Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

eROAD RACE AMA National Championshi~bike Road Race Series: Round 5 ~ Scott Russell (17) a nd J a mie James (2) led Doug Polen (23) on th e first la p, but tha t was the last they saw of the Texan. Thomas Stevens (I) a nd Jamie James (2) battled to the fin ish line for seco nd place . La rry Schwarzba ch had his best ever finish, taking a lo nel y fourt h place a t Brainerd Int'l Racewa y. P perfect at Brainerd olen By P a ul Carruthers P ho tos by Henny R a y Ab rams BRAINERD, MN, JUNE 14 aSI By Ferraccis Dou g Pol en a ttach ed a video camera 10 th e front of his Ducati a nd went for a Su nday rid e in the Minnesota countryside tod a y a nd he made only o ne erro r - he rea lly should have pointed the camera backw ards. Polen further en ha nced his reputation as the world's best superbike rider with a dominating performance at Brainerd Int erna tional Racewa y, th e Texan pulling away to an unheard of 23. 183second margin of victory, averagi ng 105.556 mph in the 20-lap, 6O-mile In do ing so, he became the first twotime winner of the five-race-old series and moved to within two po ints of champ ionshi p leader Scott Ru ssell. But th is points chase really doesn 't matter to Po len . His go al is 10 win a second stra ig h t Wor ld Su perbike Championship, and he rejoins that figh t next week in Spain, thus mi ssing ou t on rounds six and seven of the AMA ser ies a t New Hampshire Internation al Ra cewa y and at Road Amer ica, respe ctively, a nd any real cha nce of an AMA title. He leaves , th ough, after stam p ing his authority on his fellow countrymen. F race. 6 Behind Po len came a thrilling, racelon g battle betw een Vance & Hines Yamaha's Jam ie J ames and Muzzy Ka wasak i's Thomas Stevens . James managed to o ut bra ke Stevens heading into tum three of Brai nerd 's l G-turn , three-mile road course o n the fina l la p 10 take the runner-u p spot, bu t they were really in a diff erent race than Pol en , crossing the lin e far behind th e winning factory Ducati rider. Vance & H in es Ya maha 's Larry Schwarzbach ha d the fin est superbike outing of hi s young car eer as he rod e 10 a lonely fourth-place finish. The Texa n's pr evious best resu lt was a ninth-place fini sh at the Mia mi G P in 1991. Fifth pl ace went 10 Pol en 's Fast By Ferracci teamma te Pascal Pi cotte, again aft er a race-lon g battle with Yoshimura Suzuki's David Sado wski, wh o fin ished sixth: Two Brother s Raci ng's Freddie Spencer came back from an earl y off-trac k excu rsio n 10 fini sh seventh with Gold H ill Racing's Christian Gardner, Yosh imura Suzuki ' s Britt Turkington a nd Ca mel Honda 's Tom Kipp fill in g the top 10. Attrition played a big ro le in the ou tcome of the race as the AMA ser ies began its back-to-back-to-back three weekend run at Brai nerd. Among those sideli ned were points leader Russell a nd series runner-up Mike Smith, both of whom exited the race ea rly. Russell pined o n the fifth lap with a flat rear tire; a nd Smith followed suit two lap s later with a su spected dropped valve on hi s Camel Honda RC30. Although' Russell didn 't sco re any points, he sti ll leads the cha mp ionshi p with 65 points, two ah ead of Pol en , who will miss the next two rounds of the series . J a mes and Steven s made the big j ump in the points tabl e, moving into a tie for third place with 48 points apiece. Smith a nd Pi cotte, meanwhile, are tied for fifth with 47 points. \\'ith race promot ers not prepared 10 pay the ex tra money demanded by the Wor ld Su pe rbike Series, the Am erican round of the Diesel J eans-ba cked cha mpio ns h i p su dde n ly became a ro und of the AMA series. And the race didn't appear to suffer from the loss .of its Wor ld Championship sta tus as a thr ee-da y cro wd estimated at 33,000, in cl ud ing a Sunday cro wd of 18,000, watch ed the proceedings. T he d ifferen t competition didn't do m uc h 10 faze Po len eithe r, as he stor med to a victory simi lar to the twoleg domin ation he sho wed here last year in the World Championship round. For his efforts, Pol en too k hom e the $4050 winner 's share of the $22,000 su perbike purse. Sunny skies and warm temperatures greeted the 23-rider superb ike field as they gridded for the start of the 20-lap, 60-mile National, but things didn't look bright for a nyone hoping to beat fast-qualifier Polen (see sidebar) and the fire-engine red Ducati, J a mes couldn 't have been too confident. A new motor, with its different gearbox, had been installed only moments before th e start and he had to get acquainted with the new ratios on the warm-up la p . At the drop of the flag it was Russell moving to the front as he led the field . into the h igh-speed turn one at the end of the ultra-long front straightaway. J ames was tucked in behind, with Pol en in tow despite a lackluster start. " I kept fin d ing more a nd more drafts," Po len said later. R ussell 's lead las ted for the entire first la p, but not m uch more as Polen wasted litt le time in moving to the fron t. He'd give n thought to making a ra ce of it, but opted not to. "Every tim e you talk abo ut do ing that so me thing happens ," Pol en said. " I just wa n ted to get th ings bac k 10 wh ere they were. Get th e co mbina tio n work ing for go ing into th e rest of the World Superbi ke ro unds." P ol en, wh o rides his 199 1-spec Du cati in th e AMA series, didn't wait around. By th e fifth lap he was five seconds clear, and he went o n to pull a second a la p on the rest of the field until " backing it down at the halfway point." When all was said and done, he'd won his second Natio nal of the season and the six th of his career, and they don't get much easier. " It was more or less a Sunday rid e," Po len said later. "It was pretty easy. We were comfortab le from th e time we got here. The o ther guy s were strugg li ng, but we had it set up from the first practice session." Russell 's problems started on the second lap : " I went into on e and it got sq uirrely,' he explained. "T hen it went sideways out of three. I didn't kn ow if water or oil was lea kin g on the tire. It j ust got worse." It wasn 't a leak, but in stead a flat rear tire, the third fla t Russell has endured in two years. The Georgian pi ne d on the fifth lap for a new tire, rejoi ned th e fra y, but pu lled in for good on the 10th lap after realizing i t wo uld be a struggle to score a ny points. J a mes and Stevens had moved past R ussell befor e he pitted. " He was n't go ing a nywhere , anywa y, today,' James said of Russell. " In fact, he held us up a bit," Stevens added in a post-race p ress co nference. Wi th Russell in th e pits, the order at th e end of five la ps read: Pol en, James, Stevens, Smith, Schwarzbach, Sadowski, Dal e Quarterley, Turki ngIOn, P ico ne and Steve Crevier. Spencer had already run off the track in turn three after temporarily losing third gea r. The three-time World Champion rejoined the race way back, but wo uld fight hi s way through to finis h seventh. O n the seventh la p , Smith took to the pi ts, his day finish ed, with a badlysmoking Honda RC30 a nd a n y chance of taking advantage of Russell 's poor outing instantly diminis hed. Wi th Pol en lo ng go ne, th e best races of the da y were the o nes goi ng on behind hi m. The first was the battl e for second between J ames a nd defendin g Na tional Superbi ke Champion Stevens. J a mes a nd the Yama ha were a lit tle down on top speed, and he p layed the d raft ing game to keep Stevens a nd the Kawasaki close. On the final lap, he used the o nly move he kn ew wou ld wor k - a pass on th e inside of turn th ree - to take over second a nd hold

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