Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

eROAD RACE ; SIS/PM WERA National Endurance Series: Round 13 ~ Hall ' N Still Racin g (3) won its eighth H eavyweigh t Prod uction race of th~ season. F&S Racing (23) came through the pack to win the Lightweight class at Ind y. T eam Suzuki (1) beat sibling team Test Ace Racing (60) for the overall honors. Martin had a two-secon d lead on Force Racing's Rick Pagni ano. Hall 'N Still Racing's Bruce Baldu s had his hands full with T eam Machine in a battle for third. Other early top ru nners included OAK Racing, Roswell Racing and T eam Lips. As T eam Suzuki cont in ued to pull clea r of the rest of the 50-bike field , attent io n was focused back in th e field o n Dean Hay es. Ha yes was riding the R u sh 'n R ac in g Yam ah a FZR600 quickly thro ug h the field. Fifteen min utes into the race, Hayes had mo ved all the way up from a second -wave start to fourth pl ace, just beh ind Ro swell Racing. Five minutes later Hayes moved aro und Roswell, Hall ' N Still and T eam Mach ine to tak e over second pl ace. I t was an incredible cha rge by Ha yes, riding his team 's Yamaha FZR600 past all of th e H eav yweight class ma chines o ther than Team Suzuki. Lat er in th e first hour, R ush 'n Racing had a problem whe n the fairing o n its Yamaha pa rtially ble w off d ue to heavy cross winds . T he team was black-flagged and lost val ua ble time whi le p itting to remove th e fairing. Another rider making a move through the field was Patterson on the T est Ace Racing Valvo line Suzuki. Patterson had ridden for the team before o n production machines, but this time it was on one of the Valvo line Suzuki GSXRI100 Superbikes. As the first hour wore on, Patterson began to get used to th e powerful bik e, settled in , and began to pick up the pac e. Just before th e end of the first hour , Patterson powered the T est Ace Suzuki into second place. A few minutes later, however, Pa tterso n made a rooki e mistake an d ran out of gas. "I didn't think I was supposed to bring the bike in until I got a pit signal," said a confounded Patterson to a Valvoline Suzuki crew member. " I guess we forgot to tell you to pit if the bike started sputtering," replied the crew member, jokingly. Several top teams ran into problems early. For ce Racing cras hed whe n a slower team cut across th e team 's front wheel. The Force Yama ha crew was ab le to get the bike back in the fray, but th ey had to settle for a 41st place finish. Californi an-b a sed T ea m P asta Mari n was running well inside the to p 10 on their Yam aha FZR600 wh en it cras hed in turn nine in during the second hour. Pasta Mari n came back to fin ish fifth in class: 34ih overa ll. Turn nine is a tricky comer to begin Team Suzuki wins I~dy Six-Hour By Larry Lawrence INDIANA POLIS, IN, ocr. 5 ea m Suzuki Endurance, with riders Kurt Hall a nd Michael Martin, continued its blitzkrieg through the \VERA National Endurance Seri es by scoring its record 11th victo ry in th e series this season, despite battling an oil leak late in the race. The other non-surprise was that the onl y serious cha llenge came from within the Valvoline Suzuki camp. Test Ace Racing was for med out of the Valvoline Suzuki stab le with twotime AMA National Superbike Champion Wes Co ol ey a nd 19-yea r-o ld Stevie Patterson handling the ridi ng chores. Cool ey an d Patterson rode a Keith Perry-built Suzu ki and fini shed secon d, o ne lap beh in d th e winners. Nels o n Ledges 24-H o u r wi n ner OAK Racing, h ad another strong finis h, taki ng th ird two laps behind ' T 28 Team Suzuki. O hioans Tom Wilson, Scott Seferian and Steve Heilman were the riders for OAK at Indy. Summer in Indiana came to a screeching halt the night before the WERA race weekend. After a week of sunny, mid-80 degre e weather, a cold front moved through the area early Saturday morning, and temperatures duri ng the race barely got abov e 40 degrees. In addition, it was run under cloudy skies and amidst windy conditions. The cool weather meant that many riders dressed wit h heavy sweatsh irts under their racin g leathers. Team Suzuki rider Martin p ut hi s team in the lead fro m the start. Martin was riding aggressively on the cold track, sliding the rear tire of the big Valvolin e Su zuki when exiti ng the tricky Indy carousel. By lap two , with. Throw in the fact that water was seepi ng up th ro u gh cracks in th e pavement, and it became a treacherous stret ch of p av em ent that claimed several teams, in cluding Red H o t Racing, B&T Racin g and One More Time Raci ng. At th e two hour mark the race was red-fl agged wh en Ri ch ard West crashed th e Gone Racing Honda into the concrete wall in turn 15. West and the bike were lying o n th e racin g line and that brought o ut the flag: West su ffered a bruised tai lbo ne in th e 'acciden t. The Gon e Racin g crew got the bike fixed and came back to fini sh fourth in the Medi um weight Superbik e class. At the three-hour mark, it was Team Suzuki lead in g with 79 laps. OAK Racing and Hall ' N Still were runnin g just seconds apart in the battle for second, both on lap 78. Team R u sh 'n Racing, Test Ace (recovering from running ou t of ga s) and Roswell Racin g were all on lap 77. T he hottest class race of the day was in Medi umw eight Production. At th e half way mark Mot io n Systems Raci ng led the class by eight seconds over Dunn Racing. Team Swi ne Dudes and Arcl igh t Racin g were no t far behi nd in th ird and fourth. T hese teams would ba ttle all the way to the checkered flag . Du ring the third hour an interesti ng batt le devel oped between Ha ll o n Team Suzuki and Cooley on Test Ace. Even th ough Team Suzu ki was a co uple laps ahead due to Test Ace's earlier fuel problems, their dice provided some of the best racing of the day . Cooley and Hall battled for most of the hour, but Hall pulled away after Cooley nearly crashed at the highspeed entrance to the back straight. "I was push in g the bike ha rde r and harder and really didn't even rea lize it," said Cooley. " All of a sud den the rear end let loose and I thought I was going down. I decided that since we were already a co up le of laps down the re was no sense in riding that ha rd, so I backed off. " F&S Racing 's Chris Sweeney and Reuben Franken field domin ated th e L ightweigh t class on thei r Shipp Yama ha/En terprise Mach ine / Dunlop/Yin Yan g Motorcycle Tuningsponsored Yamaha. At the end of six hours, F&S Ra cing-was th ree laps ah ead of its nearest com peti tor, Repo Man Ra cin g. All of th e to p three Li ghtweight team s - F&S, Repo an d F&S II - are based in Cinc in nati. In the clos ing stages of th e race, Test Ace Ra cing came all th e way back up

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