Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

Team America (1 0 ) and Royale Rac ing (5 ) were this close most of the day. Royale f inished second overall. Winner Team Suzuki's Paul Bray (2) was shadowed by local Ray Yoder for the first 20 m inutes before Yoder put Three Guys Racing ahead. WERAjEBC Brakes National Endurance Road Race Series: Round 7 Team Suzuk- wins when 'Humans break 'a t Grattan By Larry Lawrence GRATfAN, MI, J ULY I . Team Suzuki Endurance overcame a crash an d a two-lap penalty to win the G rattan Eight-Hour, their fifth WERA/EBC Endurance victory of the season. Mike Smith and Paul Bray rode the Valvoline/ Araii D un lo p / E m go / SBS/ I Sunoco/ Mi kun i- sponHines/ Fox/Tsubaki/Vance & sor ed GSX RI IOO to a six- lap margin of victory over Dou g H en ry and T err y Bailey of Ro yal e Ra cing. T eam America. with riders Frank 5I30gh'ter. Don Felden and Andy Ileathridge, finished a close third, losing second to Ro yale in tfie last VI" m inu tes of th e race. Royall" and Team America both rod e Yamaha FZR600s. Defending \VERA Champions the Human Race Team held a co m fo rt a b le lead w he n thei r Yam aha lost a mo tor wi th o nly 20 minu tes lef t i n th e eve nt. The Humans finis hed eight h overa ll. Gra tta n has not always been a friendly place, (or T ea m ' Suzuki. Neither Bra y no r Smi th had ever seen the track befo re th is weekend. Both rid ers said th ey lik ed th e track, Smith saying it was o ne of the best tracks he had ever been to. In pr actice, both riders dipped belo w 1:30 lap times, somet hi ng th at only a select few riders have ever do ne a t this diffi cult two-m ile circu it. T he Humans felt righ t at hom e at G rattan . Kurt Hall has won many a race here, as has teammate T im Morrissey, and Andy Fenwick had held the track record here before. Even team cap ta in Dave Zupan had taken ho me a truckload of tro phies from this track in years past. G rattan certai n ly favors th e loca l riders and man y of the 56 teams ente red were just th at - local riders formi ng a team for this race o n ly. T he Human Race T eam ju mped o ut 10 an early lead wi th H all at th e co n tro ls. H all turned severa l laps in th e I :2i range and held an eig htsecond lead after onl y four laps. Bray was in seco nd o n T eam Suzuki and was bein g shado wed by Ra y Yoder o n th e Three Guys Racing entry, on e of th ose o ne-time local teams. Other leading teams in the openin g laps included Wright-Line Racin g, 3-D Racin g, Team Gateway, TBA Raci ng and E&H Racing. Pop ul ar Canadian rider Ka thl een Coburn was making her traditional appearance a t Grattan in preparation for the Suzuka, J apan , EightHour. Coburn ran in the top IO for the first co uple of laps bu t was forced to pit later with badly fading brakes. H all continued to extend H RT's lead throughout the first hour. Hall was riding effortlessly through the heavy traffi c, pas sing packs of five and six riders all in one clean motion as he exited th e turns. Bray, on th e o ther hand, looked frustrated with th e traffi c. At tim es he would stuff th e big Suzuki undern eath a co up le of riders on ly to ha ve hi s driv e ru in ed by two or three more riders in his way. Twenty m inutes into th e race Yoder passed Bray, putting the Three Guys Suzuki G SXR II 00 into second. Bra y would say later th at the traffic wa s j ust to o heavy to take any chances on racing with Yoder. Back a few seconds, Mark McDa ni el, riding th e 3-D Suzuki, was ch as i n g Wright-Line Ra cing's Chuck Graves in a battle for fourth. Ned Hart held a solid sixth o n th e TBA Suzuki about 15 seconds back . Gene Burcham was charging forward on th e CIA FZR600. Burcham was the first Mediumweight bik e and just before th e end of th e first hour he stu ffed Hart' go ing into th e esses to take over sixth. ' In the second hour 3-D Racing aga in experienced a recurring problem with a brok en oi l coo ler. The team made repai rs but were o ut of content ion for th e win. At th e end of the second hour 3-D was in 53rd pl ace. CIA Ra cin g ' s exce lle n t driv e through th e field came to an end in th e second hour when th eir transmissio n fail ed, Burcham was pi cked up by TBA Racing to help them finish th e race. Second-place Three Guys Racing ran into problems with their quickfill lank breaking on the team's fint step, Fritz Kling blasted out ol pits on the Three Guys-Suzuki III third p lace. A six- bike pileup in-the second hour brought out th e red nag. All of th e teams invo lved in th e cra sh were abl e to make the restart. In a great di spl ay o f spo rts ma ns h ip, T error Ra cing loan ed T eam BMH a radia to r to help them co nti nue after th e p ileup. Terror had go ne out earlier and took the radi ato r off th eir en d u ra nce mach in e. T error a nd BMH are series ri val s in th e Mediumweight Su perbike class. Ro yal e Racing and T eam Ameri ca were qu ickly moving up in the standings during the seco nd hour. ' America was in Iith after th e first hour, Royale in 18th. At the end of th e second hour Royale was in sixth , Ameri ca sevent h . T erry Bailey was riding in hi s first race for Royale since breaking hi s leg at Roebling ' Road. In th e Li ghtweight class Ra w Racing was still without th e services of Kevin Rentz ell , but riding on their home tra ck th e team was still able to lead rival RKN Rac ing by two laps after two hours. . On th e restart, it took abou t five laps for Mike Sm ith to put the T eam Suzuki bik e in front of McDaniel on 3-D and Klin g on Three Gu ys Racing. And y Fenwick was mired back in fourth, but actually in first pl ace, almost a full lap ahead of Team Suzuki. Smith was beginning to feel comfortab le on th e track. Even though team o rders were to ride co nservatively , Smith felt he cou ld catch Fenwick and put his team back into the lead. Smith began pushing the big Suzuki, especially III the esses, but crashed the Team Suz u ki mac hi ne when he let his emotio ns get the best of him. T he damage was lig ht , so Smit h got back on th e bike and too k a couple of laps to give th e Suzuki crew time to prepare to make repairs. Smith 's actions were a d irec t violation of the ru les - he was

• Cover