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/128323
- -- Ap r. 1 8 , 2004 MOTOCROSS ~ White Brothers Four-Stroke World Championship on Bess. He surre nde red the numbertwo spo t to Decker late in the race . "I'm not too bummed or anything; I'm not going to kill myself," Bess said. "Next week we'll change the suspension, and it' ll be a lot better." For Decker, however, it was a good comeback. In the field of 45 part icipants the largest Open field in the event's 17year history - he got off the gate poorly (at least by his standards) and managed to climb to sixth by the end of lap one, trailing Hughes , Honda rider Tony Amaradio, Bess, Mike Corder and Jason McCormick. He then moved to fourth by lap three when Amaradio crashed and dropped to sixth. A lap later he passed Corder, and a lap after that he passed McCormick to set up the fight with Bess. "I try to get better starts," Decker said, "but I borrowed the bike for the weekend, so it's my first start on it. But I definitely need to work on the starts ." in~ ven though Ryan Hughes says he hasn't raced motocross in quite some time , it sure didn't look that way at the 17th run ning of the White Brothers Four-Stroke World Championsh ip at Glen Helen Raceway. "It's been a while since I raced a motocross race," he said after winning the first mota. "So I was getting some nerves and cobwebs out of the way." Hughes , who normally competes on the smaller-bore bikes, mounted up a big 450cc KTM and looked right at home on the bike, and out in front . Despite not having ridding MX in a while, there was little surprise when he jumped out in front of the first mot a ; after all, he is "Ryno." Hughes quickly opened up a IO-second lead . It looked as though Hughes was breezing along out in front, but, unbeknownst to everyone on the track and on the sidelines, all was not completely well with the Hughes KTM. "The bike wasn't working too well," he adm itted afterward. "We went the wrong direction [as far as suspension setup), and that was our fault." Still, Hughes made it look easy, as he put his big KTM on cruise control and sailed alo ng E 82 way out in front . Hughes felt no serious pressure from behind , as he went on to win the first mota, hands down. But the race for runner-up honors pro vided some good racing action . Shane Bess and Craig Decker hooked up for a tenacious battle for nearly the whole race, the two rarely more than a MAY 12,2004 • CYCLE NEWS bikelength or two apart. "I was running Mike Metzger's suspension," said Bess, who was forced to borrow his friend's suspension after his soured earlier in the week. "Metzge r' s is not really set up for me, so I was just getting beat up out there." The pounding eventually took its toll 40th Anniversary When Hughes won last year, he was aboard the only KTM in the field. This time, the KTM numbers were doubled, as KTM-mounted McCormick made the trek down from Vancouver, Washington. Hughes once again got the jump in the second mota, right ahead of fellow KTM rider McCormick. Amar idio was again in the t hick o f things early, maintaining third until the fifth lap (of I I), when he dropped to fifth, getting passed by both Bess and Decker. Decke r again did not get off the line all that well. "I made it hard on myself," he said of his second so-so start. But the veteran, who will be racing the Canadian out door championships this year, soon took third from Bess just beyond the halfway mark where he began his drive to break up the KTM combo. And McCormick was aware of it. "Last week I had a reaily bad get-off, and we actually thought I broke my hand," he said. (Instead, it was badly bru ised, and he had them