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RACE WATCH
Meet Joe Tex
You could be forgiven for thinking that there are only two Americans battling for a roadracing world championship this season, such has been the attention focused on the young pretender of Grand Prix racing, Kenny Roberts, and the old GP warhorse, John Kocinski.
You would, however, be missing Colin Edwards, and his thus-far consistently strong performances in the World Superbike arena.
Edwards made a bold assertion prior to the start of the season: “I’m gonna win 10 races.” To this point, only outside influences (broken bikes and oil spills), not to mention a double-pronged attack from the Ducati twins-Carl Fogarty and Troy Corserhave kept his win tally to two out of a possible 12.
“We have a total of 16 races left (prior to Nurburgring) so I’ve got to win one out of every two races. It’s possible, it’s definitely possible. I’ve put more pressure on myself, but I like it. I’ve always worked better under pressure. When the stakes get higher, I always perform, but we need to get two wins in Germany,” Edwards said.
Those words came before his raceone Nurburgring accident, when an untreated oil spill took him and three other works riders out, robbing the Texan of any chance of back-to-back victories. “I had to ride the spare bike and I wasn’t as comfortable on that,” he said after race two.
Net result for Edwards: one DNF, one fourth place and a drop from second to third in the championship table behind Fogarty and Corser.
But he is still ahead of teammate Aaron Slight, with whom Edwards had a very public and hardcore falling out after the Kiwi blamed Edwards for ruining his championship challenge during a coming-together at Donington Park, England. “It just got out of control,” says Edwards. “Aaron and I went to Donington the best of friends, but basically what happened is just racing. The only reason he’s questioned it is because I’m his teammate. What happened afterward just got out of hand. We should have sat down in the same room that night and just talked the whole thing out, and got on with racing. I tried to talk to him in > his motorhome that night, and he didn’t want any of it. He didn’t see it the way I did. At Albacete, we were both acting like 12-year-oldswouldn’t look at each other, wouldn’t talk to each other.. I couldn’t stand it so I went to his motorhome Sunday night and talked it out, so now everything is okay.”
In marked contrast to his earlier dispute with Slight, Edwards’ relationship with Honda at a corporate level has never been stronger, and its will to win is what attracted Edwards there in the first place. Plus (despite no guarantees in his contract), it’s a more realistic stepping-stone to GP racing, which he sees as the pinnacle of the sport. He explains, “I’ve been in this position before with Yamaha, with them feeding me bullshit that they wanted me to go 500 for them, but it never panned out. Honda understands that I want to go 500. The only other ride I would ever take, other than my present one, is the Repsol 500 ride. I wouldn’t go with Yamaha.
“The real difference is that Honda wants to win,” he adds. “They only want to win. Then they’re happy, whereas at Yamaha that was never emphasized that much.”
In that respect, Colin Edwards has found a home for his vast ambitions with Castrol Honda-until he gets the chance to go GP racing, where he feels his destiny lies. Edwards professes: “I’ve always believed I was destined to be 500cc world champion.
I know it sounds kind of funny, but I’ve always believed that.”
-Gordon Ritchie
A Tale of Two Racers
Held every Memorial Day weekend since 1980, the Mount Morris National in southwestern Pennsylvania ushers in spring for tens of thousands of motocross-loving Easterners, and none of them left disappointed this year.
It was the actions-both good and bad-of two former Grand Prix motocross racers, however, that made this year’s running a truly memorable one.
On one front, Suzuki’s Greg Albertyn breathed life into his listless career. On the other, Frenchman Mickael Pichón, a two-time AMA 125cc East Region Supercross Champion, became embroiled in an ugly off-track incident that ultimately spelled the end of his professional racing career in the U.S.
Good news first: South African Al> bertyn, who won three consecutive FIM World Championships beginning in 1992 before coming to America in ’95, had not won an AMA national since Sacramento in May of 1997. After a woeful Supercross campaign this winter, he entered the 1999 AMA/Mazda Truck Motocross National Championship with his career in jeopardy. And while he is still highly rated for his speed on natural-terrain circuits, Albertyn has rightfully earned a reputation as a wild-eyed crasher.
