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/127132
00 00 O"l 1""""4 Dave Schultz (near lane) powered his Eagle 1 Kawasaki Ninja past Bob Carpenter (f ar lane ) to win the NHRA Castrol GTX drag race in Commerce. NHRA CastroI GTX Championship Drag Race Series - Injuries can't stop Schultz at Atlanta . By John Brasseaux COMMERCE, GA, APR. 23·24 It is safe to say that Dave Schultz's win at the Nation al Hot Rod Association AC-Delco Southern Na tion als at Atlanta Dragway was one of his most memorable. How so? T wo weeks before the event, Schultz fell off a ladder and bro ke both of his hands. It was a very gu tsy • .-<> de cision by the F~. Myers, 24 Florida, native to compete in such a condition. And the n to come out . as the winner made his courageous effort all the more admirable. Schultz, aboard his Eagle I-backed ' Kawasaki Ninja, served no tice at the end of qualifying that he was not ,to be taken ligh tly because of his handicap, so to speak. He was in the number . one p!Jsition going into eliminations WIth an 8.11 second, 161.81 mph showing that the re was nothing wro ng with his bike. However, he had to make a number of conces sions to make it do wn the track. Schultz was fitted with a lightweight, abbreviated fiberglass cast on his It;ft hand and a removable cast ' • for his throttle hand. The controls _ clutch lever and shift button were moved slightly to make them easier to reach. Even though he made the win look easy, it wasn 't. He had a considerable amount of discomfort handling the 160-mph missi le. In the first round of competition, Schultz got p a st a red-lighting Charlie Gressman and he ran a subpar 8.22 on the ru n . "I didn't ride as I usually do," said Sch ultz. "That was my first race and I still wasn't sure of myself." The next race was with Terry Vance and it would be the closest of eliminations. T h eir meeting was ' ironic from the standpoint that the two also met in the second round of the Gatornationals in March, with Vance coming out as the victor. This ' time, Schultz took the victory, 8.26/ 159.15 to Vance 's 8.30/157.97. "T hat one was close ," Schultz remembers. " I cou ld hear his tail pipe in my ear all the way down' the track." That loss capped off a less than spectacular showing for the Vance & Hines team. Although their motor was running up to expectations on the dyno before the race, it fell off in power at the Southern Nationals. Obviously they have more work to do before they can come back to the top of the heap inPro Stock. By his admission, the third race of the day was Schultz's toughest. He faced Russ Olmstead, whq. had the quicker bike of the IWO up to this point (O lmstead had run a 8.21/ 159.57 in his second-round win), Schultz needed a very good reaction time to the green light to get the jump on Olmstead and hold him off to the finish line. That's exactly what he did with a 10th of a second holeshot at the start and beat O lmstead's 8.18/ 157.95 with a slower 8.20/158.64. Schultz was now in the final against Bob Carpenter, a veteran NHRA Pro Stock campaigner. After struggling in the first ro und with i~nition troubles (his opponent redlighted), Carpen ter put together a pair of 8.22 times to earn h is right to the fina l. On paper, it looked like d a very closely ma tched contest. However, once the race got u nderway, it became obvious that Schultz was goin~ to win. About 60 feet from the starting line after the pair left Schultz won despite racing w ith broken hands suffered in a fall two weeks before the race. together, Carpenter's transmission slipped from second gear into neutral. That sent the engine to about 12,000 rpm. The rpm lim iter took over at that point a n d cut th e ignition. By the time Carpenter go t his Suzuki back in gear, Schul tz was long gone and recor ded an 8.19/ 159 .85 time. Carpenter l i mped through. the quarter-mile to a 21second time. ' If Sch ultz can win with two broken hands, it doesn 't loo k good for the rest of the riders as they all chase the Castrol GTX Championshi p poin ts. With only six races left on the tour, Schultz, the reigning Castrol GTX champ, looked almost as good wi th two bro ken hands as they does with two good hands. •