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/128391
Briefly... Red Bull KfM's Jurgen Kunxel suffered a rather grinding crash during practice on Saturday when he cased the step-up that led the riders over the top of the ramp that enters the stadium dirt section. Kunzel endoed at the top of the ramp and slid halfway down it. "It's all good then," Kunzel said on Sunday. "I just jumped too short and went down. That's all." Kunzel was looking to have a good race in the final. "My start position is not so bad, so I am hoping for a good start," he said, "and then we can go three or four laps and see. TIle first comer is an important comer." Unfortunately for Kunzel, it was also the corner where he crashed at the start of the race. He ended up 19th. Aggressive riding by McGrath caused this chain-reaction crash involving David BaHeleuf (left), JeH Ward (3X) and Jurgen Kunxel (under Ward) in the second turn. Ward wound up 16th, BaHeleuf 17th and Kunxel 19th. thought, 'I need to get close to these guys right away.' I didn't want to have to make up this huge amount of distance on them, and I didn't even know if I could. I wanted to get out front, and I got a little excited, and as you know, if you get off the line, that 3- or 'I-foot [groove], with slicks, you get into the marbles and it's like you're on ice. I just came in a little hot, hit the brake and dropped the bike." Up front, Henry appeared to bide his time behind Reed, who appeared to be setting a torrid pace for a 40-lap race. Henry inched into the two-length lead that Reed had established from the get-go and then slipped underneath him to take the lead in the paved, 180-degree, righthand tum six on lap six. "I asked him if I could go by him," Henry joked about the pass on Reed. "I was a little bit faster, I think, in the pavement part of it. I just kind of came on the inside of him, and he definitely gave me a little bit of room there. It was a clean pass. I figured he would probably get in behind me and then maybe we could start pulling away from the rest of the field." That's what happened, as the two opened up a gap over Bostrom, who assumed third place after Nicoll crashed in the same corner where Henry had passed Reed, also on lap six. Nicoll got going immediately, but he dropped to sixth, behind Drew and Team Husqvarna's Ivan Lazzarini, one of the visiting World Supermoto stars. Drew and Lazzarini closed on Bostrom, and then there was another gap to Nicoll, Graves Motorsports Yamaha's Mark Burkhart, Cernic's Suzuki/Red Bul!'s Travis Pastrana and Ward. Burkhart would lowside in turn 18 on lap nine, dropping back. At about the same time, Troy Lee Designs Honda's Mike "Mouse" McCoy suffered a catastrophic engine failure over the big downhill jump and endoed hard. The Baja 500 Fonner World Supermoto Champion and X Games 10 Supermoto runner-up Eddy Seel suffered an even more horrific incident late in Sunday practice. executing a complete somersault to high-speed belly flop onto the ramp after casing the downhill jump. "I am stupid because I changed my line," Seel said. "Every lap I have the same line, and then I changed the line to test things for the race, and I made a big crash." Seel was shaken up in the crash and may have suffered a broken foot, though he did take part in the race. Seel ended with a 14th place. But first a1temate Leonardo Bagnis got off the worst, casing the top of the downhill jump and slamming down hard enough to break his left hand during Sunday practice. Bagnis was an alternate in the field, so his spot was not guaranteed. The question now is whether the injury will hamper his effort to land the AMA Supennoto Unlimited Championship, as he in the thick of the points chase for that title and there is a doubleheader round of the series at Copper Mountain, Colorado, just two weeks out from the X Games. X Games I I marked the American debut of Team Husqvarna World Supermoto star Ivan Lazzarini in Supenmoto competition, although it was not his first attempt racing here. "I came to south Boston in 2003, but the race was canceled because there was a lot of rain," said Lazzarini, who expected the race to be fun. "The course is so different than Europe," he said. "It is shorter and the dirt part is technical and long, but it is nice." The dirt sections proved to be no problem for Lazzarini, who was a World MX Grand Prix competitor before switching to Supermoto in 2002. Lazzarini actually led two laps of the race, making him the only rider besides Reed and Henry to do so. Lazzarini is currently fifth in the SI World Supennoto Championship standings. Steve Drew paid high compliments to lazzarini after spending much of the race dicing with him. "That guy is fast as hell," Drew said of Lazzarini. "He's a top guy. a World Cham· pionship guy. He got me in the first half of the race, and I knew where he was faster than me, and I was trying to shut the door on him there and then trying to take advanClge in the places where I was fast. He was pushing me at the end. It was a good time, and we put in the strongest race that we could." ConnnueG on poge 23 CYCLE NEWS • AUGUST 17, 2005 21