Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

Team Suzuki 's 'Paul Bray and Mike Sinith won the six -hour endurance race at PIR to stay w ithin striking distance of the po ints-leading Humans. Human Race Team regular Kurt Hall was joined by newcomer Barry Burke to f inish second overall in their .9uest for a second consecutive title . The restart was held amidst a cloud of grease-sweep after a motor exploded during the original sta rt attempt. WERA/EBC Brakes National Endurance Road Race Series: Round 5 Team Suzuki back on track with Portland win By Russ Cazier PORTLAND, OR, MAY 20 T eam Suzuki 's Paul Bray an d Mike Smith took "the l ead during the secon d hour of th e WERA six-hour a t Portland International Raceway and never gave i t up, taking firs t overall and the H eavyweight Superbike class win to . put k i h h . h th em b ac 10 t ~ un t 10 t e WERA /E BC Senes. The Human Race T eam , winners last year at Portland and fresh from wins in th e two previous rounds of the series, led during the firs t hour with team leader Kurt Hall aboard their Yamaha FZRIOOO. -Bray of T eam Suzuki, however, stayed in his draft th e en tire hour, and th e best H all cou ld do was gain a few feet, not th e few laps he needed. Southern Californian Barry Burke, a Human Race Team newcomer, rod e smooth and very fast , although not quite as fast as H all . An II-second pit stop put Smith aboard .the Keith Perrytuned Team Suzuki GSXRllOO, an~ at the end of hour two Team Suzuki had a lap lead . During the th ird hour, Team Suzuki gained another lap and h eld the two-lap lead through hour five. The action heated up in th e drive to th e checkered flag , as Team Suzuki, with a two-lap cushion in ha nd, started to n urse their lead, saving the bike and the tires while keeping a close eye on the Humans, who were moving up fast. By the end of th e race, th e Humans were back on the same lap, and took the checkered nag just 10 seconds behind th e winners. Dave Zupan, "Zupertuner'tIor the Humans, said, " It wasn't as close as it looked. Once these guys settl e into a rhythm and start cran king off co nsistent laps, if their guy is a second faster th an yours, they're going to gain a certain amount of ground, and th ere's not mu ch that heroi cs can do to cha nge that. They kn ew wh ere we were and wh at th ey had to do to keep us th ere, and that was abo ut th at." The Human Race Team is sponsored by Fox Racing USA, Metz el er , Arai , Klotz an d Yam ah a. . The race got off to a poor start wh en T eam Loose Ends blew an oil filter 500 yards down the front stra ig ht, laying down th e longest oil slick this side of th e Gulf of Alaska. The red nag came out a lap later, causing a full hour delay to clean it up. The race was declared a non-start, and when the green flag again dropped, 54 riders screamed through a small desert of grease-sweep. The ensuing cloud made entering turn one ra nightmare, but somehow everyone go t through. By the third lap the white powder was gone, and although turn one required .special care for another half-hour, racing began in earnest. Despite the attention focused on .the Humans and Team Suzuki, with Hall and Bray' running nose-to-tail for nearly an hour, there was great racing going on all around the track. At the end of th e first hour the topeigh t overall leaders were a ll Heavyweight Superbikes, and although Ha ll and Bray had la pped the field, Centralia Ford/Insulate Industries was down just o ne lap (47 to the leaders' 48 over th e I.915-mile track). The next fou r bik es - Caz Racing, Performance La b Racing, 3-D Racing and T eam Hyper-Cycle - were all on th e 46th lap, seconds a part, and in volved in a terrific dice. The main conte nders for Heavyweight Production were th e ultrafast Trinder brothers, Craig and Steve, o n the Van Isle MC/Insulate Industr ies Canadi an 750cc Kawasaki, local favor ites Zlock Racing with ano ther brother team of Keith and Brad Pinkstaff alo ng with Dan Zlock o n an 1i00cc Suzuki, and Tujunga , California 's T eam Sledge, riding th e wh eels off a 750cc Suzuki. The Pinkstaffs and Zlock kept the Trinders in sig h t, staying within two laps throughout the race, and Keith Pinkstaff's charge during th e last hour co uld n't close on th e Trinders, but was necessary to fend off an all ou t effort from T eam Sledg e, who finished just a lap behind. . Mediumweight Superbike was a race from start to finish for Team America and Royale Ra cing, with Don Fielden and Andy Deatherage pushing their Yamaha FZR600 to a one-minute win ov er Mi chigan riders Jim East and Doug H enry. Mediumweight Production was ano ther do gfight with Jim Still, Bob Von Nessen and Bru ce Baldus of T eam We're Human T oo up just one lap over second pl ace Sportbikes Only, wh o crossed th e fini sh lin e exac tly two seconds in front of Pegasus Racing. . Yet another six-hour battle ensued between two trios of PIR regulars, Wanna Be Racing and Three Men & A Bike, both teams Yamaha FZR400-mounted. Their contest was finall y decided by a reanalysis of the scoring sheets, which showed Alan and George Schwen and Ed Sadvar up a half-minute over Robert H inojosa, Darr R iggert a nd Tony Rome. Georgian Paul Bray of the winning Team Suzuki offered several comments about the trac k and the raci ng: "This is my first time here," he said. "It's a very safe track with an excellent surface. You can learn the track pretty fast and just co ncentra te on being smooth and making easy passes . And even though there were slower bikes, there were no slow riders as such. A lo t of times you have to contend with guys that you just don't know what they're going to do, but that wasn't really a big problem today." Bra y' s Team Suzuki is sponsored by Suzuki, Va lvoline,

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