Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

Wayne Rainey aboard the Maclean Racing 500cc Honda. (File photo) AHA Grand NafiofUll Championship/ Camel Pro Series: Round IZ Raine~ reigns at Road America By Gary Van Voorhis ELKHART LAK E, WI, J U NE 9 MacLean Racing's Wayne Rainey tossed away the early race strategy he had formulated when he found himself with an unchallenged lead on the second of 18 laps around th e rolling four-mile long Road America circuit. Within those first two laps , the tough est competition in the way of Rai- ,,6 ney's seco nd straight Camel Pro Series Formula One Na tional win , Mike Baldwin, was out of contention with suspec ted ignition problems. Randy Renfrow, who Rainey had battled with before winning the Sear s Point National a few weeks earlier, was al so gone from the scene, the victim of recurring minor engine problems. Both Baldwin and Renfrow returned to the race before retiring for good. From the third lap on, the cast of the top five was set although pos ition changes took place. In the end, it was Mil es Baldwin, never g iving up on the hope that Honda RS5OO-mounted Rainey would make a mistake or his machinery would falter, finishing second aboard his Shoei-sponsored Yamaha TZ750. Dan Chivington, on a Gee Vee Performance-sponsored TZ750, completed the trio in winner's circle with a strong, no-nonsense ride, taking advantage of a late race break which was lucky for him and unlucky for MacLean Racing's Richard Schlachter. Honda RS500-mounted Alan La brosse, the fourth place finisher, also benefitted from Schlachter's transmission glitch to move up from fifth, while Honda RS500-mounted Schlachter, after being third, had to settle for fifth. Doug Chandler finished sixth on hi s Freddie SpencerlSuperTrapp Racing Honda RS500 and moved into a tie for second in the Camel Pro Series point standings with Ted Boody, who DNF, at 91 points, 18 behind series leader Bubba Shobert's 109. Shobert was an interested spectator at Road Am erica and plans on racing at Loudon next week if Honda will give the go-ahead. Honda has already built a Honda Interceptor Superbike-based 750cc Formula One mount for Shobert, but ar e reluctant to get back into road racing solely to augment Shobert's Camel Pro Series points after pulling out a t th e end o f last seaso n. " I want to get back road racing, " said Shobert, " and Loudon is th e place to start. " Defending Formula One Ch ampion Mike Baldwin returned to th e U.S. fro m the 500cc GP ro ad racin g ci rcu it to contest Road Am er ica. Loudon a n d Pocono, both to honor a commiurneru to his sp onsor s - Michelin and Arai - as well as working toward a fourth straight U.S. Formula One title. Newl yw ed Baldwin 's camp included his wife Lindsay, tuner Bruce Maus, and an assistant. "If I do well in all three races ," said Baldwin , " I' ll end up just over the break even point on what the trip will end up costing." His DNF was certa in ly not included in the plans. Despite winds gusting to nearly 30 mph, Baldwin turned a record lap of 100.218 mph in 2 minutes, 23.687 seconds, grabbing the pole for the National during the first of two timed qualifying sessions which transferred 25 riders to the National grid. Rainey , at 2:24.090 was second fastest , followed by Miles Baldwin, Chivington and Labrosse. As the bikes gridded after the warmup lap, Miles Baldwin signaled Irantically to his crew to clean his Iaceshield which had been coated with a mist from the gas tank breather tube. It was too late and Miles Baldwin rode well into the first half of the race before getting rid of his coated tearoff. "I was lucky I had the tear-off on:' said Miles. Rainey led the first lap with Mike Baldwin about 20 lengths back, ahead of Miles Baldwin, Chivington, Renfrow, Labrosse , Russ Paulk and Chandler. On lap two , Mike Baldwin came past the pits looking down at his engine. Paulk and Renfrow didn't come around. " I had a rock punch a hole in the radiator on the first lap and the coolant quickly leaked out. It was a short race for a drive a ll the way from Georgia: ' said Paulk. Mike Baldwin was missing from the field by the end of the third lap, giving Rainey nearly a four-second gap on Miles Baldwin. It was the closest Miles would get. Chivington and Schlachter ran close behind Miles with Doug Brauneck and Chandler dicing for fifth a distance back and jimmy Adamo, on the Cagiva 500 GP bike. appearing to be reeling in the two . On lap six , Brauneck surrendered sixth to Chandler after an off-track excursion. "I was challenging Doug in a couple of turns, " said Chandler later. " I was showing him my wheel just to keep the pressure on and in one spot he got into a slide before going off the track and I grabbed the opportunity to move up and away from him." . Lap eight saw Rainey with about a five-second lead on Miles Baldwin with Miles holding the same on Chivington who held about the same on Labrosse. Barring any problems, Labrosse was secure since he was nearly 40 seconds up on Chandler with Brauneck trying to make up ground and Adamo stalking Brauneck. The best and closest fight was between Rueben McMurter and Dave Busby on Honda Superbikes for ninth. It co nt in ued right to the finish . The field continued to string out as the halfway point passed. Mike Baldwin returned to action on lap 10 before retiring for the day after one lap, while Renfrow had returned to the track a few laps ea rlier for a slig htly longer ride before retiring. Adamo's ride came to a halt on lap 13 as one of the two bolts on the Cagiva front brake caliper