Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

team's XR628 badly tweaked. A smashed oil cooler, which leaked onto the front brake, forced the Honda pilots to back off from a blistering pace that reportedly had them clocked at 106 mph earlier in the loop. At the front of the pack, the Openclass battle was too close to call as Hamel and Roeseler made their first rider change at Midway. Despite their Mutt-and-Jeff apearance, the team that paired 6-foot-twoinch, 21D-pound Hamel with five-foot-9inch, ISO-pound Roeseler reported no problems in setting up the bike. "Larry likes his bike set up stiffer than I do, so it worked out well," said Hamel. "As a matter of fact, at the Baja 1000 last year both of our teams rode identical bikes with the same suspension." Roeseler made short work of the lower loop of the figure eight and the 10<500 was still in front when he handed the bike to Hamel for the dash back to the main pits at Shea Road. A muddy section 10 miles before pit row forced Hamel to change goggles during his quick refuel, but he was on his way in seconds and the Honda was still nowhere to be seen. Ashcraft was shaking his head in' despair as he thundered onto pit row two minutes back on adjusted time. "The header pipe broke about 10 miles after (Dona toni) got on the bike at Midway. He had the whole loop to go and we didn't have a pipe at Midway, so 1 had to ride another 20 miles into the main pit," Ashcraft explained. "The header pipe is the most critical part on a four-stroke. These pipes are tuned for the motor on a dyno, so it really lost it when we got the hole. A 250 was way faster than us." Honda opted to change the header pipe in the pit and by the time Ashcraft left for his second loop, he was eight minutes behind the leader. The leaders in the 250cc pack dashed through the pits in a blur, 11 minutes behind Hamel and Roeseler on adjusted time. John Braasch and Jeff Capt's 10<250 had the lead by six seconds over the Morton/Flores 10<250. Morris and Smi th were 15 seconds back in third, and Sanford's Suzuki was less than a minute behind in fourth. Third overall was snatched from the grasp of the 250cc riders when the Roberts/Worley/Staten 10<500 cleared loop one less than nine minutes behind the overall lead. "You should've seen (Staten)," said Roberts. "It's the best story of the day. He's got Craig Smith on his left; Jeff Martinez is on his right, and Rex comes right between them, jumps a sand dune and passes them in the air. Wow! He had a great ride." The team's nearest Over 3D competition came from Jim Roewer and John Ewald, who were eight minutes behind the Roberts Kawasaki on adjusted time. The first 125cc to complete loop one was almost an hour behind the race leaders. Local residents Don Behling and John Doubrava, who collected money from businesses in the Parker/Lake Havasu area to support their bid for Gass 20 honors, reported slow-but-steady progress that had put them half an hour ahead of their only rival - Martin Gonzalez of Mexicali, who was riding solo on a CRl25. The Ashcraft/Varner Over-50 entry was comfortably ahead of secondplaced Dick Vick's Kawasaki, and Bob Van Dyke and Rich Catelli, the only team in Class 40, were holding their own not far behind. With Hamel back on board, the frontrunning KX500 made the race look easy as it continued its trouble-free sprint around the figure eight. The less fortu- nate racers wished they had it even half that good. Johnny Campbell ran out of luck on his second trip to Midway and broke his ankle when he crashed Honda's second factory XR628. Bruce Ogilvie, who had signed up with the team "just in case," completed Campbell's section and handed over to Young, but precious time had been lost. Further back on the course, Zitterkopf and Rudder were left with nothing but time after their KTM 250 blew its ignition and left them stranded 20 miles from the end of loop one. By the halfway point on the second loop, the field had thinned even further. Japanese enduro champ Masami Ishii and his Open-class partner Hisao Yoshitomo were disqualified by the BLM for cutting the course at the 22mire mark. Husqvarna pilots Don Griewe and Chris Hodges were also disqualified for taking the same short-eut. Ashcraft was making his mark as he stormed into the Midway pit halfway through loop two. He had cut three minutes off Hamel's lead on the course, and a wheel change in Kawasaki's Midway pit had put the Honda even closer. Donatoni had high hopes when he took over for his second shot a t the lower loop but his optimism was shortlived. The Honda's header broke again, within a mile or two of where it had broken on the first loop, leaving a silver dollar-sized hole in the pipe. "It really cut the power," said Ashcraft. "I couldn't even pull fourth, and it was pulling fifth everywhere when the pipe was good." To add insult to injury, when Donatoni returned to the Midway pit at the end of his loop, the Honda caught fire when heat from the broken header ignited the gas during refueling. "The bike was flaming," Ashcraft reported. "We have fire extinguishers in the pits - we always have - but that's the first time we had to use them." The 250cc race was still too close to call. Morris made up one position when he passed Sanford's Suzuki in the top of the loop, but he was still behind two other 1O<250s when he handed over to Smith for the lower loop. "(Smith) went out and passed both