Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

~ ROADRACE AMA 250(( Grand Prix Series: Round5 e Edwards ch ases Roberts while Petersen sp rays Edwa rds wit h cha mpagne. Colin Edwards II won hi s thi rd 250cc GP final of the season in Brainerd. Kenny Roberts, J r. (25) finish ed second behind Edward s and lost his lead in th e cham p io nship in th e process; here he leads Chris D ' Aluisio who ended up fifth . ers' Racin g's Rick Kirk filling o u t the top ten . Edwar ds read th e starter perfectly to begin th e race and Roberts Jr. didn ' t and that was the major differen ce in the end. " I jumped it by accident, " Roberts J r. said. " I pu lled in th e clu tch as he let the flag o ut and everybody too k off." .Jumping out front , Edwards bega n to pu ll away, letti ng the pac k fight [or second behind hi m. Petersen held it early, trail ed by D'Alui sio , Kirk .Cortez, Roberts j r., Cornwell, and Tom Paris. By the fifth lap Roberts J r. was on Petersen 's tail , the two already starling to separa te from the pack and thinking about movin g up, th ough the gap to Ed ward s wa s o ver four sec o n ds. Petersen had h is doubts abo u t catching him , but didn 't think Roberts Jr. did. "T o me, I could see Colin was gon e, but Kenny never gave up," Petersen said. The two swa pped ba ck and forth, Petersen noti cing that " he had a littl e. motor. The biggest thing was off the turns. It cou ld be he was ju st gett ing on the gas earl y. He co u ld draft by me a t th e end of the front stra ight. " Roberts Jr. too k over just past the halfway point, Petersen conce ding nothing until he oversho t turn five late in the race, allo wing Roberts J r. to get away. Sti ll, he was abo ut 3.5 seconds behind Edwards with on ly four laps to go when he turned up the pa ce, getting Edwards ' attention. " I saw on my pit boards it was p lus o ne, then p lu s two, then plus three, then plus two and plus o ne," Edward s said. " I loo ked back and su re eno ugh they were clos ing o n me. I ju st put my head down a nd rode as hard as I cou ld." "I did my fastest lap , a I :44.3, o n the last lap ," Roberts J r. said after com ing up ju st sho rt. " I was fastest through the whole race. I did all 44s and he was do ing 45s. I never gave up in the race. I kn ew if r kept trying harder, I co u ld pr e :sure him. " - E d mad,~goes fastest dwar sgets o uthwest M o to r spor ts' Col in Edwards had to get mad to go fast. U nha ppy with the way he'd been riding thro ugh out pr actice and qualifying, Edward s " got pi ssed off" after nearl y crashing, put his head do wn and earned hi s second pol e position of the year. "Yesterday I got pissed off becau se I was n 't riding wide open throug h turn one," a sixth gea r kin k a t the en d o f the fron t straigh taway. " I go~ so p issed off because I was riding incons isten tly. I came arou n d in turn three wa y pa st m y brakem ark er. I turned it in and wa s slidi ng everything sideways. I gOI it stra ig h tened up. Thai kin d of gOI me pu mped." . H is best was a one-minute, 11.387-seco nd lap', averaging 103.461 mph on the three-mile, .I O-turn trac k. Second fastest honors went to Canadi an J on Cornwell, hi s best .319 sec. off th e po le time aft er hooking up his McBrid e Cycles/Castrol/S hoei Yamaha to Edwards' teamma te Chris D'Aluisio, " I go t a tow. I chased Chris around and go t a good sniff down th e straightaway," Cornwell , who 'd never raced here befor e, said. " On my own I was abo u t threeq uarters o f a second, a second slow er. It 's a hard tra ck to set up for because of the combina tion of co rners in seq uence; high-speed, banked, flat. " Cornwell had missed th e last th ree 250cc GP races, breaking his collarbone at La gu na Seca then missin g Charlotte. He skip ped T exas to com pe te in a Canadia n