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RACE WATCH

The Johnson Rollercoaster

It’s been an up-and-down year for Supercross Champion Ricky Johnson. When he’s up, he’s really up, but when he’s down, he’s out. In the first Supercross of the year he crashed and got a concussion, and the following week it was all he do to score fifth place. But then he came back to win four of the next five events and take the points lead.

That streak ended when he crashed on the first day of the Pontiac, Michigan, doubleheader, breaking a finger and knocking him 40 points down on Kawasaki’s Jeff Ward in the standings. Will he be able to come back once again, with only six events remaining? “Unless they calm down the tracks, it’s not impossible, the way riders have been getting hurt this year,” says Team Honda Motocross Manager Dave Arnold. “I don’t wish injury on anyone, but it has been a major factor so far this season.”

Six-Days Training Secret?

Husqvarna’s Fritz Kadlec hasn’t been doing much riding since he earned the top American honors— seventh Open-class rider in the world—at last year’s ISDE in Italy.

At least not much motorcycle riding. He’s just been riding snowmobiles around his home in Colorado.

Nevertheless, he started the riding season exactly where he left off, by winning the first U.S. ISDE Qualifier of the year, held near Lubbock, Texas. KTM’s Kevin Hines was second.

Is snowmobile riding the secret winter-training tip? Does it sharpen the same skills as motorcycle riding? “Not really,” says Kadlec. “About the only thing they have in common is handlebars.” Apparently,

Kadlec’s real secret is skill.

Carr's Comments

A fter winning the Sacramento Mile and placing fourth at the Ascot halfmile, second-year Expert Chris Carr is leading the Grand National points race on a Harley-Davidson. Chris had some interesting comments on the AMA’s new restrictor rule: “The AMA required 33mm restrictors for two reasons: to reduce the cost of racing, and to make the bikes more reliable. We can’t say anything yet about the reliability, because we’ve only run two races, with two different engines, but it sure hasn’t reduced the cost. We’ve spent $8000 so far on dyno time, different heads and porting, and so on. And we’re still turning the Harley engine as high as the old motors. When we first put the restrictors in, we lost six horsepower at 8500 rpm, but with the changes, we’ve got just about all of that back. I think right now we’ve got an edge, but it’s three and a half weeks to San Jose, and that’s plenty of time for Honda to come up with some more power.”