Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

BROAD RACE AMA/CCS ERe Brakes Endurance Championship_: R_OUD_d_2 e T eam Mad Dog piloted their Yamaha FZR1000 to the overall win at Brainerd, and took con trol of the series points lead. T eam K&N (129) p assed T eam Toomer (37) for the GTU cla ss win. Mad Dog gets revenge in Brainerd By Paul Carruthers BRAINERD, M N,JUNE 8 eam Mad Dog 's Mike Harth and Rick Kirk may have only been able to hold the winner's trophy at Daytona, but at Brainerd they got to take it home. Three months after being teased by T 30 , a winner's circle celebration where they were proclaimed the winner of th e first round of the series at Daytona, only to find out later that a scoring snafu was made and they had really only fin ished second, Mad Dog finally were ab le to avenge the loss to th eir rivals Du tch man Racing. And th ey did it in style, averaging 97.993 mph for the thr ee-hour race held in conjunction with the World Championship Superbi ke Series at Bra inerd International Raceway. Maki ng the victory even sweeter for Mad Dog was the fact th at Dutchman Racing I could only muster a seventh-p lace finish, giving the Yamaha FZRIOOO-moun ted team the points lead over Du tchman Racing, 37-29. .Second place at Brainerd went to the Yamaha-mounted team of Gold H ill Racing. Piloted by John Hopperstad and Christian Gardner, Go ld Hill stayed consistent throughout the race, running fourth early on, moving to third at the halfway mark and then moving into the ru nner-up spot with the demise of The H uman Race T eam on the 60th lap, Third place overa ll wen t to Du tchman Racing II, the second Suzuki GSXR in the Dutchman stable, in the capable hands of Fabian Cortez and James Schaeffer. Min n eso ta -bas ed Northstar Racing, with John Jacob and Gary Lenzmeier handling the riding chores, finished fourth overa lI on their h ome racetrack ahead of fifthplaced Yamaha of J ack so n vill e' s Danny Roberts an d Kevin Ren tzell. The 600cc-based GT U class was won by the flying McDonald brothers Sam and Phil on their Team K&:N Yamaha FZR600, The wi n was well -earned wi th the Oklaho man duo completing 93 laps, but it came after early leaders Team T oo mer, on their brand new Kawasaski ZX600, ran out of fuel. Toomer' s Glenn Barry and Michael Barnes recovered from the miscue to finish second in class and 13th overalI with 92 laps. Third place in GTU went to the Texas-based team of Myers &: Prussiano Racing with Team America GTU and Big City Racing rounding out the top five finishers in class. Harth put Mad Dog in the lead off the start, turning lap times in the oneminute, 46-second range with the Dale --------,------'-_ Quartet"ley led, Bimota-mounted Human Race team running second.. Rival s Dutchman Racing I, meanwhile, were parked on the outside of tum one on the opening go-around.. First year teammster Robert Wright had apparently knocked the kill button off, and he lost a lap while trying to find the problem. The team of Wright and Mario DuHamel would valiantly fight their way up to seventh overall, but it was a di sappointing day for the defending class champions. "We managed to salvage something out of it," team manager Dave Schlosser said. "We think that he (Wright) must have hit the kill button ." . So a t th e 30-min u te mark of the three-hou r race, Mad Dog led th e Humans, Yamaha of Jacksonville, Gold Hill and Dutchman II. In the GT U ranks, T eam Toomer had their new Kawasaki up to 10th overalI and led K&:N Ra cing, who were engrossed in a fight with Northstar GTU for second place and 12th overall. • At the one-hour mark, Quar terley had the Humans in the lead, but they ha dn't pitted yet. Mad DOK was second with Dutchman II u p to third ahead of Gold Hill and Northstar Racing: K&:N held the GTU lead , and eighth overall, with Toomer 12th overall and still second in class. By th is time, Northstar GTU was out of the running after their Yamaha FZR600 snapped a throttle cable. . By the halfway mark, Mad Dog was back in control, having completed 50 laps. The Humans were second and Gold Hill was up to th ird , after passing Dutchman II. K&:N had pulled clear of the GTU pack, with Toomer falling back to fourth in class after running out of gas. Secon d place was now held by Team America GTU, who were being chased down b y Myer s &: Prussiano. On the 60th lap, just prior to the two-ho ur mar k, The Human Race Team dropped ou t of the runn ing. T ommy Douglas handed the bi ke over to Q uarterley, who quickly diagnosed , a dropped valve and in stan tly rode the bi ke behind the pit wall. " I t's too bad because it was getting back to being good like a few years ago - a three-hou r sprint race.:" Q uarterley said.. " We were happy with the way the bike was handling. It was just a case of if we ran 'em down, we ran 'em dow n. If not, we were going to fin ish second. " With the Humans ou t of the runni ng, Mad Dog was able to coast in, changing their Michel in tires three times en route to th e victory, although the last one . was more for pit crew practice than anything else. With an hour to go the team led Gold Hill by a lap, a margin of victory they were able to hold to the finish, Dutchman II moved up to third overall with the demise of the H u mans with Norths tar Racing and Yamaha of Jacksonville rounding out the top five. Those results wouldn't change in the final hour with Dutchman II being the only team to make a significant jump in th e standings in the final hour, emergin g from 10th to finish seventh . . Team Toomer was still fourth in the GTU class with an hour to go, but they too would move forward, passing Team America and Myers &: Prussiano in the final hour to finish second.. "The bike works real good," Barnes said of Toomer's new Kawasaki . "It's real fast. " At the two-hour-and-27-minute mark, Mad Dog's Harth pitted and gave the bike to Kirk for the final half hour. " We got all the e&:¢% out the first • hour and a half," a fired-up Harth said.. "Let the light shine on us for awhile.

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