ch ampionshi p race, which he wo n. Chris D'Aluisio was third fastest, a Iro ut en d cha tter keeping h irn .Irorn moving fart her up the grid . "T here was pl en ty more in th e tu rn s, I couldn 't go ' fast eno ug h ," he sa id. " It was a sus pensio n thing. We went hackwards. It wasn 't drastic. We mad e a chan ge to the front and it ma de it chatter rea l bad. " D'Alu isio added he was set on nres , but would mak e some more suspension changes for the morn ing practice. The last rider on the front ro w was Kenny Rober ts J r., hi s Ra iney Racing Ot suka Yamaha down on to p speed and for cing him to ride harder through the turn s. " We were three mph down and that's abo ut the who le story rig h t th ere," Roberts J r. said. " I' m fastest thro ug h th e infield by about a seco nd. We're going to make some suspensi on adjus tments in th e mo rn ing that I think will help." The second row had Two Bro thers Racing' ickKirk o n the pol e, with Del Amo Yamaha 's Robbie Petersen , Tom Paris, Jim Filice nex t to him. Kirk had ridden- a Yamaha FZR IOOO endur ance bi ere last year, bUI found it a completely different track on a Honda RS250. " 1 didn 't rea lize ho w mu ch of a rid er's track it is," Kirk said . "Unfortunately, it's not good to be learning it on Su nda y morning. " T he greatest variable in setting the bike up was jetting, Kirk be lieved, and, with his Ho nda down two-th ree mp h o n the Yamahas on top speed, Kirk was still making carburetion ad justments on Su nday morning. Twenty- three riders qualified for Sunday 's 17-lap race. S Ewards to sRbr d p o ets By Henny Ray Abrams BRAIXERD, Mi\', JUXE 14 o u th west Motorsp o r ts' Colin Edwards he ld off a furious late cha rge from championsh ip rival Kenny Ro bert s J r. o n th e Rai ney Racing Otsuk a Yamaha to win th e 250cc Grand Prix fina l on a warm and sunn y afte rnoon at Brainerd Intern ational Raceway. It was Edwards ' third win of the year and pu t him bac k in front of Ro berts in the championship sta ndi ngs, 85 to 83, after five of nine rounds, but one mo re lap and the finishin g posi tio ns ma y have been reversed. " I had to turn it up as mu ch as I could," toward the end of the 17-lap race, the I8-year-old Edw ard s, wh o'd had a scare in mornin g practice, said. His Mike Rockw ell- tu ned Yamaha ha d seized in the ultra-fast turn two and needed a quick re-bu ild befo re the rnain. "The th ing was twi tch in g and sliding everywhere. T he people in the back got quite a show. " Edwards' ma rgin of victory was .631 seconds at the end of the 5 1-m ile race, whi ch he won in 29 minutes, 57. 125 seconds at an average speed of 102.163 mph. S 8 " We needed another lap," Roberts Jr., a lso 18, said after com ing up just sho rt. " I muffed the start and had to play catch-up. I' d lose gr ound on th e stra igh t, but I'd fly past th em in (turn s) o ne a nd two. I jus t want to keep in the top three and let the o thers ma ke m ist a kes. Two p oi n ts behind is nothi ng in thi s ga me. Sand y Rainey and Bryan Casey worked their bu tts off to make th is thing ru n." After a sp irited d ice with Ro berts J r. for mu ch of th e race, Del Amo 's Ro bbie Pet ersen dr o p ped slig h tly back to fini sh thi rd, h is best .resu lt o f th e year o n th e Steve Bigansk itun ed Yam ah a. . Cana dia n J o n Cornwell got the best of a th ree-rider fight for th ird on h is McB rid e Cycl es/ Sh oe i/ Ca strol Yam aha, beating Ch ris D'Alu isio , whose Sout hwes t Mo to rspor ts ' Yam ah a su ffered a misfire, and Fab ia n Co rtez, his sixth aboard the Vicio us Racing Yama ha a season 's best. M O IO Lib erty/N a n ka i 's Dan n y Walk er nipped Hall N Still 's Bruce Bal du s for sevent h with the Ho ndas of Camel's Jim Fili ce and Two Broth-

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