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/126984
Solmax Racing had to fight ,rainy, foggy weather as well as the rest of the field to win the rain-shortened Pocono Six-Hour Endurance Race. The lightweight battle came down to a fight between FBI (99B) and National Fiberglass (276); Kawaseki-mounted FBI came out on top. Team Bio-Soles (65) led Team Work (971) on the· slippery, rain-soaked Pocono surface. Bio-Soles finished second overall. Gateway Racing (923) sets the pace for. Gad looks Racing (47). Gad looks eventually topped the MediumlNeight Superbike division. WERAjEBC Brakes National Endurance Road Race Series: Round 11 bad that it was doubtful the event would even take place. A thick fog moved i.n and a steady rain fell. The rain and fog combined with 50° temperatures and a chilling wind, made for miserable conditions for a road race.' The teams waited out the fog and by 1:00 p.m. the conditions had improved. The race was started at 2:00 p.m. For safety's sake~ the officials determined that the race would end at 5:00 p.m. making the event a three-hour race instead of the scheduled six hours. The shortness of the race drastically changed the strategy of most of the leams. A fas~er pace would have to be maintained and fewer riders would be used. At the start, Team Suzuki's Thomas Stevens led the cautious 42-bike field into' turn one, but as the teams came around to finish the first lap, it was former Team Suzuki (Team Hammer) rider Dave S.adowski in the lead on lhe Cycle Concepts Racing GSXRIIOO. Following Sadows.ki was Team Suzuki, Scott Russell of Sol max and The Human Race Team's Kurt Hall. Sadowski, a good rain rider, sel the pace for the first seven laps before Russell on the Solmax Yamaha took over. Being in the lead held an Solmax endures wet, foggy Pocono Three-Hour By Larry Lawrence MT. POCONO, 'pA, SEPT. 12 Members of Solmax Racing shook off steady rain and the bad luck that has plagued them for most of this year to come away from Pocono International Raceway with their first endurance' road race win of the 1987 season in the rain/ fog-shortened Pocono SixHour. The victory marked 16 the first win for Yamaha FZR750-' mounted Solmax - one of the nation's top endurance teams for the past lhreeyears .,.... since the Atlantabased·squad lOok the top spot at the Hallett, Oklahoma round 10 1986. A pair of teams from Concord, New Hampshire finished second and third. Team Bio-Soles, Australian . Gordon Barrett and Brian Paquette, finished second, three laps down. Blockwater Racing's Brian Kent and Jim Shoemaker finished third, on the . same lap as Team Bio-Soles. Bio' Soles and Blackwater were both on Suzuki GSXR750s. Conditions before the race were so advantage since some of the machines were kicking up 20-foot rooster tails of water. Team Gamma was the first of a string of top teams to crash during the event. Ga,mma ran as high as third, place before crashing 35 minutes into the race. Sol max continued to hold their lead throughout the first hour. Cycle Concepts began experiencing some problems with water getting into their carburetors, causing several unscheduled pit SlOpS. . Team Suzuki regained the lead briefly during the second hour when Solmax's Terry Bailey crashed the leading machine. Suzuki's lead was short-lived; Russ Paulk went down on the long back straigh t. "There's some new pavement in that section and with this rain it's like black ice," said Paulk. Series point leader Human Race 'Team saw their chances of a win slip away when Ben Martinez crashed the team's FZR750 fairly lightly, but they couldn't reenter the race for some time due lO a bent steering dampne:r. At several points during tBe race the rain came down so hard that many riders pulled off the track, feeling it was unsafe to continue. With many of the top teams in and