The wet conditions forced the Al"lA ro
r€.Cu
rating
track, the Supercross-class heat races
were
reduced to six laps, the s€mis
and LCQ to
four
bps, and dle nEin event frorn
20 to
12
hps. The
SX Lites fmin was trimmed from
l5
to eight bpi.
Lap
tirnes
proved
iust
how
quickly
the track
deterior.ted.
ln *le lirst
Supercrossrhss heat
race, which
Jarnec
Stewart
won,
it
took eitlr
minutes and
26.750 seconds
to complete. ln
the v€ry next heat race,
which Riclry
Carmichael
won, it took nine minutB
and +4
seconds
to complete. ln the main,
Stewart's
average lap tirne w6
one min$e
and
l2
sec-
onds, l/ytl€reas in last
week's Anaheim ll main,
winner Rick, Carmichael's
average lap
iime
Many
people
were expecting Team BooKoo
Honda's
Dayid Vuillemin, a notoriously
Sood
his bike
in a tum on the
secofid
lap,
He stru*
gl€d
to
tet
dte 450
staned and when ir linally
did
fire, dle
entire fidd had already
parsed
him. He
pull€d
of on the $ird
lap and called ir
a
nigh.
RodisEr fuzuki's Mike
Brrown, rhe lone
rwo-
stroke holdout, is
actually thlnkinS abolrt
switching to a lour-stroke.
"l've
been trying it
this week," Brown
said.
"l
was runn,ng it faster
on lhe
fou.-nroke
than che two-stroke,
but
lll
do it again
this
w€ek -
8et
used to it and
get
the
suspension dialed in
more on the four-stroke
and maybe ride
the
four-stroke
next weekend.
lf I don't
80
fasler on the four-stroke
than I do
the two-st
oke. then l'll stay on the tlvo-stroke,
b€euse I have more
fun on at. la's easier for
me
to ride for 20 laps rhan rr ls
(o
muscle rh€ four-
stroke around. l've got
to rnake up my mind. I
feel better ofl the
tlvo-stroke, but l'm faster
on
the other one. For me
-
I
dink tonight
-
rhe
tlvo-su_oke would be an adv-anta8e.
because I
think a lot of
p€ople
will b€ stalling the four-
tlroke. For me, it's two kick and I'll be gone.
'
Brown
mrssed a transler by one
posirion
in hl!
h€at race.
but ciashed out of his s€mi. He did
not ride
the LCQ.
Continued on
poge
2t
h
t
I
15
mud
ridei
to do
well
In
the san
Franaisco
slop,
and
he
was livint
uP to tho6e
exPectatiofis at
,i6t. Vuillemin fin-
bhod second in
his heat race
and
$,as running thild
in the main
event
tough, because
you
just
couldn't see
anything,
I
just
put
myself
in
survival mode."
Stewart noted
the
lack
of a sighting hp before the race.
"The
llrst lap was kind
of hard trying to learn the track,
because we didn't
8et
a
parade
lap,"
Stewart said.
On the second lap, Carmichael
got
around Wey
after the fin-
ish-line
iump,
one of the few
iumps
on the track that some of
the riders
(namely
Stewart and Carmichael) were srill
dolbling.
By this time, Stewfi had already opened
up a reasonabt large
but far from
comforable lead on
Carmichael. And it was on the
third lap
that both Stewart and Carmtchael were surprised
to
see Reed trying to
pick
up his
bike after losing his front
end
between two
jumps
and crashing.
Unfonunatety for Reed, his bike came to a rest on
its side on
the face of a big
jump
with the
wheels on the up
side. He
6
Briefly...
Ri
