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RACE WATCH
Reed takes charge
Expectations are always high when the AMA Supercross series kicks off at the always-sold-out Edison International Field in Anaheim, California, on the first Saturday night of January. Unfortunately, several of the sport’s biggest stars weren’t on the starting gate: Defending three-time Supercross Champion Ricky Carmichael and crowd-favorite Travis Pastrana were on the injured list, and seven-time champ Jeremy McGrath retired last year. As for 18-year-old phenom James “Bubba” Stewart, he made good on his announcement that he would spend one more year in the 125cc class but this year has switched from the West to the East division.
That left Australian Chad Reed as the overwhelming favorite. Reed, 21 years old, took six straight races from Carmichael to finish the ’03 season a close second on his Yamaha YZ250. Reed was also injured during the off-season, however, wrenching his shoulder while shooting pool, of all things. His mysterious ailment filled the rest of the pack with optimism that they could stop “the next McGrath” in the very stadium that launched Jeremy’s star in 1993.
Those hopes were dashed halfway through the first lap when Reed blitzed the whoops and passed early leader Ernesto Fonseca so fast that it seemingly blew the factory Honda rider off his bike. The rest of the 20-lap main event was a breeze for Reed. Yamaha teammates David Vuillemin and Tim Ferry rounded out an all-blue podium.
“Every racer wishes every race would go that easy and straightforward,” shrugged Reed afterward, his shoulder looking no worse for the wear and tear. "There was a question of how well I would do tonight due to having surgery just four weeks ago, so it was weird for the first race to go that well. But honestly, I felt good. I expected to win, but it went better than I had hoped.”
What the Anaheim opener lacked in fireworks, the second round at Bank One Ballpark in Phoenix more than made up for. After being brushed off in the second turn by Vuillemin, Kevin Windham knifed under the Yamaha in the second corner and executed a textbook block pass. Vuillemin went flying off the track, and Windham, who hasn’t raced supercross in almost two years after breaking his femur, sped away with his first mainevent win in four seasons.
“I definitely was going to be the aggressor in the second comer because I’m not going to be pushed around this year,” said Windham from atop the podium. After the race, however, new AMA Pro Motocross Manager Steve Whitelock decided that Windham’s riding was too aggressive. He assessed an unprecedented 10-point penalty on the rejuvenated Factory Connection Honda rider. Windham was allowed to keep the win, but his point-haul was trimmed back to that of a sixth-place finish-one spot better than Vuillemin ended the night. Honda immediately filed an appeal on the decision, as it basically handed Phoenix runner-up Reed, who overcame an uncharacteristic bad start, a sizeable early lead in the standings.
Reed is now primed to be the third foreign rider in the 31-year history of supercross to beat the Americans at their own game. Would things be any different if Carmichael were out there?
I beat him consecutively at the end of last season, and he has not beaten me in supercross in the last six or seven races,” answers Reed. “But I think I’ve earned Ricky’s respect and we see eye to eye. Whether he was here or not, if I win the title, I’ll feel like I deserved it.”
-Davey Coombs
Chris Carr: Professional grade
When five-time Grand National Champion Chris Carr took the podium to accept the 2003 AMA Athlete of the Year award, he made a typical speech: He thanked his family and sponsors and crew chief Kenny Tolbert, and then quipped that he felt like the soap-opera actress who waited year after year for the Emmy she finally got.
The parallel was apt, first because this was the sixth season Carr has been nominated for the honor, the full official title of which is AMA Pro Racing Speed Channel Athlete of the Year, second because his acceptance was typical Carr, modest, self-depreciating and wrapped around a steely reminder that he is a dues-paid-in-full professional. And third, Chris Carr typifies a sport that is professional, has taken some hits and has come back all the stronger for it.
Nor did it hurt that his rival nominees this year included reigning AMA Motocross and Supercross Champion Ricky Carmichael, who makes winning look all too easy; James “Bubba” Stewart, the teen age motocross sensation who has lots of time to win all the awards there are; and Australian Mat Mladin, the four-time AMA Superbike Champion whose grit has been countered by displays of candor that sometimes become bad-mouth.
Carr’s ’03 title was his third straight and came despite not winning all the races, what with luck and breakdowns and be-
cause, as he’s quick to say, on some days the other guys were faster.
How does this compare with the AMA Grand National series?
Just as Carr has retained his major sponsor, Ford Motor Company, so does the GN series have Progressive Insurance.
Carr opened the season developing an MX-framed VOR, but when he needed to win he hauled out the evergreen Harley XR-750 and C&J “framer,” as they say.
In the same manner, the AMA announced a rule change, with the raceframed machines to be replaced (as in banned) by production MX-framed machines, the better to attract entries on Hondas, KTMs and the like.
