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,rlardo Ra.evv.ry Lagur'd ieco CA MOTOGP World Championship Road Racc s€ri€s won his home Grond Prix ogoin.And soid this one wos more grotifring. By HENNY RAy ABRArvrs PHoros By CrorD & GoosE I\ eosol Honda's Nickv Hay- I ) o"" look another step V to.n,^rd hrs lrrst-ever I \ votocP world Chamor- I Ln.hip by winning his home Grand Prix for the second year in a row on a day that challenger Valentino Rossi retired with engine problems, "l swear, I think it feels befter this year than it did last yeac if it's possible," Hayden said after beating teammate and Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca debutante Dani Pedrosa by 3.186 seconds in the Red Bull U.S. Grand Prix, "because I struggled a lot this weekend- Nothing has gone very good. I really didn't know if I could have get it done today," Unlike last year, when Hayden had his way from the minute he arrived, this year was hard work. And the work was heavy lifting for a number of reasons- First was the Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca road course; a recent repaving had been badly botched, with bumps every- where and the surface coming apart during the race; then there was record heat; hovering around 100 in the air, 140 on the ground; and finally, the chal- lengers. Not only did his precocious teammate fail to be cowed by the undu- lating bends east of Monterey, but oth- ers seemed to step up as well. Which is how he found himself trail- ing Rizla Suzuki's Chris Vermeulen and Kenny Roberts Jr. at the start of the race and for the first eight laps. Hayden took Roberts in the reworked Cor*screw on lap nine, then sat on Vermeulen. The two-second lead Vermeulen enioyed ending the ninth lap would be his largest. Hayden chipped away until the lTth of 32 laps when Vermeulen made a small mistake and Hayden exe- cuted the pass exiting turn three. Then he was gone. The lead wer|t to 1.5 seconds on lap ll and gradually grew to over four sec- onds before Hayden backed off at the end. The margin of victory was 3.186 seconds. "The pace was really touSh [in the beginningl and the track felt really bad, kind of where it was coming apart," Hayden said after thrillinE the crowed of 51,378 well-done fans. 'And l'm going to be straight up with you, I felt a lot of pressure starting sixth, home crowd, 26-point lead in the World Championship. I didn't want to do any- thing silly and let that completey get away. Just really fortunate, really blessed," Pedrosa continued to gain admireB with a remarkable performance, On a track he'd ne\rer seen, with a surface that was exploding, and under heat- lamp conditionr, the slight Spaniard smartly slipped through the field to slot in behind Hayden on the 25th lap when Vermeulen ran wide, There was no catching Hayden, but second was almost as good as a win. And, with Rossi's misfortune, it propelled him to second in the championship. Heading into the four-week summer break, Ha)rden leads Pedrosa, 194-160, after I I of 17 rounds. "l'm so happy with this result because the race was really tough," Pedrosa said. "Everybody knows. And very hot out there and we had to wort a lot on the bike becatrse the track is very demanding for the rider. Also the condhions were the hardest race l've raced. And anyway, also long. fta1 6 ',rr" so dlfficuh to keep every lap the same rtrFhm. And, well at the end, we fin- ished first and two, so this is amazing for our team here in United States." Fortuna Honda's Marco Melandri moved to third in the championship with a third-place finish. Melandri was the most vocal critac of the track when he arrived last year. There was talk of a bo/cott, but it never went anywhere. Neither did he. Three crashes - the last one out of the race - convinced him to take a more positive approach this year. He spent two days in San Francisco prior to the race to acclimate to the time difference. And he arrived at l-aguna Seca with the stars-and-stripes of the American flag on his helmet. "l feel close to America and I hope to be confused with an American rider," Melandri said prior to the race. "They always seem to end up on the podium here." As did he- Melandri didn't have the pace of the leaders and finished third, dropping Vermeulen one spot on the 3fth lap. "lt's like a winning the race, because I did not do so good in qualifying," he said of his ninth best time. 'iAnd for sure I warn't 100 percent, because I like to tr.in so much. But after the crash in Barcelona lcouldn't really recover 100 percent rny power, rny consistency for the race. And I knew it was important to believe today in yourself because it wat so long race, so hot." Kenny Roberts lr- finished one sec- ond behind Melandri after going along with the ltalian as they both passed Vermeulen. "That's the best we could do today," Roberts said. "l was up to my nraximum traction control eady on and that's usu- ally a sign that l'm in trouble and I iust tried to bring it home- I was similar to [Marcd Melandri, but at the end he started using the front a little bit more. I was iust a tiny bit soft and when I tried to load it was like using the tire too much, not the suspension, and iust risk- ing a crash- I just tried to stay with him as long as I could and hope he made a mistake. and he didnt." Vermeulen's fifth was a career best on a stellar weekend. He'd staned from the pole, with a new lap record, and led the lirst 16 laps before rouble hit. The problem was with high rpm on comer entry lockirg the rear wheel a bit. He thought it might have been a ftrel pump, but he wasnt sure. The upshot was that he slipped from third to fifth. "l iust wanted the race to finish three laps early because we would still be on the podium," he said. Rossi probably wished it ended drree laps earlier as well. From a disappointing l0th on the grid, Rossi made little progress in the early going, only begin- ning to make a move after the l0th lap. On the llth he took seventh from teammate Colin Edwards, then gained a spot when LCR Honda's Casey StorEr crashed out. ("1 iust made a small mh- take and as I let the brake of for nlrn frve the front just slid away," Stoner said.) His next two victims would be Kenny Roberts Jr. and Melandri, but not for long. The searin8 heat on the predomi- narty left-hanfu track abused his rear tire so completely that a strip came off. The further indignity came when the cooling system on his Ml malfunc- tioned, causing the motor to overheat and blow clouds of smoke out the I8 AUGUST Round I I Jtrty 23, 2OOb