Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

eROAD RACE AM! 250cc Grand Prix Series: Round 7 m Doug Brauneck (46) passed earl y leader Mike Sullivan (74) to win the 250cc Grand Prix final at Heartlan d Park Topeka. Brauneck wins, eyes title By Brian Catterson P h ot o by Werner Fritz TOPEKA, KS, AUG, 9 asty Ra cing's Dou g Brauneck moved a step closer to his first 250cc Grand Prix Championship by recla im ing the series points lead with a coo ly calcu lated win in th e 250cc GP final, held as the last even t of th e weekend at Heartland Park Topeka, The form er Pro Twin s GP Champ ion from Dallas, Georgia, passed early leader Mike Sullivan and then kept his eyes glued to his pit board as he ma intained a lead that fluctu ated between six and II seconds over the battle for second between DavHar Racing's Chris D'Aluisio and 250cc debutante Larry Schw artzba ch. That battle went down to th e wire as Schwartzbach came from his last-row starting positi on to pass D'Aluisio on the 18th of 20 laps. Schw artzbach's second-place fini sh mad e him the sensa tio n of th e weekend, as this was th e T exan 's secondever ride on a 250, his first being at a recent club race. H is bike, a Yamaha TZ250 owne d by Oil T echno logy Services' Erich Klementich and spo nsored by House of Wheels, was previously ridden by Robbie Petersen, Rick Kirk a n d, most recently, by Donnie Greene, but wh en 'G reene ' comp lained that it didn 't work well at Mid-Ohio, he wasn' t invited back. So while Schwartzbach basked in the limelight, Greene's color commentary illuminated anno un cer R ich a rd Chambers' play -by-play. The 20 points Brauneck earned for the win , his second of the season , moved him back in to th e series point standings as the series swings west for the final ro und at Willow Springs International Raceway, September 1416. Brauneck now leads D'Aluisio, 94 to 92, while Salaverria lies third with 89 points after a dismal fifth-p lace finish here. Early leader Sullivan faded to fourth, and holds fourth place in the standings as well with 49 points. Bra uneck's weekend was marred, however, by what he called " po tentially serious and expensive" motor problems. A crack in a recen tly ported and re-N ikisiled cylin der mean t that the privateer team had to rep lace it with an older spare, ending up runn ing one old cylinder and one new one, each with di fferent porti ng . Addin g H 12 the cost of the cylinder to the expense of havi ng it rep lated in German y (with th e su bseq uent freigh t charges) and having some 30 hours of Brauneck's tim e in vested in porting and dyno testing m ade fo r an ex pe ns ive weekend. "Losing a cylinder like that is like losing a ch ild," said Brauneck' s tuner, John Hasty . D'Aluisio and Salaverria were joint points leaders coming int o the T opeka round , but neith er h ad a stell a r weekend. D'Aluisio missed the pre vio us series round at Mid -Oh io after bein g sidelined wit h a broken right wri st, and fo ll o wi ng a five -wee k mending period with his hand in a tra ction device and using an EBI electri cal bon e gro wt h stimulator he was still not 100%ph ysicall y. Salaverria, meanwhil e, had problems of ano ther sort , beginni ng with a heat race crash and cu lminating in a dispute with his tuner, Dave Ray. Salaverria stayed out late the night before the race, and when Ray accused him of not being serio us, Salaverria ' defended himself by saying that he'd spent the night talk in g to his gi rlfriend and had simply lost track of the tim e. Either way , there was n o t much co nversation in the Salaverri a pits on Sunday. Sullivan led a sparse, nine-rid er field into turn one to begin th e first of Saturday's two, five-lap heat races that