Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

AMA/ChevyTrucks U .S. M o t oc r o s s Championship S e r ie s R o u nd 6 : R ed Bud T r a c k 'N' T ra il res ulting in a fourth-overa ll p la cing. Roundi ng o ut th e top five ov erall wa s Red Bud's ow n Mik e LaRo cc o , who lives just a few miles so uth of th e track in South Ben d , Indiana. laRocco was hoping to treat his local fa ns with his first win of the ye a r, but tha t would not ha pp en. De cent s ta rts translated into resp ectable 5 -4 moto finishes. " It's a lwa ys n ic e co mi n g h ere , " LaRocco sai d from his Am soil/Competition Accessories/Ja c k in in Box/Factory Conn ecti on Hond a p its . "I can s lee p in my own bed and race at the s a me tim e , but I' ve n ev er had th e gre atest luck here . But th is weekend I made t h ro ugh the first turn and had dec ent sta rts. I had a better wee kend here than I've had th e last co up le of weeks." Larry Ward was Chevy Trucks/Kawasaki's second-best rider of the da y. His 67 moto finish es netted him s ixth ove ra ll, fo llo we d by Ma zd a /Chaparral Yama ha's Tim Ferry (8-6 ), who spent a good portion of th e day mixing it up a mo ng th e le ade rs before d ropping bac k. De fe ndi n g cha m p Greg Albertyn had trou bles getting out of the st arting gate, a nd a pa ir of small ge t-offs didn't help his ca use .a ny. He finished out the day going 7-8 for eig hth overa ll. Rounding out th e to p 10 were Chevy Trucks/ Kawasaki's John Dowd (10-9) and S uzuki's Damon Huffma n (9 -11). Fi nishi ng 11 th was Suzuki 's Robbie Reynard (1 1-1 0) . Team Honda's Sebastien Tortelll was In the zone at Red Bud. He passed his way to the front In both 250cc motos to take his first win of the season. MOTOONE B y KIT PALMER P HOT OS BY S T EVE B RUHN BUCHANAN, M JULY 2 I, ' r his was su pp os ed to be America 's llJ weeken d , not Fran ce 's. After all, it was the Fou rth of July holiday weeke nd, when Am eri cans celebrate the ir country's inde pe nde nce. But a ppa rently Sebastien To rt e lli - and St ephane Roncada for that matter - never got the word . F renc h r iders si m p ly ruled this yea r's Red Bud Nation al, sta r-spa ng led holida y or not. After witnessing Roncada secure h is s weep of t he 12 5 cc National moments ea rlier, To rtelli suddenl y had even more incentive than norma l to do th e sa me in th e 250cc National, since he had already won the first 250cc moto in dominating fashion . Tort elli, a former 250cc World Champion , ended up c om pleting a Fr ench sweep at the reva m ped Red Bud tra ck , though Ricky Carm ichael and Kevin Windham gave it t he ir best sh ot to keep the French riders from s po iling the Am erica ns' party. Tortelli be gan his perfect da y with a strong c o m e -fro m -b e hi nd win in the first moto . Th e Frenchman gated fifth, which do esn 't sound all that bad at first, b ut when you consider he had hole s hot master Da vid Vuillemi n (a nother Frenc h ma n) , Rick y Ca rm ich a e l, Kevin Wind ham an d Tim 6 JULY 12, 2000 ' cue I .. Fe rr y ahea d of him , well , s ud den ly fifth d o e sn ' t see m so good . B ut Torte lli didn 't give up , a nd instead dug in a nd went to work. First he powe red his Shan e Drewtuned Hond a aro u n d Ferry 's Mazda /Chaparra l Yam ah a . Th en, with seemingly min ima l effort, he took ca re of his Hond a te ammate Windham by th e se cond lap . Vuillemin, who had been passed by Carmicha el on the first la p, was next on Tort elli's h it list. Aft e r g e tt ing aroun d F err y a n d Windham rather e a sily, Tort e lli str ug gled to get by Vuillemin a nd his facto ry-ba cked Yamah a. While Carmich a el le d the wa y - tho ug h not by much Vuill em in and Tortel li battl ed fo r a wh ile unti l Tortell i got h is wa y. Not lo ng after that , Tortell i also h ad his wa y with Carm icha e l, and th at wa s that. Tortelli wa s simpl y on this da y, a nd he wasn 't go ing to let anybody turn him off. Tortelli g at ed be tte r in th e se cond moto and so on found him se lf dicing for the lead with his teammate Windham . The two Honda riders broke awa y from the rest of the pa ck, a nd it look ed as though Windham jus t m ight ho ld the Frenchm an off, but th e race wa s two laps too long for Windham. Torte lli's 11 moto finishe s gave him h is first Natio nal win of the year and his first since the openi~g round la st year. Th e ne'IIVs win also put him into the series points lead for the first time, but by just four poi nts ove r former lead er Carmichael , 248-244 . Carmichael ended up finishing second overall on the da y with a 2 -3 ta lly a nd wa s obviously frus trated by th e way his day tu rned o ut. Th e Ch e vy Truc ks/K a wa saki rid er ce rtai nly h ad his cha nces to win at Red Bud , as he led mu ch of the first moto , on ly to get pa ssed by Tort e lli late in th e race . A poo r start in the second moto killed his cha nces to ma ke up for the first moto , so all he co u ld do whe n a ll was said and do ne was to accept what he got a nd start thinking a bo ut the next race at Unadilla in two weeks. Wind ham , m ea nwhile, finished out the day on the podium with third over all. He went from third to fourth in the first moto and nearl y won the second (ha d it not be for Tortelli , he might ha ve ). Perh aps the most disappointed rider afterwards was Vuillemin. If there 's an y o ne r id er who rea lly had a good cha nce to win the Red Bud race it was him. The Ya ma ha rider ho les hot both motos but just didn 't have the speed to hang with Tortelli, Carmichael or Windham, which is very un -Vuillem in-Iike. Many tim es t h is year, it's been th e other way around. Vuillemin finished a distant third and fifth in the two motos, Vuillemi n was the qui cke st out of the gat e for the start of th e first moto. He put his Cra ig Monte-tuned Yamaha at the front of th e pack with all of the factory star s filing in right be hind him. Unfo rtu n atel y for Vuillem in , o ne of t hose rid e rs wa s Carm ich a el , who d idn ' t waste an y t ime m a k in g h is move. Before th e first la p wa s o ver, C a rm ich a e l had ri d d e n ar o und Vuillem in, and he then tried to sprint awa y from the pack. But he couldn 't . Inste ad, Vu illemin lat ched onto Carmi ch a el and wou ldn 't let go, as Win dh am , Tortelli , Ferry, Ward and Albert yn did like wise. La Roc co c om pleted the first lap in eig ht h, just ahead of S hayne King 's booming 520cc KTM four-stroke. Eating the thumper 's roost was Dowd , followed by the re ma ining fact ory -ba ck ed riders Reynard and Huffman . All that Carm ichael c ou ld do was ope n up a s ma ll lead , never more than a few bike lengths , wh ile Tort elli started to work on Windham for third. And he didn't have to work for long . By the second lap , Tortelli had taken control of third place and was looking to m a k e short wo rk of Vuillemin as well, but Vuillemin wasn't as willing to g ive u p h is pos ition as Windham was. Th e two F re n c h m e n ba ttl ed cl osely for many la ps , while Windham steadily slipped further back. To rtelli p u t h is Ho n d a next to

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