FLYING HIGH

Jeremy McGrath’s resume as the premier rider in Supercross history is unparalleled--six American Motorcyclist Assn. championships, two world championships and 60 event wins, more than double the next-best rider’s total.

Still, something is missing.

He has never won a Supercross in the Coliseum, where the mechanized motorcycle sport was born in 1972 with the first Superbowl of Motocross.

McGrath hopes to fit the missing piece into his Supercross puzzle tonight in Steve McLaughlin’s first presentation of Summercross.

It’s not a sanctioned AMA Supercross, and it’s not the Superbowl of Motocross, but it still will have the spectacular peristyle jump--a five-story leap from the concourse level to the floor of the Coliseum.

“I’m coming to win, pure and simple,” McGrath said between practice rides on the Yamaha test track near Corona. “I’m itching to get going again.”

After winning eight races and his sixth Supercross championship earlier this year, the 27-year-old rider from Menifee, Calif., rode the opening race of the national outdoor season at Glen Helen in San Bernardino on May 9 and then took a vacation.

“I was just bummed out from racing so much,” he said. “I had raced in Europe and then the Supercross season and I just needed a rest. This race fits in perfectly with my schedule. It’ll be a lot of fun and then I can vacation some more before the European season starts in September.

“I’ll be back in November for the world championship round in the Rose Bowl.”

Pasadena is one of four world sites. Brazil, Germany and France are the others.

At the Glen Helen race, a number of teenagers and young men showed up looking like McGrath, with bleached-blond goatees, short-cropped hair and earrings. There was no way of knowing if they also had nipple rings, as does Jeremy.

During his vacation, McGrath went to Hawaii and then spent 10 days at the Yamaha factory in Japan, where he helped introduce the 2000 model to the public.

“I didn’t race, but I checked out the new engine that I will ride next year and it is awesome,” he said. “I watched a race, but didn’t ride, and watching it really got me pumped up for the Coliseum race.

“The Coliseum has always been special to me, even though I haven’t done that well. I remember as far back as 1979, 1980, before I’d ever done more than recreational riding, my dad and mom used to take me there to watch the Superbowl of Motocross. I remember it was the greatest thing in my life at the time.

“Like little kids everywhere [who dream about their heroes], I dreamed about racing where guys like Mike Bell and Broc Glover and Bob Hannah raced.”

McGrath has raced three times in the Coliseum. In 1997 he finished 15th in the season opener and third a week later.

In 1998, when 61,885 jammed the Coliseum, he finished third behind Sebastien Tortelli and longtime rival Jeff Emig in a muddy night of racing.

“I guess it’s just never been the right moment for me when we race in the Coliseum,” he said.

In 1997, McGrath was coming off an unbelievable year in which he had won 14 of 15 Supercross main events, 13 in succession. But he also was coming off a contract dispute with Honda and only a few weeks before the season opener, he formed his own Nac Nac Enterprises team and switched to a Suzuki.

(Nac Nac, the name of the team, is also the name of a spectacular, but dangerous, maneuver first done by McGrath. While airborne off a jump, the rider swings one leg over to the other side of the bike, as if he were dismounting in mid-air.)

“I made the switch so late that I had no testing on the Suzuki at all before the Coliseum,” he said. “It was kind of a struggle all season long. I crashed twice in the first race. It was one of the worst races I ever had. I was really frustrated.”

When McGrath, after riding so spectacularly a year earlier, failed to win until the eighth race, and then won only once more, critics suggested he was washed up.

“All that talk really bummed me,” he said. “It’s funny. Most any other rider would have killed for the season I had. I still finished second, but no one wrote about that. It was all about how I had lost it.”

McGrath switched bikes again for 1998, joining Team Chaparral Yamaha. With the new bike, he won seven races and easily outdistanced Ezra Lusk for the title.

“The motivation I felt made ’98 the most satisfying year I ever had,” he said. “My first Supercross championship in ’93 had always been my favorite, but there’s no doubt that ’98 meant the most to me. I needed it to prove I still had it in me to win.”

Curiously, the record 1996 season doesn’t rate as high as others.

“The more I won that year, the more the pressure kept building,” he said. “When I lost at St. Louis, I actually felt relieved. I sure didn’t want to lose, but I felt a weight off me.”

Supercross is an individual sport and, as McGrath says, “The rider gets all the blame or all the glory.” So it’s surprising that he chooses the 1996 Motocross des Nations as his favorite single accomplishment.

“I’ve never been much of a team-sport guy,” he said. “But the way our U.S. team came together that year in Jerez, Spain, was something special.

“Having guys I fought with all season [Emig and Steve Lamson] rooting for me, and me rooting for them, it was something special I’ll never forget. And we smoked ‘em.”

The three riders swept the six motos in one of the greatest victories in what is the Olympics of motocross.

Before McGrath put aside his bicycle and began racing motorcycles professionally in 1988 at 16, the icons of Supercross were Hannah, who had 27 wins, and Rick Johnson, who was on his way to 28.

After three years of 125cc western regional races, McGrath stepped up to major league Supercross in 1993 and became the first rookie to win the championship. In 1994 he won nine races and his first world championship. Ten wins in 1995 and the record 13 in 1996 moved McGrath beyond Hannah and Johnson and into a class of his own.

And his racing success has carried over into business.

Helping to make him a multimillionaire are his own Nac Nac sneakers, a Playstation game called Jeremy McGrath Supercross 2000, his own action figure and remote controlled motorcycle, his own “Showtime” bicycle line and the Jeremy McGrath line of racing gear.

Doug Dubach, a Yamaha test rider and five-time veterans’ champion, believes McGrath’s ability to thrive under pressure is what sets him apart.

“Jeremy maintains the most even disposition of any rider I know,” Dubach said. “He just never seems to change. That includes the way he acts between races. He has none of that superior attitude so many riders, and other athletes, get when they’re winning.

“When Jeremy wants to go practice, he often shows up at one of the local tracks with his bike in the back of his pickup, unloads, pays his money like everyone else, and goes out and rides. No pretense, no big-shot stuff.

“It’s like he just loves what he’s doing. He’s on top of the world and he has the enthusiasm of a rookie.”

THE FACTS

Jeremy McGrath at a Glance

* Birth: Nov. 19, 1971, San Francisco.

* Residence: Menifee, Calif.

* Personal: 5 feet 10, 163 pounds.

* Victories: 1993--10; 1994--9; 1995--10; 1996--14; 1997--2; 1998-7; 1999--8.

****

Race at a Glance

* What: Summercross, a non-sanctioned Supercross.

* When: Coliseum gates open 5:30 tonight. First race 7:30.

* Tickets: Coliseum box office, Ticketmaster outlets; Price--Adults, $25, $40 and $55. Children 12 and under, $10.