Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

eDIRT TRACK AMA Gl3Dd National Championship_/C_am _el_Pf_oS_en_'es_: R_oUD_d_I_1 ____ e Scott Parker (I) led Dan Ingram (:JI), Ronnie Jones (16), a maneuvering Rick y Graham (3), Jay Springsteen (9), Rodney Farris (92) and Randy Texter (65) 0(£ the line. Parker wins fifth Ind Mile y By Larry Lawrence Photos by Bert Shepard INDIANAPOLIS, IN, AUG. 25 n the closest Ca mel Pro Series race o f th e seaso n , fa ctory H arl eyDavidson rider SCOll Park er edged out teammat e Chris Carr by less than a wh eel length to win the 36th edition of the Indy Mile. Parker moved past four-time Indy winners Hank Scott and Ricky Graham to becom e the winn in gest rider ever at the fabled Indiana Sta te Fairgrounds oval with five Indy Mile victor ies. The win also moves Park er into second on th e alltim e AMA Grand Nati onal dirt trac k win list. T he def ending Grand Nation al Ch ampion now has :J4 career wins, mo vin g him past Bubba Sho. bert 's 33 win mark. Jay Springsteen still h ead s th e list with 40 career .victories. Most importantly for Parker is the .fact that he has now closed to within 10 points of Carr in the race for the Grand National Champion ship! Camel Pro Series titl e and the $100,000 that is awarded to the cha mp. The Swartz Creek , Michigan, rider was pumped after his victory. "This caps off a perfect ni ght. I love racing here at Indy. We're right back in the hunt for the championshi p now " , said a j ubi lant Parker who was whooping it up with an estimated 8000 ent husiastic fan s. ' Park er left th e fairgrounds with a fat wall et. In add iti on to the $5750 first pl ace Indy purse, Parker earned $2300 for leading 23 laps of the Nati on al. The biggest ch unk of Pa rker's big payday came in th e form of a check for $10,000 from R.J. Reynolds for hi s win in th e Cam el Ch all enge. With conti nge ncies figu red in , Park er p o cket ed over $20,000. There was other big news at Indy, mostl y involvin g action off the track. I 10 · In th e week since the Hagerstown Half Mil e National , hometown favor ite Dan In gram severed his ties with ESP Racing, the Skip Eaken/Mike Sponseller Honda team , an d at the last minute picked up a ride on the Mert Laww ill -b uilt G a rdner /La ww i ll H arl ey-D a vid son . All th at either Ingram or Eaken would sayan the spl it is tha t they had a fall ing out. Lawwill was on a busin ess trip in Japan when he heard that Ingram was looking for a rid e. " I'm surprised to be here. The whole deal came toge the r so quickly, it feels strange to all of a sudden be prep aring for Indy", said Lawwill prior to the race. Ea ken didn 't waste tim e gelli ng' an other rider for Indy. It just so happen ed th at tw o -t im e Grand National Ch ampion Rick Graham was available. Graham is one of the masters of Indy, ha ving won four Nation al s at the famous mil e. The only problem was that Graham was vacati on ing in T exas. " Nobody in the racing world knew where I was. Finally th ey got a message to my parents who were abl e to reach me. It was Thursday before I even knew they wante d me to race here. I'm tickled pink to have the chance to ride one of Skip 's bik es. I was gell ing tired of doing noth in g but CU lling the grass and barb ecuing," exp lai ned Graham prior to fini sh in g fourth in th e Na tional beh in d Parker, Carr and Okl ah oman Ronnie Jones. The "cl aiming game" cont inued a t Indy. At th e Peoria TT a few weeks prior to Indy , a loophole in th e AMA claiming rule allo wed the Harl ey team to claim engi nes from within their own team. T hat prot ected the two of the Harley factory rid ers from having their motors claimed for 45 days. T hat was don e in respon se to having had both Park er and Carr's motors claim ed (at a cost of $17,500) by Will Davis and Rodney Farris, respectively. In a pre-arranged deal , R andy Tex te r cl a ime d J ay Sprin g st een 's mo tor - but he really didn 't. It was a cla im on paper on ly. In reality, T exter would turn the motor back over to Springsteen ,- giving Springsteen 45 days of freedom from "th e cla im rule; in o ther words, he's protected for the remainder of the season . In - order to protect the motor he cla imed from Parker for 45 da ys, Davis worked ou t a similar " fake clai m" deal with Rusty Rogers. T he wh ol e claiming co nt roversy stems from a problem with some of the Harley racing motors bought by severa l privateer teams. According to one mechanic, a bi g batch of cases from H -D weren 't ma chined properly, ca us ing the motors to seize. The problem has said to be since corrected. One rider , wh o asked not to be iden tified , said, " H opefu lly things will correct themselves soon. We need to get back to being able to buy a good motor from Harley for th e regular price (app roximately $6000 on th e recent ba tch) instead of $17,500." T im e Trials Ch ris Carr went ou t late in the qualifyin g session to make hi s run and it paid off. Carr's 36.684 second/98.135 mph lap, although far off the 35.211/ 102.241 record lap turned in by Bubba Shobert in 1985, put him on top of a tightly bunched group of six riders who all qualified within a tenth of a second of each other. The top six quali fiers advanced to the big dollar Ca mel Cha llenge. Behind Carr cam e tea mma te Parker, Californ ia riders Keith Day and Ricky Graham, then lon gtime veterans and form er Indy winners T erry Poo vey and J ay Sp ringsteen. All of the top six rid ers ran in th e 36-sec o nd range. H ager stown winner Steve Moreh ead headed up the rest of th e 41-rider field, qualifyin g sevent h wi th a 37.050. Heats A distinct but narrow blue groove was laid down during practice and time trials and Carr noted tha t it would be tough to pass, "You're just going to have to sta y in the groove behind people and hope you can get a good enough drive ou t of th e turns to pass on th e straigh ts." Only th e top three finishers from each of the fou r IO-Iap heat races would be assu red a starting spo t in th e Nation al. Carr led from start to fini sh in th e first heat , ·while Cornwell joined in a tough second pl ace battle wi th Mike Hale and T exter as Carr pulled away for a co m for ta ble win . Cornwell dropped out with unknown problems wh ile Texan Hale pulled away from Texter to finish second. Parker rode to an equally convincing win in heat number two. Morehead gave it all he could to stay with the number one plate holder but had to settl e for second. Farris and Rusty Rogers were involved in a titanic battle for the final transfer spo t. At one po int th e two riders touched tires when Farris slammed the door on Rogers. Farris eventually pulled away to take home th ird on his backup Gardner Racing Harley. Day was having a good race leading the third heat before gelling off the groove and crashing his Hank SCOll Racing Honda in turn three on the last lap. That left th e door open for Mari on eaux Racing Honda-mounted Poovey to nudge out Ingram at th e line for the win . Will Davis fini shed a distant third. T he last heat race was th e best of the night. Graham didn 't look at all ru sty fro m hi s lon g lay-off when he took the lead in the earl y going, but Spnngsteen and Jones caught up with Graham by turn three and the race was on. The lead trio took turns leading the 10 lap even t. In the closing stages, Jones and Graham opened a slight gap over Springsteen. Meanwhile, Minnesotan

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