the Kawasakis - Braasch and Morton," said Morris. "He just made up his mind and did it. He's a bullet. I'd hate to ride against him, especially in the fast stuff." The Braasch/Capt KX250 seized 30 miles from the finish, but Morton chased Smith for as long he he could. "We had a super-fast bike. I just wasn't fast enough through the rough stuff," said Morton. "I just couldn't hang with him." Hamel was unaffected by the turmoil further back in the pack. He took over from Roeseler with 20 miles to go and took the team's flawless ride all the way to the checkered flag. The Kawasaki Team Green/Bel-Ray /Dunlop/Trick/ Tsubaki/Renthal/ Acerbis/NGK/Pro Circuit-backed 10<500 crossed the line with a total elapsed time of four hours and 40 minutes, an average speed of 61.11 miles an hour, and a time-adjusted lead of just under eight minutes. "Everything went perfect today," said Hamel. "Our pit stops took maybe 20 seconds. The dirt was excellent great to ride in. I even dodged some big puddles here and there, and it was the best-marked SCORE course I've ever ridden." The win was Hamel's second Parker 400 victory in a row, but it meant just as much as his first. "All the SCORE races are important. They carry a lot of prestige," said Hamel. Despite running nearly half the. race with a broken header, Ashcraft and Crash-related bike damage held John Campbell (shown) and Mike Young to eighth. Donatoni's bruised, battered Honda still reached the finish in time to claim second. "What a shame," said Honda/ K&N / Dunlop / Scott /IMS / Pro Honda/AXO/Troy Lee/D.I.D./Carnelbak-sponsored Ashcraft. "We were within seconds of Hamel and Roeseler. I think I rode the best I've ridden in a long time and our bike was so great. It was going really well." Scott Morris kept his partner's lead intact for the final 20 miles of the race, and flashed home nine minutes behind the Honda to claim third overall and the win in Class 21. "The 250s were close all day. They always are," said Kawasaki of Riverside/Tear:n Green/ Acerbis/ Duralube/FMF/Sprocket Specialists/TsubakilJoe Lane Race Prep./Scott/Michelin/ Art Lanier Suspension-backed Morris. "We had a great day - especially Craig (Smith), and this is probably the best I've ever seen Parker, because of the rain." Tim Morton brought home the 10<250 he shared with John Flores, right behind Morris, but found a double disappointment waiting for him. The first downer came when he found that the Morris/Smith team had beaten him on time. "When (Smith) passed me, I thought, 'no big deal.' I thought they started one and a half minutes ahead of me," said Morton. "I was ecstatic coming down the wash - I was totally stoked, but now I found out he started behind us. My mistake. What a bummer." The TNT Racing/Scott's Performance/FMF/Trick/Back Canteen/Kawasaki of Riverside/Papas and Beer/Cycle Parts West-backed racer's next disappointment came when the Roberts/Worley/Staten KX500 powered home less than two minutes behind him to snatch fourth overall on adjusted time. The Over-30 win brought its own share of disappointment, when the Roberts team found they had missed a shot at third overall by just three seconds. "We were taking our time to make sure we finished, because we had a huge lead in our class," said Roberts. "We were going for the class win, not the overall, but I wish we'd known it was that close." The class win was the third in a row for Roberts' privateer team. "We won the (Baja) 500 and 1000, and now Parker, all on the same bike," said Roberts. "It's a 1991 KX500. Ed Marcelli is the mechanic and his wife owns the bike." The disappointment continued when Sanford brought American Suzuki's entry home in sixth overall, only to be disqualified the following morning by SCORE's Competition Review Board. The Suzuki reportedly accelerated through a check near the furthest point of its second lower loop. The disqualification pushed Openclass Kawasaki racers Jeff Sheets and Tim Telford into sixth, ahead of the Class-3D entry of Jim Roewer and John Ewald, who fought continuous flat tires through most of the second loop. The Campbell/Young Honda, with its guest appearance by Ogilvie, claimed seventh overall. Young, who finished the race scraped, bruised, and oilsoaked, atop the badly tweaked Honda, was still enthusiastic. "I did so much damage to it, I had to be really careful. Butwhen it was going, did it go. That thing runs, man," said Young. The next bike home was the KX250 piloted by Craig Hunter, Brent Farrell and Roger Hurd, who had compounded their early problem with a loose plug wire by running with the choke on for more than 100 miles. Honda racers Bob Ascraft and Sterling Varner scored a wire-to-wire win in Class 50 for 10th overall. "The bike ran great - never missed a beat, and I didn't fall down. That's the main thing," said Ashcraft. Don Gehling and John Doubrava overalled the 125cc division in just over six hours, the only team left in the class after iron man Martin Gonzalez burned out his clutch approximately 20 miles from the finish. And Bob Van Dyke and Rich Ca telli were the last motorcycle racers to complete two laps of the course. The Honda duo took the Class 40 win in seven hours and four minutes. CN Results O/A: I. Danny Hamel/Larry Roeseler (!(aw); 2. Dan Ashcraft/David DonalOni (Han); 3. Scott Morris/Craig Smith (Kaw); 4. Earl Roberts/Dan Worley (!

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