1998 San Diego 250cc Main (Jeremy McGrath's Last San Diego Win)
82This is the 1998 250cc Main from Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego, CA.
In 1998, Chaparral Yamaha's Jeremy McGrath came into the San Diego round having won his first race of the season at the last round in Seattle (his first since St. Louis 1997 [round 11]). Jeremy came into the round with a 12-point lead over Team Honda's Ezra Lusk, who fought from 15th to finish a commendable 2nd place after 2 straight wins in Houston and Phoenix. Seattle would mark the start of a 4-race win streak for Jeremy while his competitors dealt with bad luck and make challenging him for the championship almost not an option. Defending champ Jeff Emig of Team Kawasaki had his worst finish of the season at the last round in Seattle with a 14th after a 2nd place start. Emig started out the season rather well with a 2nd at L.A., 3rd at Houston, and 4th at Phoenix before the 14th in Seattle dropped him 22 points out of the lead after trailing Jeremy by just 4 points going into Seattle. Emig's season would only get worse from that point on (outside of a 2nd place at Daytona), while McGrath started to find his old self again, and this race would mark a string of 3 straight bad races for Ezra Lusk, before a 2nd at Tampa (round 8).
Enjoy.
NOTE: I do have the full broadcast of this race posted on my channel, but I decided to make a video of just the main event just for the fun of it.