VOLUME 59 ISSUE 29 JULY 19, 2022 P129
Honolulu, one of the bottles had
split open or something, and there
was oil everywhere. It was my first
time in Hawaii, and it was a great
time. I actually led the race for a
while before I made a mistake in
the whoops."
The track was a small and tight
layout. It featured three double
jumps, a challenging stutter-bump
section, six turns and a massive
finish-line plateau jump dubbed
the Toyota Lava Leap.
Myerscough slipped up on
the local TV news the day before
the race. When asked to com-
pare the Supercross tracks on
the mainland to that inside Aloha
Stadium, he began with, "Well,
back in America…" It didn't go un-
noticed, and Myerscough
suffered through some
boos when his name was
announced before the first
qualifying race. But the
fans quickly forgot Myer-
scough's faux pas after he
showed impressive speed
on his Kawasaki on his way
to victory in the qualifier.
An indication of how
dominant the AMA regu-
lars could be against the
Hawaiian locals came in
the second qualifier when
Jimmy Ellis split from the
rest of the field and, in the
short race, lapped every-
one except the second-
place rider. On the other
hand, Turner had his hands
full for a few laps with Hawaii's
top motocrosser at the time Phil
Overland before Overland's KTM
bashed a pipe after coming up
short on a jump and lost power.
DeSoto was in Turner's qualifier
and finished fourth, much to the
crowd's delight, despite suffering
a hard crash.
Smith beat Heisser in a close
duel in the final qualifier.
The semis saw Myerscough
win easily over Ellis and Smith
over Turner in the second race.
DeSoto crashed hard again in the
semi but he remounted and quali-
fied for the main. Unfortunately,
DeSoto had broken his thumb in
one of the crashes but bravely
lined up with the other starters in
the 12-rider, 25-lap main.
Smith nailed the holeshot and
led the early laps over Turner.
Then Smith ran off the track and
out of the lead. "I picked a bad
line through the whoops, and
Turner made a good move and
went by," Smith explained.
Myerscough, after taking an
early tumble, was on the charge.
He got by Smith at about half-
way and then focused on trying
to chase down Turner, who led
with about a six-second cushion.
Myerscough closed the gap with
the crowd cheering him on, but it
was Turner, racing a Cagiva, who
held off Myerscough by inches at
the finish line.
"It was a real good race,"
Turner told Cycle News reporter
Kit Palmer. "You can never count
Brian out or give him any slack. If
you do, he will take it. He is a real
Brian Myerscough came up just
short of winning the 1984 Alohacross
after a crash but returned to win
the race in '85.
Larry Huffman (left) was brought in
to announce the event, and John
DeSoto (right) came out of retirement
after 10 years away to race in both
the 1984 and '85 Alohacross races.
