Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

~ ROAD RACE WERA K~rker/SBS National Endurance Series: Round 9 e Team Suzuki had built up such a lead that a crash in the final minutes couldn't prevent the team from winning their eighth WERA endurance race of the year. Norben Racing (69) dropped a valve on their Yamaha late in the race but still held on to win the Mediumweight Superbike class. ;, Action Suzuki (24), shown here leading Kosmo Racing (59) and Jay Springsteen (421) on the American Eag le Racing entry, finished fourth overall. Team Suzuki crashes, wins anyway at Grattan By Larry Lawren ce CRATIAN, MI,JULY 28 ea m Suzu ki Endurance's Kurt Hall, Mike Smi th and Britt T urking ton ro de the ir Val vo line Suzuki GSXRI 100 to its eig ht h WERA Na tio na l Endurance win of the year despite crash ing with less than two minutes remaining in the six-hour even t a t Grattan Raceway. Turkington and the Team Suzuki bike both hit a dense foam-pa dded gua rdra il at approximately 80 mil es per hour, and wh ile T ur kington was in an ambu lan ce bein g checked for concussion the T eam Suzuki mach ine lay mangled as the other endurance teams too k the checkered flag . , Desp ite the unfortunate ending to th e defe n di ng WER A En d u rance Ch am pions' race, the team had built up eno ugh of a lead on arch-riva ls The H um an Race Tea m (H RT) to win by r 24 two laps. H RT riders Andy Fenwick and Steve Rodden were not able to keep up with the torrid pace set by Team Suzuki and graduall y slipped three laps into arrea rs before the leaders cras hed, allo wing HRT to make up one lap. Hall 'N Still Racing cont inued their string of goo d fini shes after a bad beginnin g to th e season. T he Cinci nnati , O hio-based team , with riders Bruce Baldus, Michael Martin an d Ji m Still, finished th ird overa ll and first in th e Heav yweig ht Production class on the ShoeilWidman Suzuk ilMetzelerl R ES / Val vo l i n e-sp o n so red Su zu ki GSX RllOO. Gratt an Raceway has not always been kind to T eam Suzu ki, bu t someho w they seem to beat the odds th ere. Last year, th e team crashed and had resi gn ed themselves to finish ing second whe n, lat e in the race, HRT blew a motor handin g th e win to Suzuki. This year, Suzuki led fro m start to fin ish. Ha ll star ted on th e bik e and quickl y began to p ull away from the rest of the 56-bike field. Fenwick kep t the HRT Yamaha FZR I000 in the hunt during the first hour, bu t even the Grattan track record-holder was nearly a minute behind Team Suzuki by the one-hour mark. America n Eagl e Racing look ed to be a stro n g team. Ridi ng a Yoshimura Suzuki GSX RllOO, Grattan aces Fritz Klin g and Ray Yoder, J r. team ed wi th three-time Grand Nat iona l Ch ampion j ay Springsteen. Kling rod e the first stint, and desp ite the fact that he was still getti ng used to th e bike was runn in g th ird. Mart in was riding well on the Hall ' N Still entry and ran fourth during the first hou r. Vision Quest Racing crashed out during the first hour after ru nning near the front. During the second hour, Smith took over the cont ro ls for T eam Suzu ki and _began to add to his team 's lead. HRT rider Rodden was riding at Gratta n for the first time. The first-year HRT rid er ba nged his kn ee on a corne r indicator in th e first hour, an d with h is kn ee swo llen and immo bile Rodden was about two to three seconds o ff th e pace set by Smith. In th e second hour, Suzuki opened up a two-lap lead. American Eagle, wi th Spring steen riding very well , held a solid thi rd p lace. Sp ri ngs teen cou ld likely have don e even better bu t th e American Eag le Suzuki was missing badly at high rpm. By th e third hour, the team had pulled in and discovered the culprit was a dead battery. DAK Racin g displaced H all ' N Still for the fourth-p lace spo t. DAK was a team made up of Grat tan fast men Rod Ki ria n , S te ve H ei lm an a nd T orn W il son riding a BG Motorcycl e Accessories-backed GSXR750. California-based CLASS Racin g was going through the first-year racing blues duri ng the second ho ur. j ason Pridmore got dia led in to the tricky, two-mile Grattan circuit well enough to run as hig h as fifth place during the first hour, but teammate Avery Stewart was having a little more trouble corning to terms with learni ng the track: "I t JUSt takes experience to go fast at this track. My lap times carne ,down during my first stint bu t my pace dropped us way back," lamented Stewart. Durin g the second hour, CLASS dropped back to 13th. Ma tt hew Wi n nacker and Da vid Stevens were riding the wheels off th e little T eam Dreaded Yama ha FZR400. By the halfw ay point in the race , th e Missouri-based team had moved their Lightweight entry up into fifth overall. (L igh tweigh t class ra ce teams rarely crack the top 10, much less the top five.) Am eri can Spirit Ra ci n g (AS R) pin ched a gas line in th e first hour and was forced to make a lengthy unscheduled pit stop. After dro pping back to as low as 48th place, the Indianap olls, Indiana-based team worked all the way back to 18th overall by the end of the fourth hour. ASR eventually fini sh ed - 16th overall and sixth in Heavyweigh t Production , H on da o f N iles wa s hopi ng Ito continue th eir dominan ce i n th e Medi umweight Production class. H owever, th e 7-Up-sponsored team 's Honda CBR600 so u n de d Iike Li t woul dn't complete the six-ho ur event with a blow n exha ust gasket. Luckily, the tru sty Honda didn 't bu rn a valve and the team hel d off rivals SOB Racing by one lap at the finis h. During the fourth hour, Hall 'N Sti ll were locked in a tough battle with Action Suzuki and Norben Racin g for fourth p lace. H all ' N Still T eam Captain j im Still planned on keeping Martin on the team's Suzuki until the four-hour, 45-mi nute mark, at whidi po int he hoped they'd be able to rid e all-out to the fin ish. That plan was altered, how ever, when Martin came by signa ling that he was fa tigued. Martin 's lap tim es were slowing and Still didn 't want to take any chances on lett ing th e other team s - especially Heavyweight Production rival Acti on Suzuk i - get by, so Martin pulled in at the 4:35-mark. " We took th e weights off th e end of the handlebar s and th e vibrations made my hands go numb," Martin said. After that bit of bad luck, Baldus would have to ride the final stage of th e ra ce mor e co nse rva ti vely. Bui fortunately for th em , th e competition ahead and behind had prob lems. ~ First, American Eag le dropped out with a broken oi l coo ler wh ile running thi rd. T hen, the rear brake lever on the Action Suzuki carne loose and was dangli ng on the ground; the uns cheduled stop for that rep air effectively put them ou t of reach . The ot her team running with Action and Hall 'N Still was Mentor, Ohiobased Norben Racing. The Norben

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