Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

"" .. ", < (Above) Vet-class racer Dan Richardson proved to have the best reflexes, pulling the holeshot to the bomb. Only Brown and Abbott passed him all day, leaving the 33-year-old to soldier along a lone i n third the remainder of the race. (Right) Shane Esposito (rig h t) wrapped u p the 250cc series championsh ip by winn ing the c l ass at Luc e rne a n d getting si xth overall, holding off 12 5 c c racer Kurt Caselli. Next year, though, he plans to be on a 500. BRIEFLY••• anything ; , k ne w I had first 250 , so I j ust more u sed to t he Hond a , so results stayed where I was, behind O akley ." a re g etting better and bett er. " '" g ot off t he lin e pretty g o od ," Capt f i nish ed n i n th o ve r a ll and C aselli sa id, " A nd w asn't su re where , w as [in t h e p ac k ] at the e nd of the sec ond Vet on his KX500 , sayi n g , bomb - it w as ki n d o f dusty . , tried to m on th s. " h o ld my o w n a c r oss t h e va lle ys . I ]° wasn ' t rea lly catchi ng up tha t qu ick ; I p as sed a f ew p e op l e here and "T h at's not bad fo r not rid ing for si x David Pearson round ed o ut th e to p o n hi s Y Z 2 5 0, na bb ing seco n d 2 5 0cc honors . '" basica ll y didn 't want there , and j ust waited f or the ti ght U ,S . Junior World T roph y team m em- Winning the 250cc division wrapped up the class championship for Team Green's Shane Esposito. who was the 125cc champ in ·ga. However. Espo sito will ride a 500 at the finale and probably race it full-time next year. as well. Many riders had trouble finding their way in the relatively short race. "I got lost quite a few times." Destry Abbott said. "It was kind of poorly marked. It was just too short. to me. We need to do longer race s and tougher lonesl . This is a National event: it sho uld be tougher than wh at we do here ." t o get hurt [before) S i x Da ys , " th e sec ti ons - those are th e be st . It wa s Kurt Caselli's seventh overall - with Esposito tantalizingly close - earned the Team Green rider his sixth 125cc win to sew up the class championship in the best-six-of-eight series. "All I needed was to finish." he said. "I had one DNF [during the seas onl , and that was about It: every thing else went perfect. fun, thoug h , I was 10 th in the pits , ber adm itted , "I wa nted to b eat Shane th e n we h a d t o work o n m y b i k e th is r a c e - I' ve n e v er b eat h im o u t b e c aus e t he stee ri ng h e a d c a m e he re yet - b ut I didn ' t , so .. , I didn' t loose, so , en ded up leaving 12th . I crash , an d I d idn ' t ge t hurt, That's t he fe lt r eally good after the first loop ; it fe lt really sho rt , so I wen t all-out on ma in thi ng ." t h e seco n d loo p and passed a f ew people," U sin g t he So Cal National as p rac ti c e for the B aj a 200 0 , Steve Heng ev eld e n ded up e ight h overall , f i rst Fou r -Strok e E xp er t , o n hi s Honda XR650R, "I g ot to rac e with Capt, and actu ally' got to rac e with E sposito a little bit," Hengeveld sa id . " I w as right w ith Esposito and Oakley o n the se cond loop - that's wh en I fi rst fell over, and they k i n d of pu lled a l itt l e b it. I 'm glad I did oka y , I'm g ettin g more and Winner Brian Brown had a loop-two mishap that had him feeling a b it guilty. "I've got to apologize." he said. "There was this father [working a checkJ. and he had his kid out there marking the [check cards on the front] fender. He put his arm across my fender. I took off. and his dad put his arm on my handguard when I took off. and it knocked him over. I'm sorry for that." So Cal M.e, National Desert regulars Destry Abbott and Russell Pearson make up one- third of the six-man U.S. World Trophy team that leaves on October 24 for the ISDE in Spain.

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