Reed Started Down Under and Worked Way to Top

Jeremy McGrath may be retired, but the influence of the seven-time supercross champion on his sport is immense -- especially at the top.

Rookie Yamaha rider Chad Reed, the surprising leader of both the THQ world and AMA national SX championships, said watching McGrath on television back in Australia instilled in him the desire to come to the United States to race.

“I was about 9 when I told my dad I wanted to ride in the United States, and it was all because of Jeremy,” the 20-year-old Aussie said Thursday as he discussed supercross while sitting in the back of a team transporter in the Edison Field parking lot. “Jeremy was such a great rider, but he also was such a likable guy. I thought it would be cool to come over here and be like him. Now I have to be No. 1, like he was.

“When I heard Jeremy was going to retire, I knew he had won his first supercross in Anaheim, so I knew I wanted to win my first race there. It was fantastic when I did it. It was also fantastic because it was Anaheim. It’s like races there are the biggest and most important in the world.”

Two weeks ago, Reed capitalized on several pileups that occurred behind him and won the opening race of the season by a whopping 24 seconds, almost unheard of in supercross.

“It was strange,” he said. “The whole 20 laps, I kept wondering where everyone was. I knew it couldn’t be that easy. I want to win Saturday night to prove I deserved it.”

Another turn-away crowd of more than 45,000 is expected for Round 3 of the 16-event season Saturday night at Edison Field.

When Reed was very young, his father gave him a horse. One day, he asked his father to trade in the horse for a motorcycle. His father bought him a tiny Yamaha 50.

Chad was 3 1/2.

“In Australia, you couldn’t race until you were 4, but when my birthday [March 15] came around, I was on the starting line,” he said with an infectious grin. “I was in the 4-7 class and I won my first Australian championship when I was 7. We built a little supercross track at home [in Kurri Kurri, a suburb of Sydney] and since then it’s all snowballed for me.

“It was tough on my dad for a while. He bought me three bikes because I kept breaking them before I got some factory support when I was 16 and turned professional.”

In 2000, Reed won the Australian supercross championship, then moved on to Europe the next year, finishing second in the world 250cc motocross season.

“I’ll never forget the first time I rode in a supercross in Paris,” he recalled. “It was the King of Bercy race. I was so excited because Jeremy was riding. In the afternoon, we got there early and I saw him walking the track, figuring out his lines, so I just followed him around and thought to myself, ‘Those are my lines too.’ When I finished third I got to stand on the podium with him. I was still a teenager and there I was, up on the stand with my idol.”

McGrath finished second that day. The winner was Frenchman Dave Vuillemin, now Reed’s Yamaha teammate.

“I’ve gotten to know Jeremy since I moved to California, and the more I’m around him, the more I realize what made him so good,” Reed said. “He has such a positive attitude and when I’m around him, it rubs off on me. On top of it all, he’s such a normal person.”

Reed leads Vuillemin, 91-87, in the world championship, which includes two European races in addition to the AMA season. In the national series, he has 47 points to 40 each for Tim Ferry, another Yamaha teammate, and Honda’s Ricky Carmichael, the defending series champion. Ezra Lusk, last week’s winner in Phoenix on a Kawasaki, is fourth with 38.

Travis Pastrana, who was expected to make a run at this year’s championship with Suzuki, is out indefinitely with a shoulder injury that he aggravated while swimming laps.

Yamaha riders Reed, Vuillemin and Ferry train together on the factory track near Corona, but Reed also maintains a rigorous workout schedule with Jeff Spencer, a former bicycle champion turned conditioning expert, that includes diet as well as aerobics.

“Jeff really helps me,” Reed said. “He’s worked with a lot of great athletes, like Lance Armstrong, Tiger Woods and nearly all the motocross guys.”

For recreation, Reed has taken up surfing. Although it is the national sport of Australia, Reed never rode the waves until the Yamaha team decided to go surfing at San Clemente.

“In high school, the motorcycle guys and the surfing guys were never on the same turf,” Reed said. “It’s great. I’ll have to give it a go when I get back home. I love California, but when I quit, I’m sure I’ll go back to Australia.”

