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RACE WATCH

Duhamel, McGrath see green

The tide had to turn sometime, but nobody thought the record-breaking roadrace and motocross win streaks of Honda factory riders Miguel Duhamel and Jeremy McGrath would topple within a 30-hour period. It started out as just another Saturday night, the Supercross show proceeding as usual in St. Louis, Missouri. After a tussle with Kawasakimounted privateer Phil Lawrence, McGrath won his heat race. But in the main, it was Team Kawasaki’s Jeff Emig who took the holeshot. He left McGrath engaged in a knock-down, drag-out battle royale with Suzuki’s Mike LaRocco. Staying on two wheels and dispensing with the hardriding “La Rocket,” McGrath ran out of time to catch Emig, who railed to his second career Supercross victory.

But before he had time to answer questions concerning the end of his streak, McGrath went back to working on another one at the outdoor nationals. Since then, McGrath has been his awsome self, streaking to four-straight moto victories at the Hangtown and Glen Helen 250cc nationals.

Meanwhile on the Monterey Peninsula, it was a perfect day for round three of the AMA Superbike series. Muzzy Kawasaki’s Mike Smith engaged Duhamel in a high-stakes joust in the 600cc Supersport race. Duhamel stalked until the white-flag lap and then tried to pass Smith on > the brakes entering the infamous Corkscrew, but instead locked up his F3’s rear wheel while downshifting, sending the bike wide and over the curbing. Adding to the confusion, Smith missed a shift going in. Somehow, they both recovered, but the Kawasaki rider held the upper hand-right to the finish line.

As the grid assembled for the Superbike main event just two hours later, all eyes were on Duhamel, and he knew it. Could the 600 defeat break his seemingly unpenetrable confidence?

At the start, another green bike blazed to the front, but this time it was Muzzy’s Doug Chandler. Duhamel and Chandler rode in tight formation, the pair swapping the lead all around the track. And then, it happened. While leading just two laps from the finish, Duhamel was jerked left and then thrown violently from his RC45. The bike barrel-rolled across the track and caught fire. Duhamel scurried to safety, unscathed. In a millisecond, Duhamel’s eight-race Superbike win streak came to an abrupt halt, and Chandler went on to win his first AMA Superbike race in six years.

After watching Duhamel lose the 600 Supersport race, Chandler said, “I knew Miguel was gonna be even tougher in the Superbike race. It just goes to show what a champion he is; he’ll dig down and pull out anything he can to win. You gotta respect a guy for that.”

“I was trying to keep the streaks alive,” Duhamel said, “and we almost did it, but obviously came up a little bit short. I just ride as hard as I can. In fact, I look at it as if I can be beat. That way, I don’t slack off.”

Time will soon tell if Duhamel bounces back as rapidly as McGrath.

Wayne Rainey on four wheels

What could make three-time GP World Champion Wayne Rainey feel like a mere rookie? Strapping him in a bucket seat and sending him out on the IndyCar circuit at the Long Beach Grand Prix, that’s what.

Rainey, paralyzed from the chest down while racing for his fourth title, got his first taste of auto racing at the Toyota Pro/Celebrity Race. The event pitted Rainey against former winner (and Olympic medalist) Bruce Jenner and Hollywood’s latest bumper crop of stars and starlets.

After being buckled into his specially prepared Celica’s racing harness and having his legs duct-taped down in the cockpit, Rainey got right on the pace. In qualifying, he posted the second-fastest time among the first-timers, landing himself on the front row beside Grant Show from “Melrose Place.”

Rainey outbraked Show going into the first corner, and then hit the wall going into Turn 2. Struggling to control the car, Rainey succumbed to the advances of a few more celebs during the early stages of the race. Fortunately, a red flag and some sloppy celeb driving let him close the gap and set up some last-lap passes to claim fourth.

When asked if this experience put the racing bug back in him, Rainey sighed and said, “The celebrities really came out here to race, I was just out to have fun. I’ve got my team thing going on in Europe, and that’s my real focus.”

Passing the mini torch

hfinibike sensation Ricky Carmichael finally made his much-anticipated move to the big leagues, after more > Just like old times, 17-year-old Carmichael led every lap in his bigbike debut at the GNC Grand National Championship, held at Lake Whitney, Texas. Of his eight-moto sweep, Carmichael said, “I really didn’t know how fast I would be against the older guys.”

than 50 titles during his six-year stint in the little-bike ranks.

Carmichael rode so well, in fact, that Kawasaki Team Green Manager Ron Heben decided he would move his rising star up immediately. He said, “We had a chance to evaluate his speed, and decided that he needs someone to race with, so he will race the Pro class from now on.”

Carmichael’s undisputed heir apparent is 14-year-old Justin Buckelew. At the next big amateur national, the National Motorsports Association’s World Mini Grand Prix, the Yamaha rider went home with four moto wins.

Buckelew has been working under the supervision of former Supercross Champion Donnie Hansen, who said, “I have worked with Justin for the last 10 years and I know he’s a future superstar.”

Buckelew won his first championship at the tender age of 7 when he claimed the Pee Wee title at the World Mini Grand Prix in 1989.

Since that time, the Albuquerque, New Mexico, rider has gone on to earn 39 national titles in his sevenyear career.

Buckelew acknowledged that it might be his turn to carry the mini torch. “Carmichael was like Jeremy McGrath,” Buckelew said. “He domi nated every class that he raced. Other riders were just out there trying for second. Hopefully, I can achieve that same level in the next two years.”

Kawasaki throws an MX curveball

With an effort to get the all-important holeshots its riders need, the factory Kawasaki MX squad is using dual-advance-curve technology on its 250cc motocrossers. Team Manager Roy Turner said that two curves are loaded into the bike’s black box, accessed by a two-position, handlebar-mounted switch. Riders choose the curve that gives maximum power at the start, for the all-important drag race to Turn 1. Then, the switch is flipped to provide a more ridable power curve, which is used for the remainder of the moto. All three team riders have used the system, which is said to work best on outdoor tracks. Like all development ignitions, Kawasaki’s is “addressable,” which means that it can be altered at will from a laptop computer. Turner revealed that the team had “tested literally hundreds of advance curves” to arrive at the curves now in use, and that testing continues.

Vegas-to-Reno, son of B-to-V

IVi th the famed Barstow-to-Vegas desert race outlawed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, promoter Casey Folks did what seemed impossible-he pulled another point-to-point desert race out of his hat. Run along a 507-mile stretch from Las Vegas to Reno, Nevada, the event attracted nearly 250 motorcycle teams, as well as 50 car and truck entries.

Starting from the third row on a KX500, Team Green’s Ty Davis took the physical lead 5 miles from the start. This stretched to a 2-minute cushion by the first checkpoint, but pressure from the Kawasaki-mounted team of Greg Zitterkopf and Dave Ondas was serious as they neared the halfway point. For close to 200 miles, the front-runners were never more than 30 seconds apart. When teammate Paul Krause handed the bike back to Davis for the final 150 miles, the 1989 125cc supercross champion and defending national enduro champion pulled out a 4-minute lead to take the overall win.

Rounding out the top three, just 24 seconds off the Zitterkopf/Ondas team, were Honda XR600-mounted Johnny Campbell and Jeff Capt.