Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

Scott Gray rode hard. fi ni shed fifth on his own Suzuki fitted with ' a Yoshimura engine. his left ankle's t orn ligaments taped . AMA Superbike 10 (Continued from page 8) (Kaw), Filice and R icky Orlando (Han) in a tight, p lace -swapping battle. Schwantz got sideways with both feet off the pegs at the exit of turn two, where Ashmead had crashed in his heat race; he saved it but lost drive. and was passed by Cooley going into turn three. Bu t Schwantz retook the lead as if nothing had happened and was back on the gas. Brubaker pulled up and around Merkel to take third; a lap later Merkel pulled up next to Brubaker in the last turn and whipped past on the straightaway. Two laps later Merkel passed Cooley in the same place on the straight and moved into second. Cooley made up the lost time and more in turn two , retook second place; Merkel took second back again. Six laps to go . Schwantz has already passed a lappee in tu rn eight who held up Merkel and Cooley in turn nine; Schwantz has not quite two seconds ove r battling Cooley and Merkel. and all three - wit h Brubaker close be hind - charge up through left-h a nd turn three, lap ping another rider. The lappee gets to theendof the short straight between turns three and four, throws his bike into right-hand four and heads for the inside of the pavement - and is about 18 inches from the edge when Schwantz somehow stuffs his bike underneath and makes a clean pass between the lappee and the dirt. The crowd around the turn gasps; Cooley and Merkel are stuck behind the slower pilot. Schwantz, sweeping high in turn four. dives back down underneath another rider just ahead of the one he already passed. Schwantz's path crosses the second lappee's liner. he pulls the bike righ t to get back on course and grabs a bunch of throttle at the same time, the rear wheel sliding out three feet. catching and bouncing Schwantz off the seat like a cowboy on a bronco. Two pogos, a wobble and a blink later Schwantz is acc1erating wide-open down the hill toward turn five, the crowd screaming. In the space of one corner and two outrageous passes Schwantz picked up several seconds on Cooley and Merkel and stretched his margin to 4.5 seconds. Cooley and Merkel still have to settle second place, but neither challenges Schwantzagain. Cooley is faster in turns two and three; Merkel flies on the straights and entering turn one. Last lap . Exiting turn nine Merkel is a longside Cooley, not in his draft, but side-by-side in a test of acce lera tion and at the line it's Merkel by less than a length. . And then Schwantz is waving and kicking and screaming inside his helmet at his first big-time Superbike win. Brubaker is fourth, Gray fifth ahead of McMurter, Hampton (who had slowed with an overheating engine), Rol off, Orlando, local-boy and AFM Champion Nitta. Vreeke and Filice. Both McDona ld and Dale Quarterley were non-finishers. McDonald's bike had recurring problems with the dry-clutch 's pushrod. Quarrerley's Eagle Racing G Pz750 Superbike galled and seized a titanium valve in its guide in practice. and he rode a stock FZ750 in his heat race to finish eighth. But the stock FZ. while fast, when fitted with slicks and pushed hard by Quarterley, flexed and twisted and handled poorly on the twisty Willow track, Quarterley said, so he brought it in and parked it, and made p lans to work on the bike's suspension for the next race in stead of buying a $4500 engine hop-up kit from Yamaha. Schwa ntz 's fastest la p in the firs t leg was a 1:28.05 on the second lap; he turned six of the 16 laps at 1:28, with six I:29s and the rest 1:30s. Merkel, in contrast, ran three laps in the 1:28s, the fastest in 1:28.41, with six in the I:29s and the rest in the 1:30s. Merkel, lying down in a motorhome between legs , was still getting into his leathers when the five-minute sign went up for the second leg; he got to his bike with the three-minute sign up and was last onto the grid after a warm-up lap; the referee stopped him from taking his spot on the front row - per the rules - and stuck him on the back of the grid. Merkel lined up at the extreme outside of the back row, and when the flag dropped, pulled out almost on the dirt and shot up the outside. throwing dust and rocks and dirt as he passed other riders. Meanwhile Schwantz led, and Cooley took th e lead into turn three; Gray was third. By the end of the second la p Merkel was in fifth and gaining. Schwantz drafted Cooley down the straight, pulled up outside into turn one, and the two went around the corner side-by -side, Cooley a wheel ahead at the exit; It was on this lap, the start of the third, that Cooley hurt his knee. His bike's front tire washed out as he ran it into turn three, and the only thing that kept him upright was his extended knee; it hit hard and bounced the motorcycle back up on its wheels, Cooley would tell reporters later. He Wayne Rainey (12) leads Maclean Rac ing teammate Rich Schlachter at the start