Cycle News

VOL. 55 ISSUE 28 JULY 17, 2018 P97 set of turns leading onto the straightway, which were lined by concrete walls covered in haybales. Another issue was the last corner led riders right over the starting pad of the track's drag strip, and the transition from blacktop to concrete (along with the thick rubber laid down by the drag racers) was tricky, to say the least. Paint stripes were also very slick and officials spent the entire weekend trying to burn off rubber and paint residue without much success. Memphis in August can be downright brutal, and such was the case on race weekend. Rid- ers were coming off the track and then doing anything they could to cool themselves off. Wet towels stored in coolers filled with ice was a popular option. AMA road racing was simply stacked with talent in the late 1980s. A number of future world champions, and even one former world champ, did battle that weekend. Doug Polen started off the weekend with a victory in the AMA 600cc Supersport class. Almost unbelievably, Polen won the race on the normally closely matched Supersport bikes by 25 seconds over Greg Tysor. Jamie James was third. In order to fight the heat, Polen took the extreme measure of drilling hundreds of small holes in the front of his leathers. Team Leoni's Jimmy Adamo scored victory in the Pro Twins class. It was at this race where AMA Grand National flat track superstar Chris Carr made his Pro Twins debut, racing the famous Harley Owners Group- sponsored "Luci- fer's Hammer" to fifth place. Future World Champion John Kocinski was battling former World Champion Kork Ballington for the AMA 250cc Grand Prix Championship that season, and in Memphis, Kocinski clinched the title with a second-place run, finishing behind Randy Renfrow. In the Superbike final, it was Schwantz and Rainey battling in the early-going. Schwantz's team drilled holes in the windscreen of his GSX-R to give him more air. On the second lap, Schwantz took over the lead on his Suzuki and gradually pulled away to an eight-second victory over Rainey, whose Honda was overheating. It was so bad Rainey had to back off for a couple of laps to bring his bike's temperature out of the red. In the process, he dropped back to fourth, but once his machine cooled down a bit he was able to rally back to second. Rainey's teammate Bubba Shobert took third. Doug Polen and Jimmy Filice rounded out the top five. Earlier that weekend, Schwantz had pocketed $10,000 by way of his Camel Challenge victory. Combined with his first-place purse for winning the race, Schwantz walked away from Memphis nearly $14,000 richer. The victory kept Schwantz in the championship hunt, but just barely. Rainey only needed to finish 14th or better to clinch the title in the series finale later that month at Sears Point, and while Schwantz also won that race, it was ultimately Rainey's championship. Unfortunately, the promoters of the race took a beating financially because of poor attendance and Memphis was never on the calen- dar again. The timing of the race in early August all but doomed the event to failure. It would have been interesting to see what might have happened with the cooler weather of a spring or fall date, but it was not to be. Memphis will go down as a one-hit wonder and a race that the few who attended will always remember for the oppressive heat and the impressive talent dis- played on the track that day. CN Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives Wayne Rainey leads early in the 1987 Memphis AMA Superbike race, with Kevin Schwantz, Doug Polen and Bubba Shobert giving chase.

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