00
00
O"l
........
Colorado State Champion John
Kye Gunn (3) laps 10th place finisher Gil Lescarbeau (25) on his way to the morning 1OOK endurance victory.
Hopperstad was fast all day long.
---------~----'------------I .
AMAjCCS Spr;nf~
l ,f
Valentine's Day
Massacre by Gunn
,
By Brian Catterson
CHANDLER, AZ, FEB. 14
Kye Gunn was the big Sunday sprin t r ace
winner at Firebird In ternational Raceway,
taking bo th the morning l O Endurance
OK
an d the afternoon Unlimited GP races on
his Suzuki GSXRllOO.
It was Arizona's number one
.
James " " Byrd getting the
Kelly
jump on the field at the start '
16
of the lOOK event (41-laps of the 1.6
mile, 12.-turn circuit). Colorado S~ate
Champion John Hopperstad tai led
Byrd. with Arizonian Gunn right
behind. The lead riders immediately"
began circulating the track in the
1:10 to 1:1I-range. Gunn passed
Hopperstad for second into turn one
when the ambulance flag was dis played (beca use the crash truck was
on the race course). Hopperstad said
later that he paused because Colo-
rado MRA rules forbid passing
betw~n ambul~n~e flags .
.
While negotiating heavy. traffic,
Gunn went around the outside of
Byrd in turn 12 to take the lead.
Hopperstad's
Yamaha FZR750
motored past Byrd's FZ750 on the
long straight for second p lace. O nce
Suzuki of Tucson-sponsored Gunn
was in the clear, he turned steady 1:09
lap times to gradually increase his
margin of victory to eight seconds.
Gunn used Metzeler "L" compound slicks , with Hopperstad using
a bias-ply Michelin front and radial ยท
rear, and Byrd on Michelin radials.
Hopperstad fini shed second, Byrd