broke. " I found out the front brakes were gone the hard way as I was going into a turn, " said Adamo. " I couldn't race wi thout a front brake so I had to ca ll it a day." Lap 15 saw Schlachter drop from third to fifth and come by the pit crews lining pit wall at a greatl y reduced speed and point toward th e . sh ifter. " T he transmission stuck in first and I couldn't get it out for what seemed like a very long time:' said Schlachter. " I got it to shift, but I stayed away from first gear from then until the finish." On the next lap, Brauneck slowed after he had transmission trouble second gear - on his Yamaha TZ750. Rainey contin ued on like clockwork to take the checkered flag with an 11.934 second margin of victory over Miles Baldwin. Chivington, Labrosse, Schlachter and Chandler followed. McMurter slowed as his crew gave him the sign he was finishing seventh and Busby almost made it eighth with Brauneck valiantly trying to drop both back a spot, but ending up ninth and the last rider on the same lap as winner Rainey. " T o win the Formula One and Formula Two races twice in a row feels good." said Rainey. " I was expecting a real fight for the whole race, but things didn't work out that way . I'd like to say it was easy, but it wasn't because I'm still learning to ride both bikes . Bob MacLean deserves a big thanks ·for putting the team together, as does Stuart Toomey for heading and organizing the crew which works on my bikes and Richard's (Schlachter)." " T h is is the ninth year I've been using my Yamaha TZ750:' said Miles Baldwin. " O f course, there's not a lot of the original bike left, but the feeling is there. I'm winding down my racing career and this is the first race I've finshed this year so a second feels really good." "I thought about trying to reel in Schlachter and challenge him for second at about mid-race," said Chivington, "but the motor was heating up because we were off just a bit on the gearing. I backed off and decided on a steady finish." Chivington's bike buildervtuner/ sponsor George Vicensi was all smiles: "This will pay for the trip here and Loudon and Pocono:' said Vicensi to Chivington. " We should start thinking about going to Laguna Seca too. " Motoplan's Labrosse was .happy with his finish. " I came to ride for points and a good finish ," said Labrosse. "I played it cool once I saw how far I was ahead of sixth place. At one point I made a plan to try and catch Dan, but then I thought better. I was here to finish and not do anything foolish. I've crashed too many times in recent years by trying to hang it out." " I think sixth is a pretty good fin ish," said Chandler. " I didn 't get much track time and this is my first time racing at Road America. The wind was a big problem for me. I've never raced in wind like this and it was blowing me around quite a bit. After a while, I learned to anticipate and compensate in parts on the track where I knew it was gusting enough to move th e bike over a few feet." • Results 1. Wayne Rainey (Han); 2. Miles Baldwin (Yam); 3. Dan Chiving.on (Yam); 4. Alan Labrosse (Hon); 5. Rich Schlachter (Hon); 6. Doug Chandler (Hon); 7. Rueben McMunar (Hon); 8. Dave 8usby (Hon); 9. Doug 8rauneck (yam) ; 10. David Reed (Yam); 11. W illiam Himmelsbach (Suz); 12. Dave Schl osser (Yam); 13. Sam MacDonald (Yam); 14. Hap Eaton (Yam); 15. James Knipp (Yam); 16. Gary Maslanka (Yam); 17. Mike Elmore (Hon); 18. #305; 19. Henry DeGouw (Yam~ 20 . Steve Arnold (Yam). TIME: 43 min.• 34 .017 sees. AVERAGE SPEED: 99.154 mph . CAMEL PRO SERIES POINT STANDINGS: 1. 8ubba Shoben (1091; 2. (TIE) Ted 800dy /Doug Chandler 191);4. Scon Parkar(79); 5. Scon Pearson (77); 6. Randy Goss (58); 7. Terry Poovey (53); 8. Pete Hames (52); 9 . ChrisCarr(50); 10.{TIEIRonnie Jones/Alex Jorgensen (49~ 12. Jay Springsteen (44 1; 13. Wayna Rainey (41); 14 . Rich Schlachter (36); 15. Steve Eklund (35): 16. Jim Filice (25); 17. Tomm Ma~land (24); 18. {TIEl Doug 8rauneck/Rod Farris (221: 20 . (TIE) Randy Renfrow/Hank Scon / Freddie Spencer (20). FORMULA ONE POINT STANDINGS: 1. Wayne Rainey (40) ; 2. Rich Schlachter (36); 3. {TIEl Doug 8rauneck/Doug Chandler (22); 5. (TIE)Randy Renfrow/Freddie Spencer (20); 7. (TIE)Mike 8aldwin/ Alan Labrosse (16); 9. Jeff Haney (11); 10. Ricky Orlando (10). Forll.ula Two Raine~in eorilrnand ELKHART LAKE, WI, JUNE 9 "The idea was to get out front right away and make the others catch me," said Formula Two winner Wayne Rainey of his race strategy which led to a start-tofinish romp for the MacLean Racing. sponsored Honda RS250 rider. " I can 't get too excited about the win yet, since I've still got the Formula One National to ride." Donnie Greene, on a Honda RS250 backed by Eurobike Importers of San Rafael. California. rode a strong race to finish second, but spent nearly all of the 14-lap, 56-mile event fighting for position. Rainey 's MacLean racing teammate Rich Schlachter rounded out the top three. He was also Honda RS250-mounted. Dale Franklin, battling Greene for second with less than two laps to go, parked his bike at the halfway point of the next to last lap, and then went to sit on the guardrail-the apparent victim of heat sickness. In contrast to previous years, the weather was beautiful with clear skies, a strong breeze and temperatures in the low eighties. The two five-lap qualifying heats saw Franklin win heat one over Greene and Schlachter, after Schlachter dropped off the pace due to a cracked exhaust pipe and then a broken engine head bolt. Rainey put 22 seconds on second

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