MOTOCROSS : McGrath Keeps His Record Perfect

Jeremy McGrath, the undefeated supercross champion from Murrieta, fought off an early challenge from Jeff Emig to win his third Coors Light Challenge of the young American Motorcyclist Assn. season before 43,938 at Anaheim Stadium on Saturday night.

Larry Ward came off the starting line in front, but was quickly passed by Emig and McGrath, the defending Anaheim champion. After trading the lead a couple of times with Emig, McGrath pulled steadily ahead to win by a substantial margin in the 20-lap main event.

Jeff Stanton, a former three-time supercross champion from Sherwood, Mich., finished second, also on a Honda, with Ward third on a Yamaha. Emig dropped back to finish fifth with Mike Kiedrowski of Canyon Country fourth.

Mike LaRocco, who had finished second behind McGrath in earlier races at Orlando, Fla., and Houston, dropped out on the second lap because of a broken crankcase.

Damon Huffman, Suzuki’s teen-age rider from Saugus, repeated his victory in the 125cc support race. Pedro Gonzales, the reigning motocross champion of Mexico who now lives in Los Angeles, was second on a Kawasaki, with Craig Decker of Palm Desert third on a Honda.

The 15-lap race followed form. Huffman and Gonzales had won the two preliminary heats.

McGrath gave an early indication of how he dominates supercross with an easy victory in the eight-lap second heat.

After getting a hole-shot off the starting line, McGrath was shuffled back to fourth in the first turn, but before the field had completed the first lap, he was tucked in behind leader Michael Craig. Biding his time, McGrath followed Craig before pulling alongside as the pair took a long jump, side by side.

As they came off the jump, Craig went wide to sweep off a berm, but McGrath tucked inside and grabbed the lead. From there, it was only a matter of finishing the eight laps.

Steve Lamson of Riverside was a surprise winner of the first heat, finishing ahead of Stanton.

Rick Johnson, the winningest supercross rider in history and the man who recruited McGrath for the Honda team five years ago, credited a combination of brains and balance for the success of the 22-year-old who won 10 races in his rookie season last year.

“Jeremy is never out of control,” Johnson said after watching his former protege in action. “He is very smart, racing smart. He is not afraid to use innovative lines, but he never uses a foolish one. And he is patient. The way he set up Craig for his pass was a textbook move.

“Jeremy also has the knack of being stronger at the end of the race. A lot of riders go fast at the start, but not at the finish. That’s one of Jeremy’s strongest points--finishing strong.”

Johnson, who won 28 supercross races and two championships with Honda before retiring to become a stadium off-road truck racer, will drive a stock car in selected Winston West and Busch Grand National races this year, in addition to racing his Chevrolet truck in the Mickey Thompson stadium series.

A huge chunk of Anaheim Stadium was missing where engineers were patching the upper portion of the stadium that was damaged by this month’s earthquake, which toppled the Big A scoreboard. About 20,000 seats were blocked out by engineers for safety purposes. This caused a 30-minute delay in the start of the program as officials tried to relocate about 2,500 spectators.