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VOL. 53 ISSUE 6 FEBRUARY 17, 2016 P113 to other championships, including Rainey, who was off to contest his first year in the Grand Prix Cham- pionship, Busby was effectively the point leader among the series regular coming into round two in Riverside, California. And it was Busby, riding his own Yamaha TZ250L, consolidating his series lead by winning a thriller at Riverside by way of a last-lap pass on factory Honda RS250R-mounted Sam Mc- Donald. Busby left Riverside with a nine-point series lead (30-21) over Chris Steward, who was third at Riverside. Next stop was Sears Point and it was Tracy De- Muro racing his John Lassak-tuned Yamaha to his one and only national victory. Series leader Busby missed the Sears Point round, electing instead to race the Austrian Grand Prix, where he failed to qualify. Road America featured another first-time winner in Kevin Brunson, a 20-year-old college student from Texas, who scored the victory on his Armstrong by outdueling Dale Franklin. Chris Steward, who finished fourth in Elkhart Lake, took over the series lead at that point, but the top five in the standings were separated by a mere 11 points. Former WERA F2 National champ Joey Som- mers became the fifth winner in five nationals, when he took the win the following weekend at Loudon. Sommers was yet another first-time national win- ner. Steward kept chugging along with consistent finishes (a sixth at Loudon) to remain series leader by five points over Busby. Rainey returned from the GPs to become the first two-time winner in '84 at Laguna Seca. Chris Stew- ard, as you might have guessed by now, finished a solid fifth and continued to hang onto the series lead. Loudon winner Sommers recovered from a crash in practice to finish third and moved to second in the standings. Series contender Busby suffered a big crash at Laguna and suffered numerous injuries, including a separated shoulder. He tried to race, but pulled in after only a few laps in agony. He dropped from second to fourth in the standings after the Laguna DNF. The best-backed rider in the series, Sam McDon- ald, finally broke through to win on his factory Honda at Pocono. McDonald was one of the few 250 riders doing double duty, as a leading contender in Superbike as well. The championship tightened considerably after Pocono when Steward's string of solid finishes ended after his Yamaha seized. Sommers crashed and broke his femur, putting him out of the championship hunt. At the halfway mark in the series Steward still led, but Donny Greene, who finished second, left Pocono only one point behind. The series made a cross-country dash to Port- land for the next round the following weekend. There it was Canadian Alan Labrosse who domi- nated on a track he'd never seen before. Labrosse won the pole and took the lead at the start of the second lap and pulled away to a convincing vic- tory. Greene took second and took over the series lead for the first time. Even though he hadn't won a race so far that season, Greene was leading the championship. He fixed that with a victory at his home track, Sears Point, which hosted its second national of the season. Steward suffered a sub-par outing with a seventh and that allowed Greene to open up his series lead with four rounds remaining. As the season wound down, Labrosse won his second race of the season at Brainerd. Then it was John Glover becoming the ninth winner of the season with a victory at Willow Springs. It proved to be Glover's one and only national win. Greene's bike broke at Willow, allowing Steward (who finished second) to close in on the leader in the standings, making it a two-rider battle for the championship going into the final two rounds. McDonald got the victory in the penultimate round at Mid-Ohio. Steward crashed in his heat race breaking a collarbone. Greene finished a con- servative fifth and all but clinched the title. Brunson won a thriller over McDonald in the season finale at the Daytona Pro-Am in early November. Greene was fourth and was the newly crowned champ. It was the start of the three-year run for Greene as champion of the series. CN Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives