Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/127388
eROAD RACE e AM! S uperbike National Championship:Round 3 Scott Russell (22) leads Miguel DuHamel (97), Jamie James (2), Thomas Stevens (I I), and the rest of the pack on the first lap of the National at Road America. Loui siana 's Jamie James won th e second AMA Superbike National of his career. James survives attrition at Road America By Pau l Ca rruthers Photos by W erner Fri tz ELKHARTLAKE, W I,JUNE30 t had more pl ot twists tha n a good novel , bu t wh en the book was fina lly closed on th e th ird chapter of the 1991 AMA Superbike National Cha mp ion ship the victory belonged to Van ce &Hines Yamah a 's Jamie James. Bu t not before some intrigue in Wisconsin 's dairy land. I 8 T went y-eigh t mi les in to the 6O-mile Na tional at the scen ic Road America road course, it look ed as tho ugh Scott Ru ssell was about to put the fini shing touches on a secon d runaway win in a row . Ditto for the ma n chas ing him, Miguel DuHamel. . Ah, but it ain't over till it's over, and on successive laps both Ru ssell and Du H amel saw their chances for victory sq uelc hed. On the ninth go around, DuHamel' s Commonwealth Honda RC30 blew a motor; and a lap lat er, Russe ll bro ugh t the Muz zy Kawasaki into the pits with a Oat front tire . Russell 's crew cha nged the front whee l on the ZXR and the Georgian rejoined the race, only to have the bike q uit a lap from th e fini sh. Con seq uently, neither of the top two men in the champions hip scored points and suddenly the tit le chase was blown wide open at the seams. T he man in the righ t p lace at the right time was J ames. T he 1989 AMA Superbike champion held off a laterace charge from his teammate Thomas Steven s to win the second AMA Superbike Nation a l of his career in front of a track mo to rcycle-record crowd estimated at 35,000 people. Third place wen t to Commonwealth Honda's Rich Arn aiz with the nondefending European Superbike Champion preven ted from possibly fin ish ing higher by a poor tire choice . An impressive fourt h p lace went to Ru ssell 's Muzzy Kaw asak i teammate Jacques Guen ette, J r. T he Fren ch Canadian may have indeed fini shed bette r if not for a broken left han dlebar la te in the race that understandably slowed his progress. Sti ll, it was th e best AMA Superbike .resu lt of hi s young career. T wo more Ca nadians foll o wed Gu en ette, wi th Fast Riding School's Linnley Clarke an d Honda Canada 's Rueben McMurter finis h ing fifth and sixth, respectively. Tom Kipp struggled home with a mysterio us mechanical ailment that caused his Wiseco Yam aha to drop a couple of cylinders in the closi ng stages of the race, allowing the Ohioan to almost get pipped at the line by the ever-improving Tommy Lynch on the Yoshimura Suzuk i. The fourth Ca nadian in the top 10, Pascal Picotte, finished n in th in his deb u t ride on th e absent Doug Polen 's Fast By Ferracci Ducati. Veteran Dale Quar terley rode his T he Boys-backed Honda RC30 to a 10th-place finish. To mak e a good day even better for James and Team V&H , the rid er from Louisiana now leads the cha mpio nship by three poi n ts over Stevens, 5047. Arnaiz also makes a jump, moving to th ird in the standi ngs with 39 points while DuHamel and Russell plunge to fourth and fifth wi th 37 and 31 points. . Russell sho uld have been tipped off that just. maybe this wasn 't his day when the Muzzy Kawasaki blew an engi ne du ri n g Sunday morning 's . warm-up session. The crew q uickly went to work installing the second ' m o to r, a nd only h ours la ter th e Georgian put the new engine to good use by grab bin g hi s now -normal early lead. With the scorching ho t tempera tur es of qual ifying now only a memory as clo ud cover moved over Wiscon sin, the race bega n wi th Russell streaking off dow n th e long fron t stra ig h ta wa y ahead of the pack: At the completion of the opening lap, he led DuHamel, James, Guenette, Two Brothers Racing' s Fredd ie Spe ncer, Arn aiz, Stevens, Kipp, Lyn ch and Clarke. By th is point, Stevens had already suf fered through the worst moment of his race as he was nearly highsided from his Yamaha FZR 750R in the ultra-fast, rig ht-hand Carousel. " We made some changes before th e race and we went the wrong way," Stevens exp lai ned later. " On a scale of one-to-IO with 10 being off, it was , an 8.5 or a 9. With a full tank of fuel , I came around, hit the bumps and the bike almost jumped out of my hands." By the second lap, Russell led by 1.4