wou ld determine starting positions for Sunday's final. Canadian Rick Tripodi and D'Aluisio foll owed until lap two when D'Aluisio, having passed Tripodi on lap one , moved by Sullivan to take the lead. The ord er wou ld remain that way until th e finish, with D'Aluisio winning by four seconds and Sullivan, Tripodi, T exan Brad Sawyer and Canadian Michel Lavallee rounding out the top five. Lava llee had help th is weekend from a pair of top 250 pilots - Greene and Jon Cornwell - and the assistance was obviously paying off. Greene didn 't have a 250 ride, but was p resent at Topeka to compete in the end urance race, and Cornwell didn't ride due to an accident in a Canadian National Championshi p round at Shannonville the previous weekend . Cornwell was ru n over by Darrell Cooney at that race, and was nursing a badly bruised thigh, altho ugh he hoped to be fit for Willow Springs. Cooney was also missing from T opeka, a pity after his stirring performance at Mid-Ohio. Heat race on e was no t so kind to Schwartzbach , who reti red at the end of lap two with a dangling' shift lever. Brauneck and Salaverria squared off in heat race two. Salaverria snatched th e holeshot and looked to be running away as he held a two-second lead at the completion of lap one, but by the end of lap two Brauneck had mo ved up into cont ent ion and was challenging the 20-year-old northern Californi an for th e lead. The two passed each other back and forth until the final lap wh en Brauneck managed to sta y ahead , turning the fastest lap of either heat (in the I:50-range) to take the win. Salaverria had a lock on second , but his in experience showed as he attempted to make up too much ground on Braun eck in th e final corner, grabbing a handful of throttle and lau nching himself over the high side. " He threw away a championship," said his tuner Ray, matter-of-factly . Salaverri a would join Schwartzbach on the last ro w of the grid for the final. With Sal averri a gon e, southern Ca lifo rn ia ns Tom Paris a nd Lee Shie rts finis hed second and third , resp ectivel y, with Floridians Jeff .Farmer and Gr eg Esser occupying the fourth and fifth slots. Bra uneck earned the pole for the fin al as his quicker hea t race time of nin e minutes, 23.660 seconds was some one and a half seconds faster than D'Aluisio 's 9:25.090. Brauneck, however, said he was lucky to get the pole. "AI (Salaverria) kept stuffing me in the turn s and slowi ng me down. If I hadn 't gotten clear of him on the last lap I woul dn't have gotten the po le. My last lap was two seconds faster than the others," Brauneck said . A mere 20 riders griddedon five row s for the fina l, all except John France (H onda RS250) on Yamaha TZ250s. Brauneck and D'Aluisio were sitting pr ett y in the first two grid positions, and predictably they led the field down th e front straightaway and into the tight right/left chicane tha t makes up turns on e and two. But just as the two riders went to bend it in , Sullivan ran up th e middle, hard on the bra kes to take the early lead. Salaverria got an aweso me launch from the back row a nd headed into turn one in about fourth place, but he was hi t by another rider an d had to take to th e grass , rejoi ni ng the fray at the back of the pack. ' Brau neck wasted no tim e in passi ng Sullivan, do in g so in the back section . of the cour se and leading downhill through th e turn s 12-14 esses to comp lete lap one. Paris led Shierts and D'Alui sio at that point, but a lap la ter D'Aluisio had passed Sh ierts for fourth and set his sigh ts on Paris in third. It was lap five before D'Aluisio could get around Paris, during whi ch tim e Brau neck and Sullivan motored off into the distance. Jt took D'Aluisio