VOLUME 59 ISSUE 42 OCTOBER 18, 2022 P123
among the 10 best in the sport's
history.
There was big-time hype lead-
ing up to the 1998 L.A. race for
several good reasons. First, it
was the opening round of the
Supercross series, and you know
how that is. Just being the open-
er alone is usually hype enough.
But adding to the buzz was
Jeremy McGrath's debut on the
Chaparral Yamaha after his previ-
ous one-year stint on the factory
Suzuki Team went sideways, and
he had to surrender the number-
one plate to Jeff Emig after a
four-year championship run.
Doug Henry was back on the
Yamaha YZ400F four-stroke, but
it was a production-based bike
this time. We all wanted to see
how he'd do after winning the last
Supercross race in Las Vegas the
year before on the works four-
stroke.
Ezra Lusk was making his Hon-
da debut on the factory team,
and Larry Ward was back aboard
a factory Suzuki after a previous
fallout with the squad. Emig was
wearing the number-
one plate for the first
time and on a totally
redesigned factory-
backed Kawasaki
KX250.
And plenty of inter-
national riders were on
the entry list to make
things even more
spicey. South Africa's
Greg Albertyn, Japan's
Takeshi Koikeda,
Frenchmen Mikael Pi-
chon, Frederic Bolley,
and Sebastien Tortelli
were all raring to go.
Even Valentino Rossi was among
the nearly 62,000 fans that came
out to watch.
And then you had the rain that
dumped on Southern California
courtesy of the "Pineapple Ex-
press" that washed out Friday's
activities at the race site and
made the lengthy track a muddy,
rutted-out, and technical chal-
lenge for Saturday night's race.
When the main event finally
came it looked to be Henry's
race. He put all that four-stroke
power to the wet ground, nabbed
the holeshot, and then led the
national riders were on
Greg Albertyn, Japan's
(Left) The L.A.
Coliseum has
hosted several
historic supercross
moments. (Right)
Sebastien Tortelli
won the last
supercross race
held at the L.A.
Coliseum in 1998.
