The various members of the supercross caravan know that when they leave Anaheim for the last time, the season is kicking into high gear, and that moment is almost here. Today was the official practice session for tomorrow’s Anaheim III round (following yesterday’s special practice session), and it was evident that the series has built up some momentum. For one thing, riders who were a bit rusty early on appear to have worked out the kinks, and for another thing, the ranks were already somewhat thinned due to early-round injuries.
Despite his strong results of late, Frenchman Rodrig Thain was missing today, having undergone shoulder surgery earlier in the week. The Boost Mobile/Yamaha/Troy Racing rider’s shoulder has been partially dislocated, and he decided to get it fixed now in order to be ready for the Nationals. While the doctor was in there, he also removed some bone chips and tightened up some ligaments. It was a major surgery, so don’t expect to see Thain on another supercross track in 2002.
Also missing today was Team Yamaha’s Timmy Ferry, who is back in Florida nursing a bruised lung from a crash last week. Ferry is week to week, according to Yamaha’s Keith McCarty, so there’s really no telling when he’ll be back.
Having better luck than those two is Jeremy McGrath, who believes he has his arm-pump problems figured out. As we reported in Cycle News last week, the seven-time champ had some work done on a kink in his back, and although he only rode one time this week, he appeared much smoother on the track than he had in the first few rounds.
Said track is once again completely new, and it’s littered with an abundance of tricky table/single combinations. On several of them, the 250cc riders are launching off of the tables’ upsides and downsiding the following singles, but James Stewart is the only 125cc rider doing so with any regularity. There is also a BMX-style start hill, and the triples have more of a run before them than in recent weeks (much to the delight of the 125cc crew).
Now back on his regular program, Team Honda’s Ricky Carmichael looked quite speedy and aggressive, as his premier ’02 win of last week also shows. Kevin Windham was riding quite loosely and quickly, but his second practice session was cut short when he brought in his factory Sobe Suzuki for some tuning.
The rider who was most fun to watch today, however, was Windham’s teammate, Travis Pastrana, who appeared to be having even more of a good time than usual. In addition to driving a shifter cart around the pit area, the Sobe Suzuki rider was cutting loose on the Anaheim III track, getting extremely creative on his factory RM250. While most riders were happy to work out one or two options, Pastrana seemed to have about three or four lines through each section after just the first practice session. That left him free to play in the second practice, during which he and Chevy Trucks Kawasaki’s Stephane Roncada hooked up for one absolutely amazing lap of airborne back-slapping, corner-after-corner brake-checking, triple-jump tandem-whipping, and outdoor-style berm-railing. The two friends were just having a good time, but you won’t witness a more impressive display of riding skills in the most intense race-night battle. That’s what makes practice days so cool, especially when they take place on a clear day in the Southern California sun.
