Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

AMA/CCS EBC Brakes Endurance Challenge Dutchman II's Donald Jacks (3) leads Dutchman Racing's Dale Quarterley (1) and a practicing Scott Gray (73) at the start. Dutchman betterHumans a tRoadAmerica By Brian Catterson Photo by Werner Fritz 22 ELKHART LAKE, WI,JUNE 30 " I'm going to talk to tho se gu ys and see if they'll pa y me the $I000 if no one beats us," said Dutchman Racing Captain Dave Schlosser after h is team clin ched their third win of the season at Road America. Bounty or no bounty, Dutchman Racin g's Dal e Qu arterley and T om Kipp rode their Suzuki GSXRllOO to an overpo wering win at the Elkhart Lak e circu it, set in the lush green co u nt ryside o f centra l Wiscon sin 's vacation coun try. The Dut chm an duo completed 73 lap s at an average speed of 95.949 mil es per hour to defeat the second-place Human Race T eam by two minutes, 8.71 seconds - nearl y a lap of the 14turn circuit. which at four miles in length is the lon gest in North America. H ow ever, the win almo st wasn ' t theirs as Qu art erley was forced to nurse the bike around the final lap and coasted across the fin ish lin e with the motor starving for fuel. The lure of a $1000 bounty posted by series spo nsors EBC Brakes (pa yable to the first team to defeat both Dutchman Racin g and Dutchman II ), plus the close prox imity of Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin , to their home base of Waukegan, Illinois, provided the incentive for Dave Zupan 's Human Race Team to try their hand at AMA/CCS endurance racing. While the former WERA Endurance Champions ha ve proven themselves adept at races of six hours or more in length, today 's threehour Endurance Challenge would test their "sprint racing" skills. The Human s fielded usual riders Andy Fenwick and Rick Kirk, plus northern Californian Phil Kress, who contested the AMA/CCS Series last year for Team Motor Sport and who's ridden for the Humans in the past at Willow Springs. The start saw . Scott Gray put his ' Yoshimura Suzuki superbike out front to begin the final race of Saturday afternoon, but he was just testing for the follow ing day's National and would not be a factor in the outcome. Behind Gra y, the start looked like any other as Tripp Nobl es officially " led" the first lap on the po tent Geo rge Fittsprepared Keyston e Racin g Suzuki. By the beginning of lap two, however, Dutchm an II's Donald J acks had passed both Gray and Nobles and would cont inue to lead until crashing in turn on e on lap six. "I was tucked in and going a bit faster than I'd gone in there before. I didn 't think I was going to make the tum so I went straight and tucked the front end in the grass," said Jacks, who was anxious 10 prove his worth in the endurance race since his superbike was stuck in Florida in the back of a broken truck. The crash was the second for Dutchman II recentl y, Donnie Greene having crashed two races ago at Brain erd, Minnesota. Green e opted to skip Road America wh ile he recu pera ted, and Canadian Jacques Gu enette J r. was slated to take his place. However, like at Brainerd , Gu enette never got to ride at Road America. Thou gh the Dutchman crew was preparing to repair the crashed bike, when it arrived back at the pi ts it was deemed too damaged to conti nue. . " We didn 't want to chan ce putting someone on sub-standard equipmen t," said Dutchman crewman Mike Patt on . J acks' crash gave the lead back to Gra y, who had begun to put some distan ce on Qu arterl ey and Nobl es. For a change, Yamahas were doing a good job of infiltrating the predominantly Suzuki ranks as the FZRlOOOs of The Human Race Team, Northstar Racing, T eam Magic and Boulder Yamaha held the next four positions. Dutchman continued to lead until lap 22, when Kipp took the con trols from Quarterley. This allowed Keystone's Nobles to resume the lead for three laps before Kipp again put the Dutchman machine out front . Kipp led throughout his stint, and turned the fastest laps of the race up to that point near the end while racing with Gray , who had pitted but returned to the track for further testing. Kipp turned a best lap of 2:24.74, quite a bit faster than his next best lap, a sole 2:25.68, and then a host of2:27s through 2:3Is, depending on traffic. The crew displayed a "slow down" sign on the pit board in order to conserve the bike's brakes, which are always a concern given Road America 's abundance of long stra ightaways followed by tight comers. Kipp 's blistering times triggered so me wha t of an in tra tea m rivalry between Kipp and Quarterley, and when Quarterley resumed the riding chores on lap 47 he went on to surpass Kipp 's time with a pai r of 2:24s. The Humans emp loyed a slightly different strategy, electing to run their lead two riders, Fenw ick and Kirk, a length y 30 lap s before putting Kress on board for the final 13 go-rounds. Kirk was slated to start the race, but he was tired from an earlier Supersport race so Fenwi ck was sent ou t first. When Kirk did take the contro ls, he immediately put HRT into con tent ion, closin g on Qu arterley