of the Formula Two final. Both rode Hondas, . and Bru ba ker h ad switched from Dunlop front tires to soft Michelins for the second leg , looking for a n advantage, and afterwards Cooley though t that a mistake. "You cou ld plant the Dun lop and it would stick, and the Michelin I just couldn't get p lanted," Coo ley would say later. "It handled a lo t different." The knee hurt for awhile, distracting him, Cooley said afterwards, but then he forgot it and raced. Bru ba ker caught and passed Gray as Merkel gained on them both; Schwantz now had six seconds on Coolev, By the fourth la p Merkel was in fourth, bumping Gray to fifth; Merkel was nine seconds behind leader Schwantz, with Brubaker and Cooley between him and Schwantz. McMurter coasted across the dirt infield into the pits, his bike's engine broken . Ro loff and Filice went at it again for sixth, a few seconds ahead of equally-intense battles for eighth (Orlando vs. Nitto) and 10th (Vreeke vs. Hampton); just a few laps earlier it had been one big d isp u te over eighth involving Orlando, Nitto, Hampton and Vreeke in no particula r order. . With three laps to go Merkel had passed Cooley, and waited for him to repass; he'd say la ter he knew he couldn't catch Schwantz and wanted to follow Cooley. The la p times slowed to 1:34 for Cooley and Merkel one lap, and suddenly Brubaker, who had been lef t adrift, was back in the race for second. Brubaker started to come around Cooley just as Merkel came up on a lapped rider entering three; Merkel dove underneath and just made it, and Cooley and Brubaker were held up for two turns by the suddenly-speeding-up lappee. Merkel was home free for second place, his race run with mostly I:30s and I:29s with a 1:34 and a few 1:31s to Schwantz's 1:29s and 1:30s and 1:3ls. Cooley was third, Brubaker fourth, Gray fifth ahead of Roloff, Filice, Orlando, Nitta, Hampton and Vreeke. Cooley, now holding a big points lead for the championship, nursed his ice-packed knee after the race and said he needed more time on the Honda after so many years of riding Suzukis and Kawasakis. Mer kel said he planned to go to a hosp ital and that he feared he had hepa ti tis; Schwa ntz grinned and laughed and sprayed champagne and looked forward to 1986 contract talks scheduled for Monday. • Results SUPERBIKE: 1. KevinSchwantz( Suz) 1-1; 2. Fred Merkel (Han) 2· 2; 3. Wes Cooley (Han) 3-3 ; 4. Todd Brubaker (Han) 4-4; 5. Scott Gray (Suz) 5· 5; 6. Earl Roloff (Kaw) 8 -6; 7. Ricky Orlando (Han) 9- 8; B. Terry Hamp to n (Hon) 7· 10 ; 9. Jimmy Filice (Y8m~ 12-7; 10 . Walt Nitt a (Kaw) 10-9; 11. J im Vreeke (Vam) 11-11; 12. Rueben McMu n er (HonI6 -19; 13. Glenn Barry (Han) 14 · 12; 14 . Raben Reinen (Kaw) 13-13; 15 . M ike Hartn (Han) 18·1 5; 16. Vin ce Costa (Kaw) 17· 16. SUPERBIKE POINT STANDINGS; 1. Wes Cooley 29; 2. (TIE)Kevin Schw antz/ Freddie Spencer 20: 3. Fred Merkel 16; 5. Jimmy Filice 15; 6. (TIE) Jeff Hanev / Rueben Mc M urte r 13; 8. Todd Bruba ker 11; 9. Scott Gray 10; 10. (TIE) Glenn Berr y/Ear l Roloff 9; 12. (TIE) Mike Hanh / Ricky Or lando 8; 14. Terry Hampton 7; 15. (TIE) John Bett enco urt lWalt Nitto 5; 17. (TIE) Jim Adamo /Jim Vreeke 4; 19. Robeno Pietri 2; 20. (TIE)J ohn Long /R aben Reinen 1. AIfA F-2 Championship Series: 'OIInd2 Rainey first in Formula Two By John Ulrich ROSAMOND , CA. AP R. 3 MacLean 's R aci n g 's Wayne Rainey ran off with victory in the N D Formula Two event at Willow Spri ngs, leading the first lap and the last la p and every la p in between on his Stuart Toomey tuned Honda RS250R. Rai ney, the 1983 U .S. Superbike Champion, was followed to the finis h by two-tim e U.S. Form u la One Champion Rich Schlachter on another MacLean Racing RS250R . Reigning Formula Two Champion Don Greene was th ird o n his Roland Cushway-tuned Honda, with loca l hero Dave Sadowski fourth on his Starfire Raci ng Honda. Jeff H eino was fifth on another Honda; the first Yamaha was in sixth. ridden by Steve Biganski who rode with a broken collarbone. Rainey and Schlachter's RS250R s were both fitted with pipes built by Toomey. Rainey's bike had a works RS500 front end and a 17-inch front wheel and Dunlop slick. Schlachter ran a standard front end and an 18inch front wheel and tire. MacLean Raci ng 's Schlachter and Rainey now are first and second in Formula Two Championship points. Greene won the first heat race for position, passing Schlachter entering the first turn ; Dwayne Chung was third after strongly challenging Greene and Schlachter in the early stages of the five- lap heat. Kevin Brunson jumped o ut front off the start of the second hea t, leading Ra in ey, Biganski and John Gl over. Rainey took th e lead going into turn one a t the start of the second lap, and Glover moved into second just as Brunson, now third, locked the front wheel of his Spondon Ro tax and crashed; his sliding bike forced Biganski off the track and he crashed, too, breaking his collarbone. Rain ey (Conti nued from page 18)

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