Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

- Brad lackey scored a 3-3 second overall in the USGP mud and is looking forward to w inning the title that's eluded him for years, then relaxing. Season update: Brad Lackey Ten-year dream nears reality By Dale Brown Photos by Mark Kariya Brad Lackey, the only long-term American GP contender on the international motocross scene, finds himself closer than he's ever been to his ultimate goal: winning the 500cc World Motocross Championship . L ac k ey· cam~ into t.h e Ca~Isbad USGP WIth a five-point ·26 lead in the standings over his nearest rival, two-time Champ Andre Malherbe of Belgium. Although Brad again just missed victory in the race (he took second place when a threeway tie for first was broken on elapsed lime), he left with a 22-point bulge in the standings. Malherbe, on the other hand, did not have a good day at Carlsbad. His season ended there 10 minutes into the first moto, when he crashed in a tricky section and broke the tibia on his right leg. So that means that Lackey's chief contender for the title is Belgian Andre Vromans, Brad 's Suzuki teammate. Known as a sand specialist, Vromans has one GP win this year, and matched Lackey 's point output at Carlsbad. He is 22 points beh ind, though, and there are four rounds left with the season ending Aug . 8 in Luxembourg. We caught up to Lackey for a brief chat before he left for the Canadian GP that will take place June 27. How does the rest of the season look? Of course, it's hard to say. Barr ing any mechanical problems we hav e a pretty good cushion of a lead . Andre Vromans is now in second place and he 's only finished in front of me four limes th is year. Two of those limes were when I had mechanical prob- · lems and the other two were in sandy conditions where he 's supposedly the best sand rider. In the rest of the races left there's no sand and I've been beating him pretty regularly so I reall y don 't feel threatened by him. I think, without any problems, we should pretty much have it in the bag. The injury to Malherbe. Does that do anything as far as how you perceive - winning the title? Before he got hurt, in the past couple of weeks, it was looking like there was going to be more racing between him and I. Virtually just the two of us trying to beat each other and in turn we'd be beating everybody else. I think if he would have been riding as well as he had the last two weeks we would have had quite a few duels and I feel pretty confident that I · was going to beat him because when I did race with hi m the las t few weeks, which were his best weeks, I was in front of h im unl ess I ha d som e problems wi th th e bike . In races prior to that he was prett y in con sistent, couldn' t handle some of th e track conditi ons and didn' t have that many finis hes at all , so I felt confident tha t I co u ld ride with him on any of th e trac ks. And I really felt I could beat h im when it got down to the point of doing that. So I was confident that we were going to take it, being consistent and actually being fast enough too. The 22-point lead on Vromans - is that going to change your stategy in any of the rest of the races or are you going to just play it conservative? I th ink I'm gonna stick with the plan that we've had all year. It's been working and there's no sense changing an yth ing now. We want to be able to get points in every moto and hopefully take advantage of any time Vromans has any problems. We've tried to get as far away in the points as possible so coming down to the last race it 's not going to come down to a few points. We'll have a good lead going in . Now to change the subject a little bit. You've been going to Europe for over 10 years and have gotten a lot of experience there. Now there are a few more Americans in Europe. What's your reaction to Danny LaPorte's success? He's two points out of the point lead. Is that right? Well that's good. I haven 't been able to follow the 250s as close as I'd like to being tied up with the 500s as much. But I'm glad to see that. Of course if the Americans do good it's going to create more interest in the factories over here for European riders. It 's kind of a problem now that in unless you ride directly for the factory you really don't have much of a chance to go to Europe. A lot of V.S. riders would like to to to Europe or are th ink in g abou t it bu t they're reall y kind of held back because they ridefor the V .S. importers and th ey can't seem to get th e connecti ons goi ng to do that. I'm gl ad to see tha t he's winni ng and it' d be nice to have two World Champions. Johnny O 'Mara, with very Ii ttle European experience, just went over for one race, the Swiss 125cc GP and just blew the 125ccWorld Championship riders into the weeds. Do you think the rest of the American 125cc riders would stand as good a chance over there? Well, you can't say the rest of them because obviously he 's one of the best if not the best, he and Mark Barnett, I guess . I think in the 125 and 250cc classes, barring any problems, and with a good schedule and everything working their way, an American could win the classes pretty easy. The 500s are a little different. When your mechanic gives you the pitboard signal, say in Belgium or Luxembourg, that you've won the World Championship - can you -hazard a guess on what's the first thing you're going to say to yourself? No , that's going to be hard to say. Probably, " it's over and that's good." That's the main thing, you want to get it over with especially when it 's down to the end and it's that close to " end. the It's still going to be fairly close. It's good just to get it over with and then you can relax and go ride the last moto or the last two or three motos normally. You can go out and win the last races or ride your best after having it over with and being relaxed. While it 's still not over yet you're overcautious and it affects your riding. You're not going to be riding as well as you should be. You 've just got it over with and you can get back out there and do the job normally. I think the main thing I'd be thinking is that I'm glad it's over and it's time to come home and have a party. •

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