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ยท~ ~OTOCROSS 500/125cc MX Series: Final rounds ~ By winning both motos at Budds Creek, Team Yamaha's Jeff Emig (80) captured the 125cc National Championship title at the expense of Kawasaki's Mike LaRocco. Titles to Kiedrowski, Emig at Budds Creek By Henny Ray Abrams BUDDS CREEK, MD, OCT 4 awasaki's Mike Kiedrowski scored his third-eareer motocross champi~ onship title, while Yamaha's Jeff Emig earned his first on a rainy day in southern Maryland, as an estimated 10,000 "creekers" looked on at Budds Creek Motocross Park on the Delmarva peninsula. . For Kiedrowski the race was one of survival. In the first 500cc moto, held in a steady, increasing rain, Kiedrowski gated .poorly but worked his way up to second behind Honda's Jeff Stanton, his only title-challenger going into the final round of the series and year. By the second moto the rain had intensified and the track was a mess. After hitting teammate Jeff Ward on the first lap, Kiedrowski crashed twice in pursuit of the front-runners, but he would ultimately end up third behind Stanton and teammate Ward, and clinch his first 500cc National Championship title. "Do I always make them thrillers or what?" Kiedrowski asked after adding the 500cc title to his two 125cc titles earned in 1989 and '91. "1 had a pretty K 6 good start; I was away about fourth or fifth. Wardy kind of got sideways and I hit him. Then I got up and started catching up to the leaders and tipped it over in a tum. I thought, 'Oh God, this is over: I got up and knew I had to finish . third. I just rode the track:' "That's part of racing," said Stanton, the three-time Supercross Champion, after earning the runner-up spot in the 500cc championship series for the fourth time. "You take the good with the bad and move on. Everything I've ever gotten was because of my consistency. I crashed last week and lost a few points and lost more a couple of races ago. " Stanton scored the overall win with a perfect 1-1 day. Kiedrowski's 2-3 was good for second, with Ward finishing third overall in his final National MX race before retiring with a 4-2 tally. Also competing in his last MX National before pursuing a career in Grand Prix road racing was Honda's Jean-Michel Bayle, who tallied 3-4 moto finishes. And privateer Kawasaki rider Mike Jones, from Export, Pennsylvania, fin- ished fifth over~ll with a pair of fifth place finishes. Kiedrowski ended up clinching the 500cc title with 229 points, followed by Stanton with 226, Ward with 195, Bayle with 158 and Jeff Matiasevich with 103 points. . With only one point separating the leaders in the 125cc title fight, the potential was there for a great day. But most of the excitement went out of the race on the first lap when Kawasaki's Mike LaRocco broke a shift lever while dicing with Tuf Racing's Ronnie Tichenor. LaRocco rode one lap in second, before his crew replaced the shifter but could only manage a 13th-place finish. And while LaRocco was suffering, Emig was flying. The Highland, California, resident had a IS-second lead on the third lap and was never challenged. When tile two-Iaps-to-go board was shown, at the 3D-minute mark, Emig held a 25-second lead on e.ventual second-place finisher Tichenor. DGY Racing's Doug Henry was third, Suzuki's Larry Ward fourth, and Team 'Peak/Pro-Circuit/Honda rider Jeremy McGrath fifth. For the secQnd moto, Emig needed to finish 12th or better, assuming LaRocco won, and, though it seemed easy, all bets were off when a steady rain began to fall just after the first moto ended. The track fumed into a rutted quagmire and just staying vertical was a challenge that many were not up to. Emig, however, was and dominated the second moto in the same way he handled the first. His 1-1 day gave him his sixth win of the year and the 125cc crown. ''I'm really relleved," Emig said after wrapping up his first title. "It's like, I won a lot of races, I just never thought I'd get to the championship. I thought I wouldn't get the breaks this year. The only way to guarantee this thing was to go 1-1. I never thought of getting second. "1 did this one for my dad, Gary. He's the -whole reason I do this," Emig added. Suzuki-mounted Tichenor earned second overall with 2-4 moto finishes,