They're crowning MX champions at Loretta Lynn's

Aug. 8  – Friday is the day happy champions begin waving number-one plates in the air at the AMA Amateur and Youth Motocross National Championships, sponsored by Air Nautiques. So far, these classes have been decided:

Four Stroke 201cc-650cc: An 8-1-2 record in the three motos was enough to win the title for an overjoyed Eddie Ray, of Miami, Florida, a Honda CRF450 rider. Ray has been coming to Loretta Lynn's for years, but it was the first time he left as a champ. "I've been trying since 1985," said Ray, with one hand on his father's shoulder and the number-one plate in the other. "My father told me, 'If I could hold this (plate), I could die tomorrow a happy man.' "

85cc Modified 14-15: The most predictable sight of the week at Loretta Lynn's was the flourescent helmet of Honda rider Mike Alessi (right) in the lead with Kawasaki rider Ryan Villopoto chasing him from behind. In this class, the two left the rest of the field far behind, with Alessi taking three wins and Villopoto three seconds.

But the races were not without drama. Just as Villopoto crashed immediately after taking the lead in moto two, Alessi crashed in moto three while leading. That let Villopoto get ahead, and Alessi could have cruised to an easy second for the championship. Instead, he turned up the speed and caught Villopoto on the last lap to remain undefeated.

"Second place is not good enough for me," Alessi said after the win. "So I gave it everything I've got."

The championship gave Alessi eight titles at the nationals. Only three riders have more.

125 A: When the 125 A class lined up, four or five riders had a good shot at the title, as nobody had made it through the first two motos unscathed. In the end, Davi Millsaps put on one of the best performances of the week, not for a moto win, but for a championship.

Millsaps (left), with a 6-1 in the first two motos, went down at the start and had to battle through the entire field. In an impressive display of never-say-die spirit, Millsaps passed everyone in the field except moto winner Ryan Sipes, who ran away uncontested to the win. The comeback gave Millsaps a 6-1-2 record in the class, barely good enough for a championship over Shawn Clark, of Montgomery, Indiana, with 2-3-5 finishes and Sipes with a 8-2-1 record.

"When I got up I was dead last," Millsaps said of his spill. "I rode my butt off to get up to second." No disagreement here.

125 C Modified: Pasquale Morrocco (right) eliminated all drama from the C class by taking three straight wins by comfortable margins. The Voorhees, New Jersey rider, aboard a Suzuki, just turned 17 and will be moving up to tougher classes next year.

65cc Stock 10-11: Winning is exciting, but sometimes consistency earns championships. Blake Wharton, of Pilot Point, Texas, stayed steady all week and his 2-3-3 record was good enough for a first-place finish. Shawn Rife, of Mechanicsburg, Ohio, won the last two motos, but his 22nd-place finish in the first moto kept him out of contention.

125 B Modified: A second after he crossed the finish line, Kyle Chisholm was the picture of mixed emotions. First, he shook a fist in disappointment, having missed out on the moto win by half a bike length to Matt Goerke. But then Chisholm raised the same fist in victory, as he realized that the second-place finish was good enough to win him the championship. Goerke came in second in the class with a 1-4-1 record, but Chisholm's 2-1-2 put him on top of the podium.

Josh Grant came in a close third after a bad start. Had Grant gotten by Chisholm, it would have thrown the championship to Goerke.

"I was just trying to stay up and not let anyone get between me and Matt," said Chisholm, a Kawasaki rider out of Seminole, Florida.

Vet 35 Plus: After two second-place finishes, John Grewe got a small measure of revenge by putting his four-stroke Honda into first place, but Keith Bowen still won the war. Bowen rode his Suzuki to a 1-1-2 record to defend his number-one plate in the class.

"I won my first title here in '82, the first year they had it here, and here I am 22 years later, still having a blast," said Bowen.

85cc Modified 12-13: Second place would have been more than good enough to give Josh Hill the win after his wins in the first two motos of the class, but that didn't stop him from putting on one of the best shows of the day in a race-long battle with Jeff Alessi. Out of contention because of a first-moto DNF, Alessi was out for pride. But Hill was on his rear tire the entire race, as the two young racers left the rest of the field far behind.

"I thought about kind of cooling it out, but I wanted to catch Jeff," Hill said after the race.

Hill passed Alessi to take the lead on the last lap, but Alessi fought back and got the narrowest of edges as the two split a lapped rider just three turns from the finish line.

Alessi got his first win at Loretta Lynn's, Hill got his championship and the fans got a show.

