Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

them. But he knows that won't be the case every week, ''lt is iust the first race, and I will be much better from here on out, and I know everybody else will, too, so I can't get a bad start like I did tonight,'' Short said. "lf I improve on that, l'll be a lot stronger and be at the front of the pack-" Villopoto pretty much surprised everyone by how he came our swrnging in the maih event. Earlier in the evening, Villopoto had made little noise after get- ting a bad start and finishing llth in his heat race. He did. however, come back and win the LCQ, over Australian Andrew McFarlane, but many were expecting to see Short, Langston, Ramsey or even flike Alessi out in front of the main event. lnstead, itwasthe l7- year-old Villopoto who shot out of the gate and nabbed the $1000 holeshot award money, while two-time Arenacross Champion Darcy Lange, Yamaha of Troy's McFarlane, KTI*4 rider Michael Sleeter and SoBe/Samsung Mobile/Honda's Billy Laninovich filed in behind him. A bunch of riders went down in the first turn, including both Red Bull KTM riders Alessi and Ramsey. A little later in the lap, Langston crashed, as did Yamaha of Troy's Bret l*4etcalfe. After the first lap, Alessi was l3th, Ramsey l8th, I4etcalfe 2fth and Langston 2lst. A lap later, Honda rider Rodrig Thain crashed out of the race. Things sertled down by the third lap, and Villopoto was enjoying a comfort- able lead over Lange, who was beSinninS to feel some heat from Laninovich, who had iust gotten around McFarlane. Laninovich eventually got around Lange but found himself quite a long way |.),,<) behind the flying Villopoto, and he had liftle luck gaining ground him. "You knoq Ryan rode a really good race," Laninovich said. "l got into third place and he had already checked out. I lust couldn't do anything about it." Pretty soon, Laninovich had Shon on his tail, and he relinquished his second- place position to the Honda rider. After passin8 Laninovich on the sev- enth lap, Short started whittling away at Villopoto's five-second lead and was soon breathing down his neck. On the loth lap, Short pulled up alongside Villopoto through a whoop section and took over the lead. From there, Shon took control and rode off to victory, crossing the finish line a liftle over five seconds ahead of Villopoto. Laninovich finished not too far behind him. Despite coming up through the pack and making the win look almost easy, Short isn't about to let down his guard. "You never knoq with our class, how it's gonna go," Short said. "lt's always pretty unpredictable. I didn't expect Ryan [Villopoto] to be as strong as he was, and it was pretty impressive for his first race, I'm going to have to step it up, especially with Langston - he has a lot of champi- onships - and Ramsey - it's not his first time around the block - and Alessi is a quick learner. We have a lot ol work to do, and I think it will be fun. lt makes it fun going to the starting line knowing that anything can happen." Villopoto. who iust ei8ht days prior had started riding again after breaking his collarbone, certainly turned a lot of heads with his second-place performance. He did, however, admit that he got a l,ttle nervous running uP front. "Up until the loth lap, everything was Conlinsed fr1om pgg6 ll ,ames Stewart got a nice surprise on Satur- day afternoon when Two Brothers Racing pr$ented him with a super-ricked-out, gold-plated lQwasaki ZX-5R sportbike, which was spifled up much like the gold- plated hwasaki KLX I l0 they tave him last year. Unfortunately, about the time Two Brothers finished the bike, which had metal plates welded on to the fmme and lhe swinSarm with the number 259 on h, they got the word that Stewart had just switched numbe.s. Two Brothers ertimated that it would cost $50,000 to make a duplicate of the bike. Two Brothers also built a special minibike for Kevin Windham at the request of Windham's shoe sponsor, DVS. And speakint of lfudn lrMndham, last year's Anaheim lwinne[ it looks like he'll be out of action for at least another eight weeks. Wind- ham broke his arm a few week ago while practicint at the Honda track in California. Windha.n saw his doctor on Friday and showed up Saturday with a much smaller cast than he had on Thursday durrng the Amherm I press conference. Windham said he'll attend all of the Supercross rounds until h€ gets th€ okay from his doctor to start riding again. It was 20 years 4go at this race that Team Honda's David Bailey and Rick rohrcon had their now-infamous epic battle at Ana- heim, and to commemorate the race, Bailey, the winner of the back-and-forth swapfest. was presented with a replica of the Honda CR250 that he raced that dax though the bike he was 8iv€n had a bit more chrome on it, The bike was buik by a couple of longtime fahs of Bailey's and was presented to him during a break in the evening's program, Johnson also participated in the presenta- tion. A video clip of the battle was shown on the stadium's Jumbotron, to the delight of the sellout crowd, There was quite a scary moment in the s€c- ond heat race wher Team lqwasaki's Michael Byme crashed on the back side of a blind step-up jump. lvan Tedesco glammed into the downed rider, and Heath Voss near- ly nailed them both but ended up squeezint in between the two before caution flaggeG were abh to $/arn oncominS riders, Byme banged up his left heel and right wrist in the incident, but after getting the all-cleer from the Asterisk Mobile MedicalTeam, he went on to place third in the semifinal to qualit for the main event. Despite ridint in intens€ pain, Byme finished eighth in the final. The Motoworld Racing.cony'PPc tofi had a new look at Anaheim. After spending the last four years riding Suzukis, the team is now ntounted on Yamahas - the same brand the team used to ride when it lirst carne on the s

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