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/128384
Briefly... After showing some impressive speed at the Southwick round of the series, young rookie Pro Jason Lawrence will be joining the Motoworid.com/Suzuki team full time for the remainder of the season. He has been pitting out of Sean Hamblin's rig because he has the same agent, Scott Sepkovic. Maestro Suzuki rider In the postrace press conference,James Stewart eluded to the new Kawasaki KXF450 being just around the corner: "It actually should be coming out here pretty soon, hopefully," Stewart Casey Johnson retumedto action at Budds Creek. Johnson has however, put him in an excellent position leading into the second When the checkered flag came out, Carmichael was 18.256 seconds in front of Stewart and Reed. Team AmsoiVChaparraVHonda's Kevin Windham crossed the line a quiet fourth, followed by Team Honda's Emesto Fonseca. After a relatively uneventful first moto, the second began with drama. On the parade lap, Reed's Darrin Sorenson-tuned YZF450 suddenly and unexpectedly sputtered to a stop on one of the steep downhills. Reed was understandably upset about the whole incident. "It was kind of weird just coming down the downhill it kind of misfired a little bit and kind of caught me off guard - I didn't know what happened," Reed said. "Then I came into the tum, and it just totally cut out. It's one of those things. I ride for a factory team, and it's totally - it should never happen, and I'm quite pissed off about it. I don't need that stress. We've been having a lot of problems like that, and we need to make it better." When Team Yamaha race team manager Jim Perry was asked if there was any official word on the exact problem, he simply responded with, "We know what happened, we just can't say yet." The mechanical snag delayed the start several minutes until Yamaha technicians fixed the problem. Once the pack finally thundered into the first tum, Carmichael was again out front. Behind him, chaos ensued as a crash took eight riders out; luckily, no one was injured. In quick order, the front-runners established themselves, as it only took a few turns for Reed and Stewart to move into second and third, respectively, behind Carmichael. And once they did, Reed did all he could to steal another moto win from Carmichael. Even with a fall by Carmichael, though, Reed could not make a pass. "I got out there, ReecIy was behind me, and we were just putting in some good said. "Those guys been out with injuries since the beginning of the season. While he appeared fast aboard his RM-Z450, his injuries still hampered his perfonnance. After pulling out of the first moto, he failed to start the second. moto. the Honda CRF4S0, his starts have become notkeably better: If you ask him, however, he has not changed his technique much. "Everybody keeps saying that," Fonseca said, "but I haven't really been practicing starts at all. It's just the bike is so unbelievable. It's almost like automatic - I just let the clutch go. It's almost like you have to try to mess up a start." Word is that the Cemicr/Suzuki team has plans to field a larger team next year. They want to have 2SOcc as well as I 25cc riders. There was an enormous IOO-plus-foot downhill double right after the mechanics' signal area. Only Chad Reed attempted the leap during practice, but he carne up short. There was, however, a local racer who successfully made the leap during the Amateur racing the day prior to the Pro National. [Kawasakl1 are really working their butts off. Actually, I've ridden one, and I'm so much better on those things. They are so much easier to ride. I'm really looking forward to getting on that. Ithink 1should be back up there making the races good, and hopefully try to get a victory at the end of the season." The NPGs Jonathan Beasley, owner of Budds Creek, did a ton of work to change the landscape of the track to make it friendlier for the fans and more competitive for the racers. Andrew Lourake, Beasley's go-to guy at Budds, said, "We tried to make things closer The Southern Maryland Dirt Riders dub raised more then $1300 to be split between two privateers: one from the l25cc dass, the other from the 250cc class. It was the first year for the SMDR privateer award. laps," Carmichael said. "I went a little too hard into a back tum back there. There was a little step-up, I just kind of jumped a little too far and actually fell down. Luckily, I kept the bike running and got up just in front of him [Reed]. I was able to kind of hold him off there and get my groove back. Then he stalled it, and it enabled me to get a little gap." "I just pushed," Reed said. "I actually stalled in the back and kind of let Ricky go and James catch up. Other than that, I felt okay." Stewart did begin to catch up, though it was not until after he fought off advances from Windham early in the moto. The two riders swapped paint, and positions, numerous times around the rough course until Windham dropped back and settied into fourth. "Me and Kevin were going at it for a while back there," Stewart said. "He actually got around me once, and we kind of hit bacik there. Once we did that, he might have made a mistake or something - I don't Ricky Carmichael suffered a laceration to his left middle finger after a run-in with James Stewart in Sunday's practice. The cut required some stitches. Even though Carmichael uses the finger for his clutch, it did not hinder him. "Not too bad; Igot a couple stitches and went on," Carmkhael said. "It was kind of good; it kept my mind off of things. I really just went out there and let the races cometome." According to Carmichael, the new Suzuki RM· Z450 is still a work in progress, but he says that it is getting better with to what the fans want - better sight lines, more passing opportunities and better for 1'/." By adding 40 tons of sawdust, a new technical "supercross" section and widening the track in a number of places, Budds appeared to be more of a hybrid NationalslGP track - possibly the perfect spot for the '07 Moto Des Nations. Beasley also named one of the jumps "Scrub This," in honor ofJames "Scrubba" Stewart. The highly peaked tabletop on the backside of the track was home to some of the best whips of the season - highlighted of course by Stewart's jumps. KTM moved Jeff Alessi up to the big rig, only to have Jeff suffer the same fate as brother Mike - a shoulder injury. "Jeff breaks his leg, Mike breaks his," said their dad, Tony Alessi. "Mike hurts his shoulder, Jeff messes up his. Nways seems to have worked that way." every race. "It's a new bike," Carmkhael said. "50 I think we team things, and the bike is eventually going to get better and better. I'm really happy with what Suzuki is doing. They've corne up to the plate, and tihey are working really hard. I appreciate that. They are doing all that tihey can do, and I'm just thankful for that. We're just going to keep it going." Ever since Emesto Fonseca hopped aboard The bikes were back to normal suspension settings after taking a royal pounding at Southwick the week before. Suspension guru Jim "Bones" Bacon of the Monster Energy/Pro Circuit/Kawasaki team, said, "The most drastk difference is that we set the bikes up to steer a little slower in the sand. And last week was the roughest I've ever seen Southwick. 50 we also had to tighten the front end, keep it up so the back end stays planted. It's a scenario that we chase throughout the day." CYCLE NEWS • JUNE 29, 2005 17