Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
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VOL. 53 ISSUE 40 OCTOBER 11, 2016 P109 the two-stroke era, the announcers and fans closely followed Smail's progress on the 550cc KTM thumper and were thrilled when he made the field for the final. It's thought to be the first time a four-stroke qualified for a supercross main event. Smail's performance was a precursor. The season ended with an important milestone; the first supercross win for a four-stroke motorcycle. Doug Henry rode a Yamaha prototype to victory in the series finale, a predecessor of the shape that supercross and motocross racing would take in years to come. An indication of how the popularity of supercross was on the upswing is that Emig won the '97 title before the greatest single-season yearly crowd ever to watch AMA Supercross. A record total of 691,676 fans came through the gates during the 1997 series. Millions more watched on the weekly broadcasts on ESPN2. They were lofty times for the then 23-year-old series. The Daytona Supercross was round seven of the 15-race series. Doug Henry entered the event with an eight-point lead over Emig. Both riders had won two rounds coming into the Daytona event. Albertyn and Damon Huffman were the other winners on the season. McGrath, who broke an AMA Supercross record by winning 14 of the 15 races just the season before, almost unbelievably hadn't scored a victory to that point in '97, but had been consistent enough to be third in the championship coming into Daytona just 10 points behind Emig. So that was the setting for that year's race on the sandy and energy-sapping, Gary Bailey-designed track at Daytona International Speedway. Henry was looking to hold on to his series lead, Albertyn and Emig were both looking like strong candidates and McGrath, the defending Daytona Supercross winner, was itching to score his first victory of the '97 season. McGrath won the first heat race, after being passed and led for a time by Damon Bradshaw on a privateer Honda. Bradshaw had circled Daytona on his calendar months before and had planned on a good showing, but when race weekend came Bradshaw was laid low by the flu. Still he had just enough energy to show a flash of brilliance and pass McGrath and lead, bringing the fans to their feet. Emig faced a stiff challenge by Honda's factory rider Steve Lamson in the second heat, but eventually took a narrow win. Henry won the third heat over teammate Ezra Lusk. Emig used the power of his Kawasaki and the grip of his Bridgestone tires to nail the holeshot at the start of the 20-lap main. Lusk, Bradshaw, Henry, Larry Ward, Albertyn, Ryan Huffman and Lamson fol- lowed the leader closely in the early going. Leading Suzuki riders McGrath and Mike LaRocco got terrible starts. McGrath knew his chances for a win were going to be tough stuck way back in the pack, but he began slicing through the field at an astonishing speed. Series leader Henry was off his game, still hurt- ing from a crash in the AMA Motocross opener at Gatorback, where he tweaked his arm. By lap five he began to drop off Emig's pace and fell from second to an eventual 10th-place finish. The only rider who looked to have any hope of catching the flying Emig was Albertyn. He gathered the leader in a few times, but ultimately could not sustain a long enough charge to catch him. "The track was so rough it was difficult to just keep riding smoothly every lap," Albertyn admitted. "I'd close up a little bit on him and then make a mistake and then it would open up and then I'd close it again." In the end Emig finished five seconds up on Albertyn. McGrath's charge propelled him all the way up to third at the end. Emig left Daytona with the series lead, one he would never relinquish (although McGrath had a rally in the second half of the season and got to within two points of Emig after round 12 in Pontiac, Michigan). It was sheer jubilation for Emig after finally con- quering the Daytona Supercross. "Now I can get my name on the plaque on the Wall of Winners," Emig said, referring to Daytona's museum. "I saw all those names up there like Bob Hannah, Rick Johnson and I thought, 'Man, I want to get my name up there with those guys.'" Emig never won the prestigious race again, but he won the championship that year and his name is now on that wall in the museum as well as the record books for his memorable victory at Daytona '97. CN Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives