Louis." Yamaha of Troy's Steve " Sa rg e" Smit h was throwing around a football inside the pit area with Danny Smith's mechanic Todd Dunn and threw his right shoulder out . Sebastien Tortelli's factory RM250 was in the Suzuki pits in Atlanta being prepared for Travis Pastrana to race in St. Louis. Ryan Clark wen t down hard in the 250cc main after finishing 13th in the 125cc main. "I could've made some big ground on the 250, and I was in a position to get a top-10, but I just made a mistake:' he said. "Ramsey passed me fair and square down the start straight, and I came back down the right side of the whoo ps and got the position back o n him to stuff him back, and he cut down a lltt le fast, and we bumped , and I highsided into him. His wheel grabbed my leg and kind of pulled me and slammed me down on my head. Your first instinct's always to jump back up, but Igot over that quick." Since he's in the top-five in the I25cc points, he decided he'll concentrate on that one class in Daytona next weekend. Team Suzuki is among the many teams staying back East to test for the special conditions the Daytona Supercross offers. www.cycienEWs .com CYCLE NEWS • MARCH 10,2004 25