Wild Ones!
WILD ONES!
RACE WATCH
Supercross gets younger
RON LAWSON
IT WAS HALFWAY THROUGH THE first Supercross of the 1990s. Jeff Ward, one of the winningest riders of the 1980s, had just moved into fourth place, and about 63,000 of the 64,000 spectators in Anaheim Stadium started searching for their car keys. The race, they thought, was over. After all, the only riders in front of Ward were three kids named Bradshaw, Bayle and Matiasevich, and it wouldn't be long before Ward took over.
But there were a handful of people in that stadium who knew that things weren't going to go so easy, a handful who knew that American motocross is going through some changes. Most of those people were on the track. Seventeen-year-old Damon Brad shaw would go on to win that race, and then continue to win the follow ing race at Houston, Texas. Twenty year-old Jean-Michel Bayle, a trans planted Frenchman, would finish second at Anaheim but then be side lined by an injury. Twenty-year-old Jeff Matiasevich (pronounced `Ma tas-a-vich") would get second at San Diego, California, and Seattle, Washington, and lead the point chase after the first four rounds. Twenty-one-year-old Jeff Stanton, last year’s “new kid’’ and the current supercross champion, would win San Diego. Nineteen-year-old Larry Ward would win his home-town round at Seattle, while 21-year-old Mike Kiedrowski and 19-year-old Mike LaRocco would turn in consistent top performances.
Changes indeed. If the first four supercross races of the Nineties are any indication, then this year is more than just the start of a new decade. It’s the start of a new era, one where at long last, some new faces appear on top of the winner’s podium. There’s a new crop of young riders knocking on the door of stardom, riders fresh from the tumultuous I25cc class, riders who are willing to be a little wilder, to try a little harder.
What about established stars Rick Johnson, Jeff Ward and Ron Lechien? What happened to the rid ers who have dominated American MX since 1985? You name it. Lechien broke his leg racing in the Open class and won't ride until the end of this year. Jeff Ward has been plagued by bad starts and worse luck, and 25-year-old Johnson is still try ing to come back from a broken wrist suffered in his disastrous 1989 season.
“Mv wrist injury was a hard one to overcome,” Johnson said of the disorder that caused him to sit out most of last season. “There was a lot of tendon damage. But mentally, it won't be hard" to come back. I've been brought down before. Back in ’83, I busted my hip and I had to come back and win again.
“You don't get used to being on top. At each race you forget about all that and think about w ho's going fast in practice and you try to be better. You don’t think about the past, just about racing.”
And who does he think is going fast? “The new' guys from the 125 class will have spotty performances. So there will be a lot óf newnames on top. but the old names will still be there: Ward and Stanton.”
As for 28-year-old Jeff Ward, he has the speed but has run into misfortune, crashing more this year than ever before. “I feel I could have won > either race if I had gotten better starts,” Ward said after the first two rounds. “There are so many good riders on the circuit this year that it’s much tougher to get by them, and so it takes a lot longer to get to the front if you do get a bad start.”
But so far, the season is firmly controlled by the young guns. And of all of therm Bradshaw is the youngest and the fastest. Last year, as soon as the North Carolinian was old enough ( 16) to obtain a Pro license, he hit the national circuit. In the 125cc class, Bradshaw got a reputation for going
fast, crashing hard and charging through the pack like no rider since the young Bob Hannah. Last year, Bradshaw easily took the eastern 125cc supercross series, and came within a hair of winning the 125cc outdoor national championship. In both series, though, he fell as often as he won. Sometimes he even did both.
“Everybody made it (crashing) into a big deal last year, much bigger than it really was,” he says. “Some-> times the crashes weren't even my fault. At Budds Creek (the Maryland round of last year's 125cc outdoor series), it was Erik Kehoe who hit me, and cost me the championship. He was behind me, I didn't even see him.
“So now I want to take it one race at a time, work on staying on two wheels and being consistent. I don't even want to think about winning the championship yet, that’s too far down the road.”
But Yamaha is thinking about the championship already. This year, the Yamaha team consists of two riders: Bradshaw and veteran Doug Dubach. The more-experienced Dubach has earned his keep as much for his bikedevelopment ability as for his racing results. But the company’s corporate honor falls squarely on young Damon’s back. This year, he’s drawing what is rumored to be one of the largest fixed salaries in Pro MX—somewhere around $300,000, plus bonuses for winning races. “I just want everyone to know that when I win, it isn't a fluke,'' says Bradshaw.
And he has won. Bradshaw took the first two supercrosses simply bv going faster than anyone else. But in the next two rounds, he showed flashbacks of the 1989 Bradshaw, crashing and not finishing either event. That gave the point lead to Matiasevich, last year’s western 125cc supercross champion, and another member of the wild bunch. Over the last two years, Matiasevich has proven himself a supercross specialist, always willing to leap a little farther than anyone else. And this year he’s been training with his Kawasaki teammate JefiT Ward in hopes of conquering his worst enemy, his lack of stamina. But in the 250 series so far, he has started off fast, then slowed as the race continued.
“I feel I’m in top shape,” he says. “I guess I still can’t believe I’m running with the big boys. But every race gets better. I just want to be on the podium every race, that’s what it will take. There are eight guys who can win. This isn’t just a Johnson. Ward, Stanton show any more. This has to be the most-exciting season ever.”
But Southern California native Matiasevich knows that the heroes from the Eighties aren't done yet. “I kind of ignore all the talk about the new kids. I go riding every day with Wardy (Jeff Ward). That’s what we do, we meet every day and go riding, and he’s still a little faster than me. If he gets a good start, he’s still the fastest guy out there.”
It’s a good bet that Matiasevich will climb to the very top of the win-> ner’s podium before the end of the year. Already, there have been three different winners-almost as many as there were all last year. That’s only in four races. It’s also a good bet that Seattle winner Larry Ward (no relation to Jeff) will win another race; that Mike Kiedrowski, the I25cc outdoor national champion, will win; that Jeff Stanton will prove that last year’s championship was no accident; and that former Yamaha rider Mike LaRocco will show his new sponsors at Suzuki what he can do.
And there’s the wild card. JeanMichel Bayle. Bayle rode a few races in the U.S. last year and then went back to Europe to win the 250cc world championship. Now he's here racing full-time for Honda, and he says the elbow injury that kept him from racing at Houston and San Diego is minor. He’s due for a Supercross win, too.
Come to think of it, by the time you add Johnny O’Mara on his new Kawasaki into the formula, along with Guy Cooper and Ronnie Tichenoron their Suzukis—both very fast and very underrated—plus the veterans like Jeff Ward, Johnson, Dubach and even Lechien at the end of the year, you have no less than 14 riders who can win any given supercross.
And that’s exactly how many races are left in the series.
