Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

eROAD RACE AMAlCCS EBe Brakes U.S. Endurance Challenge Series: Ronnd I ~ Team R. E.S. (9), Team America (5) and Team Mad Dog (7) lead the way at the start of th e Endurance Challenge. Du tchman Racing (1) p repares to lap Fairfax Kawasaki (39) en route to the win. Second-p lace fin isher T eam Mad Dog (7) leads T eam America (5) at Daytona. Mad Dog docked alap, Dutchmanwins ,at Daytona By Henny R ay Abrams P hotos by Abrams and courtesy Da yto n a International Speedway 12 DAITONA BEACH, FL, MAR 3 . D utchman Racing was awarded the win in the three-hour endurance race when ap pa rent race winner Team Mad Dog was bumped to second by a scoring snafu on a brigh t and windy day a t Dayton a Internatio na l Speedway. Mad Dog's Rick Kirk and Mik e Harth thought th ey'd won the open ing round of the U.S. Endurance Cham- pionship, especia lly after the victory la ne celebration whic h they headed. But about an hou r af ter the race th ey were told they'd been mi scredited for o ne lap and were therefor e dropped to second . " I don 't rea lly care to commen t," Harth sai d wh en in for med o f· th e decis ion. " I kn ow we won th e race." T he co nfusio n in scoring resulted from Ha rt h 's running o u t of gas o n the 27th lap while in the lead. The Yama ha FZRIOOO was brought back to the pi ts o n a rescue truck and the team was mistaken ly credited with havin g co mp leted th at lap , the probl em poss ib ly arising since th e scorers are in tu rn o ne wh ich Harth ha d cleared befor e sp u ttering to a halt. Mad Dog crew ch ief Vic Fasola said he thought the stro ng winds may have hurt th e fuel co n su m p tion . "We sho uld've co me in a lap sooner, " he said. T he team lost a number of laps in the process a nd wa s credi ted with 21st pl ace at the o ne hour mark having comp leted 28 lap s whi le the leaders a t the tim e, Team America had com p leted 31 laps. T ho ug h Mad Dog had th ought they'd won, Dutchman wasn' t so sure and team captain Dave Sch losser filed the protest that was later upheld. . " We thought we wo n the wh ole time," he said after the scoring was made officia l. "So we filed the scoring protest. " T he delay in scoring put Dutch man 's Fa bia n Cortez in a strange positi on . H e could say how the race went, but wasn't sure how it felt to win in h is fir st ride for the defending cham p ions. "The bik e was handling funny the first half of the race," he sai d, in one of the afte rnoon 's gra nder understatements. In fact, it looked unrideabl e, th e Suz u ki GS X R I I OO wobblin g vicio us ly down the front straig ht every lap . At first it was th ou ght to bea bad wheel - it had been cha nge d a t th e halfway po int - bu t it was finally dis covered to be a fa u lty stee ri ng damper. It cou ldn't be cha nge d, so it was tig htened at every gas stop. " We were four seconds a lap faster after the gas stop," Cort ez said. T he " we" he spo ke of was teammat e Chris H aldan e, a 21-year- old New Zea lander wh o was Senior Production class cha mp last year on a Yam aha FZRI O O H e was no stra nger to the O. big four-stro ke - unlike COrtez wh o won the GP2 Twins cla ss cham pionship last year - but he was a newcomer to the hi gh ban ks of Daytona, " It 's ama zing," he said. " At home we have third and fourth gear banked corners, but nothing like this. I was unfamiliar with the track and the bike and I took it easy. I only had 15 laps of practi ce. I had to learn the track as I went." The team co m p leted 84 laps of Daytona 's 3.56-mile track at an average speed of 99.250 mph. Their margin of victory was I minute, 4,220 seco nds. Cortez took the first riding sti nt , handing off to Ha ldane while solidly in th ird pl ace behind T eam America and Team R.E.S. Cortez picked up his pa ce start ing with his second stint, at the halfway mark, and not long after that th e race lead ers began to su ffer. Team America's Woody Deatherag e came in to hand off to Titian Bue (in his first race o n an 1100) but not before m ak ing emergency re pairs to the brak es, "The brakes were go ing back to the bar and I had to pu ll i t in ," Death erage said, " I don' t know if we're boil ing th e fluid or wha t' s happening," he added , after helpin g make an adjustment o n the brak e lever. With abo u t 45 minutes to go , Bue cras hed the big Suzuki in the In ternat ional Hor sesh oe while cha sing the leading team , T eam R.E.S . The bike was brought in on a pi ck-up tru ck, quick repa irs were made, and Dea therage went on to fini sh fourth: Ray Yoder had started the race o n th e R,E.S. bike, handing off to Frill Klin g at the first gas stop, with Kevin Rentzell sch edu led to bring it home. With abo ut 40 minutes to go the R.E.S. Suzuki GSXR IIOO came to a stop in the infi eld and had to be brought back to the pits dropping the team to an event ual fifth p lace finish. Meanwh ile, Mad Dog was cutting th rough the field , riding faster than they' d p lanned in order to make up lost laps. "I turned up the gas a little bit," Harth said, hi s lap times dropping into the 1:58 range. " We had to gain some tim e," Harth rode' until there were less than 15 minutes to go wh en he came in for a rider cha nge and a sp lash of gas, a good th in g since it sputtered from lack of fu el as it took off. The team thought they'd taken the lead just prior to the gas sto p , part of Harth's second stin t success du e to a new rear tire. . " We're th ere," Harth said, but it wasn ' t to be. T he team would be moved to second, cred ited wi th 83 lap s to Dutchman 's 84. ' Finishing third, with 82 laps, was the Yam aha of J acksonville team of Crai g Gleason and Danny Roberts. ' T hei r early charge was blunted by a bent rear rim, but on ce changed they mad e steady progress through the field moving into 15th overa ll at th e halfway point and running co nsistentl y to th e end. " We sta rted o u t with a rear rim that was bent, but we didn't know that was o ur problem until we changed tir es," Roberts exp lai ned, " We lost ab out four laps, but didn 't qui t digging. " " I knew we had a problem th e first time I went into turn o ne and th e rear sus pension began chattering prett y bad," G leaso n sai d. " I didn 't wan t to sto p and come in to get things looked at becau se I was catch ing Team Mad Dog. As lon g as I was gaining o n th em , I stayed o ut there, but things really started getting bad . I pulled in and the team checked all the rear wh eel bo lts and nothing ' was wrong. The team wat ched me pull away and they could see th e rim was bent so th ey pu lled me back in and we changed the wh eel. " After the race, Cortez's hands were bl istered from hav ing to hang o n to the ill-handling Suzuki for such a long race. " It was a bear to hang o nt o, kind of wall owing in the corners," he sai d. - - - - - - Continued on page 46

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