California Speedway

The second annual Indy Racing League “Test in the West” on Feb. 4 will be open to the public free of charge. IndyCar drivers, including Indianapolis 500 winners Al Unser Jr., Eddie Cheever, Helio Castroneves, Kenny Brack and Buddy Lazier, will be testing new equipment for the 2003 season. Opening race will be March 2 at Homestead, Fla.

Tickets for all of the year’s major events can be ordered at www.californiaspeedway.com, by calling (800) 944-7223 or at the speedway ticket office in Fontana. First event is the Yamaha Superbike Challenge, April 5-6.

The kart season kicks off this weekend with the Southern California Karters racing on a 2.8-mile road course that incorporates portions of the tri-oval speedway. Racing starts at 10:30 a.m. Saturday and Sunday.

Chili Bowl

Southern California drivers were on the verge of a clean sweep in the 17th Chili Bowl Midget Nationals last week in Tulsa, Okla., before Wisconsin’s Dan Boorse passed Jay Drake of Val Verde for the lead on the final turn of the 50-lap main event.

Cory Kruseman of Ventura won Friday’s feature and looked like a sure winner in Saturday’s big race before a dead battery ended his hopes while he was leading on Lap 45. Drake took over at that point, holding off Winston Cup champion Tony Stewart, but he was unable to keep Boorse behind him. Drake finished second, Stewart third.

Drake and Robby Flock of Temecula won the B main semifinal heats and Wally Pankratz of Orange won the C main. Josh Lakatos of Pasadena won Ford Focus main events Thursday and Friday nights. After winning Thursday, he had to start from the rear Friday but worked his way through the field for another win.

Formula One

Rookie Justin Wilson of England and veteran Jos Verstappen of the Netherlands will drive for the Minardi-Cosworth team this season. Minardi had to build a special cockpit for Wilson, who is 6 feet 3.

Takuma Sato, who drove last year for Jordan-Honda, has moved to BAR-Honda -- the new official name of British American Racing -- as a reserve and test driver behind regulars Jacques Villeneuve and Jenson Button. Sato’s fifth-place finish in the 2002 season finale enabled Jordan to finish sixth in final team standings.

Scotsman Allan McNish, a Toyota Racing team driver last year who was dropped to make way for CART champion Cristiano da Matta, will be a Renault test driver this year.

The F1 season starts March 9 in Melbourne, Australia.

Last Laps

SCORE International’s 30th season begins this weekend with the Laughlin Desert Challenge, Round 1 of the six-race Desert Racing Series. Racing is scheduled Saturday and Sunday over a 13-mile course along the banks of the Colorado River near Laughlin, Nev. Seven time-limit races will be held each day for the 16 classes of cars and trucks.

Perris Auto Speedway will open its eighth season Feb. 8 with a sprint car program featuring Ventura Racing Assn. drivers. On Feb. 15, the Sprint Car Racing Assn. will hold its first race of the season. Rounding out a month of sprint car racing, the World of Outlaws will make its only Southern California appearance of the year on Feb. 22.

Jeff Gordon won’t make anyone forget John Belushi, but his performance last weekend as host of “Saturday Night Live” had to please his main sponsor, Du Pont. According to Joyce Julius and Associates, which monitors such things, the Winston Cup driver’s appearance was worth $404,000 in exposure value.

Ed Carpenter, stepson of Indianapolis Motor Speedway President Tony George, will drive A. J. Foyt’s car in the Infiniti Pro Series this season. He replaces A. J. Foyt IV, who will move up to the Indy Racing League this year after winning the inaugural Pro Series last season.

Passings

Dick Hammer, 64, one of motorcycling’s finest road racers, died Thursday of cancer at his home in San Clemente. He won the 250cc Lightweight Grand Prix at Daytona, Fla., in 1963 and 1964 and came from last to lead the 1964 Daytona 200 before his engine expired late in the race.

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The Facts

What: Round 5 of THQ world supercross championship and Round 3 of AMA national supercross championship for 250cc motorcycles. Also Round 3 of AMA western 125cc series.

Where: Edison Field (sold out).

When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday.

Last year’s winner: Mike LaRocco, on a Honda.

Series leader: Yamaha rider Chad Reed, Australia, leads both championship series.