Kevin Windham was getting play as a rookie 250 rider with Team Yamaha, too.īut even with the huge list of contenders for the opening-round win, a rider no one expected to win came out on top. (Today, that team has grown into the mighty GEICO Honda squad.) Yamaha had Doug Henry back on a four-stroke-this one the production YZ400F as opposed to the full-works bike he won on in Las Vegas. Mike LaRocco was also on a Honda now, but this one was basically a privateer deal with help from Factory Connection. Honda was surely livid about seeing its eight-year AMA Supercross title streak come to an end and they signed Ezra Lusk to get the title back. Plus, McGrath’s dominance had been overcome the previous year. Yamaha hadn’t won the SX title since the Monoshock glory days, and this type of team had never been done before. It was the forerunner of today’s satellite teams. Team Yamaha would wheel a works YZ250 under the tent for him to race. He formed a private team with backing from mail order giant Chaparral. McGrath bailed on his failed Suzuki experiment and picked up a Yamaha ride-one unlike any we had seen before. Jeff Emig stayed with factory Kawasaki to defend his new #1 plate, but much else was different. After the 1997 season threw the supercross world upside down with the Jeremy McGrath dethroning, the world prepared for a wide-open affair for 1998.
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