250/Open B: Shaun Skinner came into the final moto with a 2-1 record, and Kyle Chisholm rolled to the starting gate with a 1-2. The two-way battle continued when the gate dropped, as the two Florida riders pulled away from the pack. Skinner pulled away from Chisholm just a fraction of a second per lap until the white flag flew, and then he pressed his lead even further. Chisholm, running lower on energy in his second moto of the day, couldn't match the pace Skinner was setting on his Suzuki.

Senior 40 Plus: Just like the race before it, the final moto for the over-40 crowd began with a tie: Brian Austin with a 1-2 record and Kevin Foley with a 2-1. Austin was looking for his first national title at Loretta Lynn's, while Foley, a Florida native now living in California, was looking for a ninth title. Both riders were aboard four-stroke machines, Austin on a Honda and Foley on a Yamaha.

The battle came down to the final lap, when Foley (left) put his years of experience to use and picked his way through lapped traffic just a bit more quickly than Austin.

"I'm glad it came down to that moto," said Foley. "It was a good clean moto and I think that's how it should be."

Nine titles ties Foley with Ricky Carmichael on the all-time win list at Loretta Lynn's, behind only James Stewart's 11.

AMA Sports manager Stephen Carnegie that one of the streets in the complex has now been renamed Foley Way to honor his success.

Women 80-105cc 12-15: "I wanted to go 1-1-1, but I just couldn't," said Marisa Hampshire. But her 1-1-2 record was still good enough for the women's youth class championship.

Casaundra Regal, of Fowlerville, Michigan, won the moto and ended Hampshire's winning streak. But Hampshire, a Team Green Kawasaki rider out of Hudson, Florida, still had plenty of reason to be proud. In addition to her youth championship, she had a moto win in the open women's class, and she'll go for another one on Saturday.

250/Open A: Sometimes, motocross looks like a high-speed chess match in the dirt, only noisier. Broc Hepler made all the right moves in the 250 class.

The Suzuki rider from Kittanning, Pennsylvania, came into the final moto tied with Ryan Sipes, each of them with a moto win and a second-place finish. Hepler (left) stayed patient in third place as Sipes took the early lead.

"A couple of times, they started to pull away, but I just stayed smooth," Hepler said after the race.

After a few laps, Hepler seized his opportunity to move into second and then harried Sipes.

"Sipes made a little mistake and I got around him," Hepler said. "Then I just stayed smooth. I didn't want to throw it away like I did in the 125." He was talking about the second moto in the 125 A Pro Sport class, when an early crash put him in last at the start and forced him to run through the entire pack to get back into the top ten.

Sipes finished the moto in third to claim second spot in the class along with his third-place finish in the 125 A class.

85cc Modified 7-11: Tyler Bowers knew what he had to do: win. And that's what he did, claiming the championship in a points battle as close as it gets.

Bowers, a Kawasaki rider from Cardington, Ohio, finished with a 3-1-1 record by keeping ahead of Ben Lamay in the final moto. Lamay's 1-2-2 record matched Bowers on points but not on wins. Lamay, an Alaska native who spends much of his time training and racing in the lower 48 states, twisted his ankle during the final moto and couldn't match Bowers' pace.

125cc Stock 12-15: Matt Boni didn't get his sweep, but he did get his number-one place. Boni, a Geneva, Florida rider won the first two motos on his Kawasaki and finished second behind Josh Lichtle, who finished with a 2-2-1 record on his Suzuki.

"I didn't get off to the best of starts, but I passed as many people as I could on the first two laps," said Boni. "When I got into second place, I knew that was what I needed."

Junior 25 Plus: Home-state fast guy Kevin Walker won yet another moto, but James Evans (right), of Elizabeth, Pennsylvania, wheeled his Suzuki onto the champion's stage. Evans' consistent 1-2-2 finishes put him well ahead of Walker, from Gray, Tennessee, who scored 7-1-1 results.

"I've been here a lot of years and haven't had a bad moto, so it finally caught up to me," said Walker, who has won eight titles at Loretta Lynn's. "James rode consistent and my hat's off to him."

51cc 4-6 AMA Class 1: Dalton Myers turned in consistent finishes of 2-3-3 to win the class. Myers, a Cobra rider from Riverview, Florida, edged Adam Cianciarulo, also on a Cobra, of Riverside, California, who finished with a 1-7-1 record.

51cc 7-8 AMA Class 2: The championship was undecided, pending an appeal to determine whether Tyler Stewart, of West Monroe, Louisiana, or Blake Dungey, of Chaska, Minnesota, would take home the number-one plate.

51cc 4-6 Stock Oil Inj.: In the littlest class, Thomas Covington of Vernon, Alabama, made sure there was no doubt about the championship by winning the final moto, giving him a 1-3-1 record.

© 2003, American Motorcyclist Association