Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

eROAD RACE e SBSIPM WERA National Endurance- eries:Round 10 S Team Suzuki Endurance ( 1) sped to the win at Memphis Motorsport Pa rk with over two laps to spare. Arter grabbing the holeshot, Team Suzuki went on to lap the entire field . Team Suzuki, again By Brent P lummer MILUNGTON, TN,AUG. 31 he all-conq uering Team Suzuki Endurance bike. piloted this weekend by Kurt Hall and Wes Cooley. took the overall win at Mem phis Motorsport Park with two laps in ha nd over second overa ll Hall 'N Still Racing. For T eam Suzuki Endura nce, the race was quite cu t and dry. With the combina tio n of Hall and Cooley at the helm, the team ran th e entire even t in first pl ace. The winners cir cul ated the I. 77-mile Memphis road co urse 273 times in th e six-ho ur event, coveri ng 483.21 miles a t an average speed of 81 mph. Hall 'N Still riders Bruce Baldus and Tray Batey managed to pl ace their H eav yw ei ght P rodu ction Su zu k i GSXRIIOO in second overa ll, between Team Suzuki Endurance and Team Suzuki II. They al so ra n a pl acid race, su fferi ng no problems or dil emmas th roughout the entire six hours. The real story here inv ol ves th e . T eam Suzuki End urance and Hall 'N Still 's " B" teams; th e former being a veri tabl e test bed, and the latter a successfu l attempt to thwart second seeded - first overall in Heavyweigh t Production - For ce Racin g. T he Team Su zuk i II ma chine did not appear ou t of the o rdinary as series regulars q uickly recognized the chassis as the tried and true 1I00 model that Hall uses in the Formula USA series. T 20 No big deal. but the astute eye which peered into the stock co lored fairing co uld notice that things were seriously askew. Hoses, funn y looking pipes. and seemingl y m ispl aced linkages abo unded throughout the intake tract. This cou ld o nly mean one th ing: The Hammer guys were playing around with fuel inj ection, and a th ird pl ace in its first ou ting is testament to the fact that the system obvious ly works quiie well . T eam Suzuki Endurance was relativel y tight lipped about the fun ctionin g of th is system , but a few th in gs were revealed. First , the mot or was stoc k except for some mi nor cha nges and the inj ecti on , wh ich is a closed loop type - simi lar to that used by Ducati. The fuel spray is controlled th rough engi ne variab les; definit ely engine speed and th rottle position. and probably many o thers such as ex haust an dlor coo la nt temperatu res . T he pl ace of o rigi n was a lso co m mon kn owl edge : Ra cin g Engine Service. The Hall ' N Still team ha s been ge tt i ng a bit worri ed o ver Fo rce Racing 's successes of late. To co untermand Force's championship aspirations. Hall 'N Sti ll Too was created. The idea here was blatantly obvious - to push Force back in the final rounds, and consequently, erode their points lead. The pl an worked ou t well ; Hall ' N Still Too fini shed fourth overa ll, whi le Force took sixth o verall behind Heavyweight Superbike co ntend ers Ken Reynolds and Pete Christen sen , of T eam Lips fam e. Seventh overa ll, fourth in H eavyweigh t Su perb ike, went to 24-Ho urs East win ners DAK Racin g. DAK was hoping for a higher fin ish , but unlike th e o ther top fini shers, they had serious probl ems. Their brake pad s fried aft er only two and a quarter hours. Wh en the pads lost all their material, the dust formed a hard layer surrounding th e pads. effec tive ly welding th em in p lace. DAK lost 12 minutes in the pi ts, which dropped th em from a close third overall to 12th . They soo n resign ed to playing catch-up all for the remai nder of the day. Team Mach ine riders Brian G ristick and Dan Mil eika cap tu red eig h th overa ll, fourth in Heavyweight Produ ction. Their race was quite un eventfu l, too ; other than a second hour scori ng mishap - which saw th em bri efl y lose three laps - Mach in e enco unte red no problems. . After a stri ng of fifth-hour bad lu ck, T eam Rush'N Racing's Doug Art er, Scott Evan s and Dean Ha yes bounced back to win Middleweight Superbike. Their chance of even mak ing th e race looked dubious for a whi le. as on Saturday the team was teari ng th ro ugh the motor. The Yama ha FZR600 mill was sputtering and coughing and the gremlin was im mediately traced to the fuel system, and soon further narrowed to dirt in th e carburetor bow ls. No serious damage was do ne , so the team reassembled everything by Saturday evening, hoping for th e best. Come Sunday, everythi ng ran smooth ly. as Dou g Arter said: " We ran the kind of wish ra ce