until lap 10 to reel in Sullivan, at whi ch point he drafted by on th e front stra igh t to take second p lace. Meanwhi le, Schwartzba ch ha d begun the race in eigh th p lace, and was picking off riders one by on e u n til by lap six he'd passed Paris for fourth. Schwartzbach then steadily closed on D'Aluisio and Sullivan, wh ich trig gered a three-way ba ttle for second place by lap 14. One l ap la ter , Schwartzbach took third p lace from Sullivan, and along with D'Alu isio began to put distan ce on the rider from Centralia , Washington. Finally, on lap 18, Schwartzbach did the inevitable, passing a tiring D'Aluisio in the back section of the cou rse to claim th e runner-up spot, "My wrist hurt under heavy braking. When I went deep I cou ldn 't even feel it," D'Alu isio said later, adding th at he was confused by h is pi t signals. " I didn't know anyone was there . I don 't look back . I did once he (Schwartzbach) go t past, just to see if an yon e else was there ." Brauneck comp leted hi s lon ely ride to first p lace, wheelying out of the firstgear turn 14 to cross the fin ish line 9.170 seconds ahead of Schwartzbach . " I didn't go as fast as I thought I wou ld," Brauneck said. " But then , I didn' t have to. I wanted the (Mich elin) tires to last so I just did an endurance pace, going in and ou t of th e corners gingerly. I slowed down in the end because the tires were going awa y." After leading early, Sullivan finished a disheartening fourth, saying, " I need more horsepower. T hey were coming by me on the straightaway." Salaverria recovered from his early off-track excursion to finish a credible fifth, though he was never in con tention and was a lo ng way beh ind Sullivan. Paris faded to sixth , while Tripodi improved on his eigh th-place start to fini sh seventh. Farmer took adva n tage of a last-lap collision between Will iam Himmelsbach and Lavallee whic h resu lted in Lava lle crashi ng to fin ish eig hth, whi le Himmelsbach hung on to clai m ninth. Shierts backpedal ed to I~h . ~ Results H EAT I: I. Chris D'Alui sio (Ya m ); 2. Mik e Su lli va n (Ya m ); 3. Ri ck Tripodi (Yam ); 4. Brad Saw yer (Yam ); 5. Michel La vall ee (Ya m); 6. William H imm elsba ch (Yam ); 7. joe Co le (Yam); 8. Mar k Sch ubert (Yam ); 9. Larry Sch war u bach (Ya m). Time 9 min ., 25.090 sec. Di!JtanCC: ~1 s, 12.5 mil es 3 Avera$" S : 79.633 mph Margm 0 Victo ry: 4.020 sec. HEA T 2: I. Dou g Brauneck (Yam); 2. T om Paris (Yam); 3. Lee Shims (Yam ); 4. J eff Farmer (Yam ); 5. G reg Esser (Ya m); 6. Brad Low e (Yam); 7, Mark Lon g (Yam); 8. Perry Meln eciu c (Ya m); 9, J im Bon ner (Ya m); 10. J ohn Fra nce (Hon ); II. AI Salaverria (Yam ). Time: 9 rnm. , 23.660 sec. Distan ce: 5 la{>5. 12.5 miles Average Speed : 79.835 mph Margin of Victory: 15.610 sec. 250 G P fiN AL: I. Dcug Brauneck (Yam); 2. La rry Schwar u bach (Yam ); 3. Chris D'A lu isio (Yam); 4. Mike Sull iva n (Yam ); 5. Al Sal averr ia (Ya m ); 6. Tom Pari s (Ya m); 7. R ick Tripodi (Ya m); 8. Jell Farmer (Yam ); 9. William Himmelsbach (Yam); 10. Lee Shierts (Yam); 11. Ma rk Schubert (Yam); 12. Greg Esser (Yam); 13. Mark Long (Ya m); 14. Brad Lowe (Ya m ); 15. Michel L av allee (Ya m ); 16. Perry Meln eci uc (Yam); 17, J im Bon ner (Yam); 18. J oe Cole (Yarn ); 19. Brad Sawyer (Yam ). Time: 37 min.• 10.610 sec. Distance: 20 lap s, 50 m iles Avcrag< Speod : 80.695 mph Margin of Victory : 9.170 sec. 250 GP POINT STANDINGS: 1. Dou g Bra uneck (94); 2. Chris D'A luisio (92); 3. AI Sala verria (89); 4. Mike Sullivan (49); 5. Lee Shi erts (39); 6, J onathan Co rn well (36); 7. Dal e Franklin (35); 8. William H immelsbach (30); 9. (TIE) Rick Kirk! Andrew Treviu (25).

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