Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/126921
Privateers Dan Chivington (53) and John Ashmead hooked up early in
Superbike action, finished third and fourth.
Team Honda's Flyin' Fred Merkel (1) caught and passed teammate Wayne
Rainey (6) and set a new lap record; Rainey crashed in pursuit.
Second-place Kevin Schwann (34) uses his Yoshimura Suzuki to lap Carry Andrew late in the race.
AMA/Camel Pro Road Race
Series: Round 8
Merkel wins and
takes points lead;
Rainey crashes
By John Ulrich
Photos by John Ulrich
and Randy Marrs
LEXINGTON, OH, AUG. 3
Team Honda's Fred Merkel won
the Superbike race at Mid-Ohio,
beating Yoshimura Suzuki's
Kevin Schwantz and Yamaha
10
FZ750-riding privateer Dan Chivington, and LOok over the points lead in
the AMA/Camel Pro Road Race Series, which will combine points from
Formula One and Superbike races to
crown a single AMA Road Race
Champion in 1986 instead of separate Superbike and Formula One
Champions; Merkel's victory also gave
him an almost-unbeatable points lead
in theseparately-kept, non-Championship Superbike Point Standings. After
the race, Merkel celebrated that points
lead as being his third AMA Superbike
Championship nonetheless.
Merkel's success came at the expense
of teammate Wayne Rainey's misfortune; Rainey crashed while running
a close second to Merkel after leading
early stages of the race, and didn't
finish. Rainey led the Superbike and
Camel Pro Road Race points going
into Mid-Ohio; Rainey is now second
in both tallies, with 124 to Merkel's
130 points in Camel Pro points and
with IlILO Merkel's 130 in Superbike.
Tires played a big part in the race
on the twisty, 2.4-mile road course
with non-abrasive, almost-slippery
pavement. Rainey chose the softer of
two available bias-ply Michelin rear
slicks; the harder available Michelin
slick was too hard for conditions. But
the tire Rainey chose overheated and
started sliding and chewing up its
tread surface during the race, forcing
Rainey LOslow justas Merkel mounted
a strong charge that brought him the
lead and a new absolute Mid-Ohio
mOLOrcycle lap record of one minute,
35.40 seconds. Merkel rode on a biasply Dunlop rear slick, a 639, one of
three compounds available at the
track. When Rainey tried LO stay with
Merkel exiting the second-LO-Iastturn
on the 13th of 25 laps, his bike's rear
end stepped out and slid like a dirttracker's, the bike leaning over and
catching the right foot peg, levering
the wheels up off the ground; the bike
hit a bump, the wheels LOuched pavement and caught and threw Rainey
over the highside. He hit hard, chest
and face first, but stood up and walked
away immediately, leaving his Honda
for corner workers LO pick up and roll
away.
Rainey had charged inLO the lead
right away with one of his usual
hard-and-fast starts, with Merkel losing time while he got around Team
Yamaha's Jimmy Filice. By the fifth
lap Rainey had four seconds on Merkel, having turned a string of I :36s
and a 1:35.95 LO Merkel's I :37s and
II :36s. But starting with the sixth lap
Merkel put LOgether a string of three
laps at 1:35s and gained on Rainey,
the fastest of the three being a 1:35.67.
Laps II and 12 saw Merkel right on,
then past Rainey with a I :36 and a
I :38 in traffic to Rainey's 1:37 and
I :39, and then came that fateful moment when Rainey £lew over the bars
and Merkel mOLOred on, finishing
the 13th lap of the race at that record
1:35.40.
With Rainey out, Merkel had 17
seconds on Filice, who had run strings
of I :37s LO leave Schwantz behind;
Schwantz complained that his bike
was slower than at Laguna and didn't
handle right, and that it was plainly
inferior LO the Yoshimura Japan
Suzuki he rode the weekend before at
Suzuka: SchwanlZ turned mostly I:39s
and some 1:38s. Filice would hold a
secure second until his bike broke on
lap 19, with probable big-end bearing failure. Filice's teammate, John
Kocinski, had already retired with a
slowing and noisy engine, after getting into the main via the last chance
qualifier (he crashed in practice just
before the heat races) and working
his way from last to eighth.
Doug Polen was sixth on another
Yoshimura Suzuki, picking off guys
one-by-one, charging a little harder
with each lap, running behind, with,
then in front of Rueben McMurter,
John Ashmead and Chivington, then
crashing on the last lap while third;
Polen, whose ride was a tryout for the
U.S. Suzuki-supported Yoshimura
team, would say he hit a piece of
debris in the track; eyewitness McMurter would say he saw nothing
other than Polen lose the front end;
trackside observers also couldn 'tdetect
any debris. but Polen was adament,
and the results - a crash - were the
same anyway. The way Polen saw it,
he could I:!ave gone faster with a
Yoshimura engine in his own, mostly
stock GSXR 750.
Chivington, Ashmead and McMurter went at it for fourth, then third
with Polen's crash, McMurter closing back up after losing distance and
the three running one-two-three, like
three links of a chain, across the finish line.
Well behind them, Peter Lusby got
the best of a great baule with Kosar
Racing's Ouis Lance, Jim Tribou
and Jeff Farmer. They ran most of the
race in a clump, in rapidly mixing
order, but finished Lusby-Lance-Tribou-Farmer.
Merkel finished more than 45 seconds ahead of SchwanlZ, who was
another 15 seconds ahead of SchwanlZ.
"Wayne rode a lot beuer than I did
at a lot of race tracks," said Merkel
after the finish. "I think he's a beuer
rider than I am. This is the only race I
won this year and I won it fair and
square. I caught him, passed him and
then he fell down. So I can have the
credit for this one.
"I didn't know he crashed or what,
but he did and made my season a
liule easier. It's never over until it's
over, it's nOLOver until next weekend."
Merkel thanked sponsors Arai, Fox,
Dunlop, Cycle Racer, SuperTrapp
and American Honda, mechanics
Mike Velasco and Merlyn Plumlee
and mentor and road racing manager
Udo Gietl.
.
Schwantz was subdued but sarcastic. "Second place. I'm just as happy
as I cau Id be."
Chivingwn was happy he had put
his GV Performance Yamaha FZ750,
tuned by George Vincensi, into the
winner's circle, and thanked sponsors including Shoei, Michelin, Wiseco, Lectron carburewrs and ND.
Polen was dejected. "I couldn't
believe it. I rode conservatively, a
steady, fast pace and I thought it
would payoff in the end. The really
bad thing is that it's the wrong time
to have that happen."
•
Results
SUPER81KE: 1. Fred Mer1