yo u ' ca n o n ly for . . . Nothing went wrong today." By placing ninth o vera ll , Rush'N Ra cing h a s su r p assed Ehl erding Mot or sports in the points ch ase. 629619, and has set th eir sigh ts o n class lead ers Red Hot Ra cing and T eam Pasta Mar in , who have 661 and 646 poin ts. respectively. Fin ish ing cl ose behind Ru sh ' N Racin g was Motion System s. who, in do ing so, cap tu red top Middleweight P roduction hon ors. Mo tion rid er s Tony Rau seo , Ch ris Hughes, and Mike Leslie were locked in a fierce battle with clas s ri vals Swine Dudes in the opening stages . T he race betw een th e two was lookin g to be o ne of th e better o nes on the track. as they were swapp ing the lead back and forth until both tried to lap a slower rider simultan eously in high speed turn two. Swine Dudes rider J im Rot h dove to the insi de, and promptly lost th e front end. When he went down Roth a lmost too k ou t the Mot ion bike; his front wh eel clipping Moti on 's rear. Ro th was not quite as lu cky as he walked away with scrapes and bruises: " I thou ght I had the bik e under contro l, then the fro nt went under and I thought, ' Grea t. here we go: .. Roth said. " But at least I didn't fall on my butt th is time. " The crash came a t a bad time for the Swines, as they were clos ing the cha mp ions hip poin ts ga p o n class lead ers Moti on Systems. The spread now stands at 698-628, with Arclight Racing now edging the Swines ou t of th ird in class (and 10th overa ll) with 629 points. Deal ' s G ap Ra cin g r id er s R o b Seneker and Ray Hi ckm an topped the mi ni-bike' class with a co m ma nding win over a troubled F&S Racing squad. When the race go t underway ar o und II :40 in the afternoon, Hall and the T eam Suzuki Enduran ce motorcycle dashed off the line to lead into the first turn. Michael Martin. on th e Team Suzu ki II bike, Ha ll 'N Still " A" rider Bru ce Baldus and Ha ll 'N Sti ll Toomounted Mike Reed came into turn o ne neck and neck. Reed was forced to mi ss the warm-up lap du e to a faulty master link clip, which was hastil y repaired as th e five-minute board was ascending. Since Reed's tir es were extremely cold, they were not prep ared for the hard first turn cornering loads that he needed to stay with the o thers. As Reed entered turn o ne and banked the bike in , th e front end began pushing. sending him in Martin 's direction. Reed 's bik e kept sliding. and Martin kept mov in g the T eam Suzuki bike' over until he reach ed the edge of th e track. Luckil y for Reed (taking o ut a pro tot ype T eam Suzuki bike wou ld be a major faux pas!), by the tim e he was nearing coll isio n point the bik e was savable, and everyo ne made it th rough the first turn. Everything ran smoothly until the fifth lap, when David McGrath crashed another protot ype T eam Suzuki bike, dubbed th e Test Ace. This machine wa s th e usu al #11 T eam Suzuki Two machine, excep t that it had a trick automatic clutch insta lled. The idea here was to keep th e motor spi nning up in the power bank, accomplished through clutch slippa ge. A nove l idea, and one that will no w have to wa it until the next round to be proven valid or not. At the 40-minu te mark, the Swi ne Du des had their aforementioned crash wh ile trying to la p class riva ls Arclight Racing. The bike was relatively fine - it simply needed all the bodywork stripped off - but as the team impatiently waited in th e pits for the bi ke to be brought in , they soon realized that there was no crash truck to hau l in their damaged property. When the real ization hit. 10 m inutes had already gone by, and ano ther 10 was squandered in the dash to unload th eir truck and go get th e bik e. All to ld, th e Swine Dudes lost over 30 m inutes in the in cid ent. and all hopes o f a class victo ry. They wo u ld event ua lly battle up from last pl ace to fini sh 26th overa ll. The top of the second hour's results looked like thi s: Tea m Suzuki Endura nce had Cool ey o ut o n the bik e and in th e lead. Hall ' N Still sent Batey o ut in second, a la p do wn . Third was held by DAK Racing, o n the same lap as Hall ' N Still - DAK, however. wou ld soon fade away with thei r brak e problem . Team Suzuki II and Hall 'N Still T oo ro unded ou t the top five. Meanwhile, a four-way battl e over ninth was sha p ing up between Mid dl eweight Superbike riv als Ru sh 'N Racing, Red H ot Racin g, Eh lerding Mot or sports and Pasta Marin , who were running in that o rder. Ehl erding, with rid ers Dou g H en ry and Ramon Vasquez, would surpass Red Hot in

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