But when the teams already in the series complained, loud and often, that one, the framers are better racebikes and two, they’ve invested in what works, the AMA postponed the change, for a year at least.
And they improved the schedule: The rival Clear Channel series has taken away some of the AMA venues, but even so, the GN circus will appear in 19 races in 10 states, New York to Florida to California, March through September.
Chris Carr, meanwhile, plans to make it six national titles. -Allan Girdler
A changing World Superbike landscape
After riders like Troy Bayliss, Colin Edwards, Noriyuki Haga and Ben Bostrom had vacated the championship, many were writing the death notice of World Superbike in 2003.
How could the latest season, without factory Honda, Aprilia, Kawasaki or Yamaha teams in the mix, be near as good as previous years?
Well, in some respects it certainly wasn’t so great, but on and off the track it was at times unsurpassed. Some of the racing in WSB ’03 (Silverstone especially) was as jaw-dropping as ever. Even when Neil Hodgson, the eventual champion on the all-new Ducati 999 F03, had the championship almost in the bag after a stunning run of 11 wins in the first 12 races, there were highlights of action to brighten what was a clear, if hardly easy title win.
First to beat him was first-time SBK race-winner James Toseland (HM Plant Ducati 998 F02), at Oschersleben, Austria. Then, Ruben Xaus (Ducati Fila 999 F03), an eventual seven-race winner, scored his first 2003 success with a double win at Misano, Italy.
A spectacular and unexpected winner of a single race, under the noses of the Laguna Seca crowd, was 39-year-old Pier-Francesco Chili (PSG-1 Ducati 998RS). Yes, on a completely customer 998, like you and I could buy if we ran a race team.
Former WSB and MotoGP race-victor Regis Laconi (NCR Ducati 998RS) was another always-fast Ducati privateer, in a year when Ducati riders proved to be virtually the only kind there were. There were some noticeable exceptions: Gregorio Lavilla took the restricted Suzuki GSX-R1000 to numerous podiums for his big-budget factory Alstare Suzuki team. The Foggy Petronas Triple, while slow and unreliable, allowed 1996 champ Troy Corser to score good points on occasion-even if it did set fire to its tail section most weekends.
Simply stated, it was an unexpectedly bustling season of racing, if you knew where to look. There was even more incident off the track-sadly for most. Lavilia’s GSX-R was in the vanguard of the great performance leveler of “air-intake-restrictors-for-all” in 2004. Trouble was, as soon as the organizers realized that not all six MSMA members (Honda, Suzuki, Kawasaki, Yamaha, Aprilia and Ducati) would be returning with factory teams as planned in 2004, they redrafted the rulebook and canned the restrictor plan altogether.
The MSMA members, who had proposed the use of restrictors in the first place, freaked out of their corporate pants and stated publicly that none of the factories that were planning a return would be back at all. Maybe ever, by the sound of the vitriol lashing from the page of their press release. Immediately, the WSB world received another bombshell from the organizers FGSport: The series would mandate spec tires in 2004, using Pirelli, statistically the least successful WSB tire supplier.
Any hopes of reconciliation between the racing manufacturers and WSB as an entity, especially as the supposed referees of the FIM were seen as colluding with their buddies in WSB, were blown out of the deep fat fryer and into the incinerator after that.
Blame the politics when all the top manufacturers have new bikes in the showrooms next year, but only one has a full factory team-the Ducati Fila duo of Toseland and Laconi, replacing Hodgson and Xaus as those two make their MotoGP debut as teammates riding for the D’Antin Ducati squad. On the opposite side of racing’s revolving door is Australian Garry McCoy-left standing when all the good MotoGP seats for the coming season were filled. The multi-Grand Prix winner brings his spectacular riding style to WSB aboard an NCR Ducati.
The Petronas will be back-with a hopefully improved engine within its beautiful chassis-as Corser teams up with Toseland’s ex-HM Plant Ducati teammate Chris Walker. Just as well, as HM Plant has thrown in the towel in disgust.
It’s a whole new world and new teams will emerge to show the vector WSB racing is about to take. Positive signs are already on the horizon.
The Chinese have recently discovered bike racing and hope to expand on the success of their government-bankrolled Zong Shen endurace team as it moves into WSB with riders Warwick Nowland and Piergiorgio Bontempi-on unbranded and definitely unsupported Suzukis.
The all-conquering Ten Kate Honda Supersport team will be expanding into Superbike in 2004, with current and utterly convincing Supersport Champion Chris Vermeulen aboard a semi-supported CBR1000RR.
And perhaps of greatest importance? Pirelli has made a decent impression on most riders during pre-season tests in Valencia, Spain and Phillip Island, Australia. So maybe the sky isn’t going to fall in, even if the cloud cover seems lower and darker than usual.
-Gordon Ritchie
