Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

Working hard or hardly working? HRT Team Captain Dave Zupan. Team Suzuki's Paul Bray (2) gets the jump on Human Race Team's Kurt Hall (1) at the start. The Human Race Team smiles for the cameras following their win in the Nelson Ledges 24-Hour. HRT continues to lead the point standings. WERAjEBC Brakes National Endurance Road Race Series: Round 8 Humans survive Nelson edges 2 4 -Hours By Larry Bell " GARRETTSVILLE, OH, JULY 15-16 In quiet, methodical, near-surgical -fashion the Human Race Team carved a very large paragraph in endurance motorcycling's record books by staging a dramatic come-fro m-beh ind race to win the 21 st running of the 24Hours of Nelson. Along the way team members Andy 14 , Fen wick , T im Morrissey , J im Tri- bou , Ray Yoder and especia lly Kurt H all cleanl y dem onst rat ed their mas tery of the undula tin g two-mile Ne lso n . Ledges Road Cou rs~ by comp leting 1052 laps (2104 miles), That' s more than their previous 1987 record 1018 (2036 miles) and, accord- . ing to track officia ls, more than any vehicle has ever covered at the track in a 24-hour period. The dra matic win was high lighted by the unequaled rid ing of Hall, who led the team back from a 34-lap deficit after a crash and the resultant 46mi nu te repair. Last year's overall winner an d another pre-race favori te, Team Suzuki, earned an as terisk in that paragrap h by finish ing second with 1046 lap s (2092 miles) and also for blowin $" their comma ndi ng lead . Team nders Paul Bray, Mike Sm ith, J eff Atwell ' and Britt Turkington were the epi tome of efficiency on the track wi th their consistent lap tim es, use of traffic and quick gas/rider/ tire stops until a crash lat e Sunday morning sent Bray sp rawling to the asphalt and Royale Racing's Doug Henry to the hospi tal. That crash handed HRT the op po rtu n ity to clo se th e gap between them and Suzuki. And they jumped on it. Finis hing third overall and racing a pitifull y sto ck GSXRIIOO was T BA. The team 's performance was far from pitiful as rid ers Gene Burcham , Ned Hart, La rry Cohee and Rick Delgado turn ed 1039 laps (2078 miles). Delgado arrived lat e Frida y night, and had never seen the track, bu t quickly dialed in the rich jetting a n d wa s tu rni n g n earsuperbike la p times. A single lap off third place was T eam Machine with 1038 laps (2076 miles). Riders Dan Milelka, Tom Pira ino, Bob Wrubl veski , R ich Burdick, Brian White and Jim Burdick survived their very first 24-hour even t and a lighting problem at night to land the only Mediumweight-class machine in the top five, a Honda CBR600. They too broke the previous record. Rounding out the top five was Team Gateway on their kidneyshattering Suzuki GSXR II 00. Riders Gene Burcham, Mark Heiser, Jay Denham, Tommy Sloan, Earl Spellman and Matt Macheca log~ed 1018 laps on a machine that blew ItS shock before the race ever started and forced members to literally hang on through the bumpy areas. . Mention must be mad e of Lightweight winner and seventh-overall fin ishe r RKN Racing. RKN 's riders Robert Nutt, Chuck Huneycutt, Fabian Cortez and Canadian ace Kat hl een Coburn survived their firstever 24-ho ur togeth er, with a front tire tha t lasted' 16 hours then blew a six in ch ch unk, and bundled all that effort into a tin y FZR400 that went 1008 laps. " It just l?0es to show you that it's not over till it's over," said a very drained, physically and emo tio nally, Kurt Hall shortly after the race. " At Grattan, we kind of handed it to th em (Su zu k i). This tim e they handed it to us. We appreciate their reciprocation." The jab was aimed because HRT blew their motor while leadin g at Gra ttan , with mom ents remai ni ng and allowed Suzuki to wi n. Here HRT had crashed just before the end of the seven th hour and Suzuki used the downtime to parlay a 34-lap lead which th ey, in turn, blew away in a sp ill which all owed HRT to recapture the lead and the overall. Twenty-nine team s took to th e grid for th e 3:00 p.m. start of the race, a day-long contest which favors a crew with a good working relationship, and strong riders who can be counte d on for their consistency. For HRT that meant a comp lete motor/ chassis rebu ild after the Grattan debacl e by tuner Dave Zupan with everyt hi ng new from the cases up to th e home-r eworked sh ock and exhaust. Suzuki's prep was carefully massaged by Keith Perry and pronounced by team members as "the most read y we've ever been. " Un usually perfect weather prevailed for the weekend with mid-SOdegree highs a nd 50-degree low nights. More importantly, the track has been undergoing a rejuvenating process that is bringing the limits of tire adhesion to new , albeit bumpy, levels. No rain, fog or animals en tered the track and experi enced 24 hour veterans predicted an exceptionally fast pace. HRT picked up experienced pilot Jim Tribou as an added safety measure in case Hall, who was injured ' in a crash in Georgia, couldn't perform up to snuff. Suzuki relied on Atwell for nighttime maturity and " no dumb mistakes." HRT's Fox /USAIMetzeler/ Arai / Klotz/Yamaha-sponsored ' FZRlOOO and Suzuki's Valvoline/ ArailEmgo/ Dunlop/Tsubaki /Fox-sponsored GSXRllOO easily bolted from the grid and the pack and displayed their horsepower ad vantages by turning lap times in the mid-to-upper teens. So close was the racing tha t for the first six hours they were usually on the same lap, just seconds apart as they flashed past the tower, with the

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