A Little Downsizing Pays Off for Dowd

John Dowd, a veteran 250cc motocross rider from Chicopee, Mass., stepped back into smaller equipment Saturday night and rode his Yamaha to an easy win in the 125cc main event of the AMA Supercross before a record crowd of 61,855 at the Coliseum.

Dowd took the lead on the second lap of the 15-lap race and was never challenged. Stephane Roncada, of France, riding a Honda, finished second.

The crowd, attracted by the prospects of watching motorized mud wrestling, wasn’t disappointed as cycles slid and slithered through a zig-zag course laid out on the floor of the Coliseum that was soaked by two days of rain. At the end of the first heats, there were ruts so deep in some places they nearly swallowed the cycles.

“It’s a one-line track and because of that, when you get off the line it’s very slippery and sloppy,” defending champion Jeff Emig said. “It’s also very dark, very hard to see. With only one line, it became very technical.”

The start was delayed 20 minutes while tractors struggled to move fresh dirt over slippery slush, and it took several other long delays in the middle of the program to rearrange the bumps, jumps and whoop-de-dos. In some of the tighter corners, bikes actually bogged down in the thick goo.

“The ruts got so deep in places that the foot pegs got caught in the mud, and that made it really tough trying to jump,” said Doug Henry, winner of last year’s Coliseum Supercross , who was riding the only four-cycle bike in the race. It was easy to follow Henry, as the guttural throbbing of the four-stroke Yamaha was distinctively different from the screaming two-cycles.

Despite treacherous conditions, the big names of the 250cc class brought the huge crowd to its feet with a display of triple jumps.

Ezra Lusk, who gave an indication that this might be a big year for him by winning two international events in Japan, used a spectacular triple jump to overtake early leader Kevin Windham to capture the first heat. Henry also passed Windham when the former 125cc champion fell.

Mickael Pichon of France, who broke his leg in the opening Coliseum race last year and missed the Supercross season, got off to a good start this year by winning the second heat. Emig placed third. Another French rider, Frederic Bolle, was in third place when he did an endo, sailing off the front of his bike when it smacked into a barrier. He climbed back on and finished sixth, however.