Cycle News

CN III ARCHIVES BY LARRY LAWRENCE A sk anyone about the 1995 AMA Superbike event at Gateway International Raceway and the first thing they'll say is, "It was hot!" The '95 race, held at Gateway, which was just across the Mississippi River from St. Lou- is, proved to be the one and only AMA National Road Race ever hosted by the track. In spite of tremendous pre-race area public- ity, radio and TV ads and promo- tion by St. Louis area dealerships, when race weekend came, very few fans showed up. The problem was an oppressive heatwave that hit the area. The race weekend was held in near triple-digit heat and high humidity. Not only did it make it difficult at best, for fans to try to enjoy the racing, but riders and tires had a tough time dealing with the heat as well. Gateway International Race- way, opened its newly-built road course in 1985. Prior to that the facility was a drag strip and the strip was used as the main straight for the road course. Brak- ing for turn one was done on the launching area for the drag strip, so the traction in that area of the track was always different from every other part of the track. Club races had been held at the track since its opening. It had even hosted a number of WERA P122 ST. LOUIS SCORCHER The ill-fated 1995 AMA National at Gateway Int'l Raceway Early on it appeared the upstart NASB, headed by former AMA Road Racing Manager Roger Edmondson, would not only get many of the best tracks, but some of the factory teams seeing that the AMA Superbike Series schedule was suddenly almost non-existent. AMA Pro rallied and hastily threw together a schedule that ultimately included some tracks that regularly hosted club events, but were questionable, in terms of safety and facilities on the pro level. Eventually all the major teams publicly stated they would be racing in the AMA series. The AMA scheduled one event on the and AMA National Endurance events, so the circuit wasn't totally unknown to many of the racers who showed up to the first AMA Road Race National in 1995. The very fact that a national was being held at Gateway was somewhat of an anomaly. Even by the less stringent safety standards of the mid- 1990s, the track was quite dangerous with Armco barrier lining some very close run-off areas. The biggest concern was the final corner leading onto the dragstrip. It was a fast, sweeping lefthander and riders heading onto the straightway were always trying their best to get a good drive out of the turn. Problem was, the guardrail was right there lining the outside of the track. Any mistake in that area of the circuit could prove cata- strophic. A club racer died hitting the haybale-covered barrier just a couple of years earlier. Gateway was a last-minute ad- dition to the 1995 AMA Superbike calendar. AMA Pro Racing was scrambling to fill its racing calen- dar after a new rival North Ameri- can Superbike Series (NASB) released its 1995 schedule, which included several of the prime AMA Superbike venues.

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