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In the beginning, and at the end: (above) Oavid Aldane leads the first lap,
and (below) Joey Osowski laps Teem Lush at the checkered.
(Above) Rich Cox and Team Satyr's VF500F leeds Kawa..kis, Hondas and
a Harh,y,-Oavidson.. (Below) Hammer pits at night.
WERA/Dunlop National
Enduranee Series: Round 4
Team
Hammen-wins
24-Hour West
By Dale Brown
ROSAMOND, CA, JUNE 9-10
Team Hammer didn't run into a lot of problems, but they covered a lot of ground - 810
laps/2025 miles - en route to the overall win
in the WERA's 24-Hour West endurance road
race at Willow Springs. It was
the team's second-straight win
in this year's WERA/Dunlop
series, and their first 24-hour
14
victory.
Serond, 17 laps behind the winning
1150 Suzuki-based machine, was the
Fj600 Yamaha of Team Good Times
from Texas. They in tum finished one
lap ahead of California's Team Satyr,
which rode a Honda 500 Interceptor
entered and prepped by enthusiastic
employees of the Product Research
Department of American Honda Motor Co.
The turnout for California's first 24hour endurance race was exceedingly
light, with only 15 motorcycles entered.
Twelve of those 15 were still running
when the checkered flag fell at 3 p.m.
Sunday, but the big-name teams from
the eastern U.S. were conspicuous by
their absence.
"Team Ontario and Team Cowboy
both promised to come out here and
show us the way around, but they
didn't show," said Team Hammer's
john Ulrich. One of his teammates,
Steve Baron, said, "The way we were
running, it might have been a little
closer, but I think we still would have
won, even if they were here."
Running a stock 1150 Suzuki engine
in a four-year-old Moriwaki chassis,
Team Hammer (Joey Osowski/Ulrich!
David AldanalBaron/Russell Paulk!
Tim O'Kennedy) were favored from
the start. Quester/Sullivan appeared to
be their biggest threat, with team regulars Mark Harlow, David Boggess,
jerry Holm and Michael Barrenburge
abetted by Californians Rick Mitchell
and Chris Crowell, both of whom
know their way around Willow.
The veteran Aldana played hare to
the pack's hound in the first hour of
the race, putting a lap on the field in 60
minutes. One team was nearly on the
same lap, Team Good Times (Joe
Fisher/Charles Brothers/Bob Sellers/
'Kevin Schwantz/Wes Goggins/Kenny
Morgan/Davey Parson). However,
Schwantz's excellent performance on
the track was negated by the fact that
he incurred a three-lap penalty for taking an extra lap during the tire warmup period.
Running second at the end of the
first hour was Team Satyr (Tom Hicks/
RichCoxlBobOmaniPaulVanZuyle/
Dirk Vandenburg/jeff Haas) with 35
laps on the ledger. Honda Gardena
(John Wells/Larry Theobald/Steve
Dyer/David Zirkle/Doug Toland) had
their 500 Interceptor in third, with
Quester/Sullivan fourth.
Trouble started early for some teams.
The Santa Barbara Endurance Riders
were still in the pits at the end of the
first hour. ','We were working all week
on the engine and didn't get finished
until 5:30 a.m. Saturday moming. Then
in practice we blew a gasket, so it was
an hour and 10 minutes into the race
before we could get started," said a
team rider later. Other teams having
troubles included Team Thunder
(black-flagged, coolant leak) and Bartels H-D (flat tire). The Bartels team
was a favorite among the crowd; their
machine was a police-model HarleyDavidson demo model lifted 0(£ the
showroom floor and run stock including the extended front end. Their fix
for the flat rear tire was to put a Touring Elite from another street Harley,
figuring that although run down in
the center of the tread, there "was
plenty left on the sides."
Team A.P.E. was in and out of the
pits on a variety of problems; the first
was a broken fuel line. In the second
hour, Team PRRO from Arizona lost
40 minutes replacing an engine after
the first one broke a cam chain.
By the end of the third hour, Team
Hammer had covered 106 laps and had
a four-lap lead on Team Good Times,
who were wicking hell out of their
machine and only one lap down, had
there been no penalty. Team Satyr and
Honda Gardena were on the same lap,
102. Quester/Sullivan was another lap
down. Those five teams were the crop
of the field, everyone else at least eight
laps down on the leaders, led by Team
White Whale (Paul Geck/Paul Tomsche/Tyler Turley/Doug johnson/
Denny Schmidtkneckt).