and then sneaking past one lap before being quickly repassed. It was then that Quarterley turned his fastest laps, a 2:24.83 and 2:24.53, successively, followed by a couple of 2:25s, despite the fact that a chunk of the rear tire was missing. In fact, Quarterley had been held briefly in the pi ts when the crew spo tted a cu t in the rear tire, but elected not to change it. " We weren 't sure if they were going to have to pit aga in ," explained Quarterley when asked about his quick lap s. The next lap , Kirk pitted, virtu all y handing the win to Dutchm an . " I turned some 24s when I got Dale in sight, but I was too tired," said Kirk after the race. " It doesn 't feel an y different doing 24s than 30s," countered Qu arterley. :' It just drif ts more." Schlosser attributed the team's performance to thr ee days of testing at Loudon foll ow ing th e recent AMA National, during which they cured the bike's previously troubl esome handling probl ems. "The bike's finally working," said Schlosser, who will now resume his original plan of entering Quarterley on the bike in select rounds of the WERA Formula USA Series. Despite his short tim e in the saddle, Kress still managed to have a moment when he ran off-track in the so-called Canada comer on his third lap, putting the HRT FZR in a gravel trap, but not daring to let it fall. "I was thinking 'Zupan is going to kill me,": said Kress, who lost precious few seconds regaining the pavemen t. Despite their earlier brilliance, Keystone's race went awry when Nobles piued with electrical troubl es on lap 36. Team ' Ca ptain George Fitts quickly changed the battery, bu t one lap later the bik e was back in the pits, They then losI some 20 mi nutes troubleshootin g and repl acing a broken coil; they'd event ua lly fini sh eig ht h , nine lap s beh ind the winners. Ever-consistent T eam Magic's J an Erik Svensson and Pro Twins stando ut Crai g Shambau gh fina lly managed to earn a rostru m posi tion, doin g so with a third -place finish, three lap s behind the top two teams. The other FZRlOOOs didn 't fare as well. The Boulder Yamaha machi ne expired on lap 46 when a rod went th rou gh th e cra n kca se, whi le th e Northstar' bike was retired on lap 49 with a suspected lubri cation problem. T eam Fastl in e-MCM' s J eff Stern, Barry Burke and T ommy Lynch fin ished on the same lap as T eam Magic to claim fourth place today in what will likely be their last AMAlCCS event. Stern and former teammate Jeff Rheaume have parted company, and Stern will now be following the WERA circuit with Burke. (Lynch will continue to campaign a Yoshimura Suzuki in the AMAlCCS Supersport Series.) Houston Kawasaki's Rust y Allen and James Deister put in their best performance thus far to finish fifth on their ZX7, five lap s behind Fastline-MCM. Team Toomer Too's Mark Chin and Lee Shierts recovered from a botched start and a broken chain to finish lOth. Chin had stalled the bike on the starting grid, and was pushed off to the side of the track where he had to wait until after the second wave to begin. The duo would con tinue their climb through the ranks before the cha in brok e, leaving Shierts to pu sh the bike back to the pits. The tea m was at first disqualified because Shierts pu shed the bike on the race cou rse (disregarding a corn er.worker's ins truction s), but they were rein stated and credited with 10th place, 21 laps behind the leaders. . Chin was join ed by Shierts on the T oom er T oo GSXRllOO after Glenn Barry injured his back and leg in a massive pra ctice crash on Frida y. In fact, thr ee of T oom er's riders were invo lved in Friday's pra ctice crash, with GTU teamst er J on Roberts rebreaking the collarbone he broke at Road Atlanta in early May and Canadian Mike Taylor almost falli ng after losin g the front end of hi s Yam aha FZR600. The accident was triggered when an unidentified bike blew its motor and dropped oil go ing down the hill into turn five, and a clu ster of mostly Florida-b ased rid ers eit he r weren 't sho wn or didn 't see a yellow flag. . " I saw yellow, but it wasn 't a flag - it was the Northstar bike go ing end over end," said Taylor. Northstar's Kevin Lenzmeier was the most seriously injured in the accident, sustaini ng a compound fractur e of the lower left leg. Also involved were Team Mad Dog's Michael Barnes (riding his Yamaha FZR600 Supersport bike ), and HRT's Kress, who chose an inside line and somehow missed the melee. AMA Superbike Champion Jamie James was specta ting near the comer, and when he saw the carnage unfolding before him he ran out and snatched the yellow flag from the tum five cornerworker, then ran to. the crest of the hill . to signal the following riders. "Thanks to Jamie there weren't a whole bunch more of us," said Roberts. According to AMA officials, a yellow flag was displayed at the turn four station, but its distance from turn five was perhaps too great. In response to the situation, a new station was added. at turn 4A. The effects of Friday 's practice crash were most obvious in the GTU class,

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