But he silenced critics at Mount Morris with a stunning double-moto sweep, riding with the confidence and bristling speed that earned him three FIM Gold Medals.
At the other end of the spectrum, Mount Morris provided the backdrop for the now-notorious “Pichón Incident.”
Here’s what happened: The normally mild-mannered Team Honda rider and his father inadvertently parked their rental car in an unauthorized area on Saturday. Track officials made repeated announcements over the loudspeaker for the car to be moved, but neither Pichon nor his father, who does not speak English, heard them. A tow truck was called. The Pichons, seeing this, came running over and an ugly shouting match with track security ensued. Escalating, the affair eventually spilled over to the Team Honda pit area. Reportedly, tempers flared and a relatively serious dust-up materialized-in which a few punches were thrown, one by Pichón at a track official.
Afterward, Pichón was brought before the AMA and fined a whopping $3000 for his “unprofessional” actions.
But it didn’t end there. The next week, American Honda, very embarrassed by the incident, publicly terminated Pichón while the rider was visiting family in Europe.
Feeling that was he was not entirely at fault in the incident, Pichón fired off a terse press release that ended with the words: “I hear that Honda used this incident to fire me. This is so ridiculous that it’s almost funny. I might miss the fans and racing in America, but certainly not the politics.”
One week later, Pichón signed to ride for the Winfield/Suzuki 250cc world championship factory motocross team.
Honda carried on strongly with Ezra Lusk’s double win at the following round in the sands of Southwick, Massachusetts. The strong performance allowed Lusk to take the points > lead from another Honda rider, Sebastien Tortelli, with eight rounds remaining. On the strength of his Mount Morris double, Albertyn is third.
—.Eric Johnson
Bostrom, Street top Baja 500
IVhen you’re on Honda’s “A” team, you receive the honors such a position bestows, like attention, accolades, awards. After all, to the victors go the spoils, and Honda’s top guys usually get the victories.
And the “B” team? Well, it’s not quite as bad as being the last kid picked for dodgeball, but when the “A” team picks up win after win, the “B” team tends to get largely ignored by fans, the media, even sponsors.
So why have a “B” team? Back-up. Honda’s off-road race team coordinator Bruce Ogilvie is like any top military strategist when it comes to planning. If he can, he’ll institute a contingency plan in case of mission failure in the primary system.
It paid off in the 30th-annual Tecate SCORE Baja 500, which started and finished in the coastal resort town of Ensenada, Baja California Norte, Mexico. About halfway through the 447.6-mile race, defending race and series champion Johnny Campbell appeared to be on the way to another win on his XR600R. He and partner Greg Bringle had been gradually opening up a gap over “B” team members Torsten Bostrom (older brother of AMA Superbike racers Ben and Eric) and Jonah Street.
On the run to Mike’s Sky Rancho, however, the “A” team had an offcourse excursion that resulted in a broken ignition cover.
Time spent on repairs put the “A” team down long enough for Street to sail into the lead, though he insisted, “I still rode like I was just pre-running. It was the smoothest ride I’ve ever had.”
Bringle fought a front tire that slowly went flat during his ride. He ended up crashing, which put the “A” team even farther back.
Bostrom and Street gained new respect and confidence from their first win. A time of 8:49:09 also gave them the overall victory, almost 9 minutes ahead of four-wheel winner Ivan Stewart’s Trophy Truck and 9 minutes, 10 seconds ahead of Bringle and Campbell, who hung on for second in class, second overall bike.
That’s not bad for two “B” teamers, one of whom is a rookie. Bostrom, as another testament to the family’s tothe-bone riding talent, had only decided to try off-road racing at the beginning of the year.
Street, meanwhile, won the Sportsman class in the 500 last year, but is also still trying to master desert racing. “We put it all together today,” Bostrom said, though both concede they’re not ready to bump Campbell off the “A” team-yet.
But now that they’ve tasted glory, you can bet they’re going to make an even greater effort to move up.
-Mark Kariya
