Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

eR RACE DAD e AMAICCS EBC Brakes Endurance Challenge Series: Round 1 ~~ Defending Champion Fastline Racing (1) leads eventual winners Two Brothers Racing (21) on the opening lap at Phoenix International Raceway. Two Brothers edge Dutchman Racing at Phoenix By Henny Ray Abrams GOODYEAR, AZ, FEB 23 Wo Brothers Racing's Rick Kirk was cruising along, nursing the shoulder he'd injured during the morning practice, but still holding a 46-secand cushion in the GTO class when a red flag was thrown just past the halfway point of the 3-Hour EBC Brakes Endurance Challenge at Phoenix International Raceway. "There goes our lead," a team member said. The race would be re-gridded, but the lead was gone and instead of a 3hour endurance race if would be about an hour sprin l. Fresh tires were fitted, front and rear, the gas tank was topped off, and Tommy Lynch took over the controls. For most of the hour he played ca t and mouse with Dutchman Racing's Ray Yoder. Then, with time running down, it was time to go. "I counted down the laps on my lap board from five to go. Then I was ready to make my move," Lynch said. With two laps to go Lynch made his move and held Yoder off to give the Two Brothers team a win in their inaugural AMA endurance race. The win was especially sweet because they were racing their "B" bike since Kirk had damaged their number one machine in the morning warm-up. "! pretty much had it planned the whole time," Lynch, who teamed with Jeff Heino to win the GTO championship last year, said. "The way it went, I couldn't open it up and let it rip early. Then, in the last part of the race, I decided to gas it up and take off." After 144 laps of the l.SI-mile circuit, the margin of victory was 1.619 sees. Dutchman's Yoder teamed with Phil Kress for second aboard last year's Suzuki GSXRllOO. The team will switch to a Yamaha FZRl000 at Laguna Seca. Third place, four laps down after an T 36 unplanned battery change, went to the defending National Champions, Fastline/MCM Suzuki, with the team's GSXRllOO being piloted this year by Scott Zampach and Michael Barnes. Team Magic's Yamaha-mounted Jan Erik Svensson and Eric Moe teamed up for fourth with Blackhawk Racing's Brian Kohl and Shawn Higbee fifth. After some initial confusion, in which the wrong team was awarded the victory, ilie GTU class victory was correctly given to Southwest Motorsports. Danny Walker and Chris Taylor did the riding of the team's Yamaha TZ2S0R street bike, fitted with Chris D'Aluisio's 1992 TZ-i!I1gine. Walker rode the final sprint, racing against fellow 2S0cc GP competitor Jonathan Cornwell, the Canadian riding the four-year-old Hornblower Racing Honda CBR600 to the end. After Cornwell caught up to Walker, he dictated the pace, though Walker was wary . about taking the lead. "When he-caught me he was going sevens (1 :07 second laps). He tried to wave me by. But I thought, 'If you go slow, I'll go low.' With about eight minutes to go a lapped rider got betweQn me and Cornwell," Walker said. After completing 139 laps, "I think we won by about eight seconds." The team finished fourth overall. Team owner Bill Hornblower and Owen Weichel had preceded Cornwell on the second place team, the team which had been incorrectly given the win. "After the restart I didn't know exactly where we were," Cornwell said. "I thought I'd unlap myself if we were lapped. There was no indication to what the scoring was. I wanted to make sure to get out front and stay there." A lap down in third was Northwest Racing's Andy Fenwick and Dean Mizdal on a Honda CBR-600, the same model used by fourth-placed Xtreem Performance Racing and fifth-placed American Flyers. The American Flyers team was slowed when the shift linkage fell off, causing a lengthy pit stop during the first hour with Todd Harrington. The first race of the series drew 18 GTO and 27 GTU teams to the grid on a cool overcast Saturday afternoon. Team America's Fritz Kling took the early lead but crashed in front of Dutchman's Yoder on the eighth lap in a slow righthander damaging the left footpeg, handlebar, and steering damper. After repairing the damage, Kling rejoined the race. "He'll run the tank through," teammate Woody Deatherage said. "We'll just ride around now and do laps." The lead went to Yoder with Lynch second, and Zampach third. Just past the 20-minu te mark, Keystone Racing became the first casualty of the race, the clutch basket on the team's Suzuki GSXRllOO self-destructing with lead rider Fabian Cortez aboard. . "The first couple of laps it started making noise," Cortez said. "Then it started slipping like a stripped sprocket." Yoder was moving quickly through the field lapping everyone but secondplaceq. Two Brotlier's Racing's Lynch by the 35th lap and soon after Pastline/MCM's Zampach, then third, pulled in and handed off to Mike Barnes. "It's scary," Zampach said of the traffic on the tight course. "The riders here have been on Mulholland Drive all winter and now they want to race. And they're real inconsistent. They take dif- ferent lines every lap. I was real tense. It's really work on this track. The whole thing's bumpy. You never loosen your grip to take a breath." Because the surface was so abrasive, Zampach said he was riding a gear higher to conseore the tires. Tommy Lynch took the lead on the 46th lap, Dutchman still second as they approached the one hour mark. More riders began swapping seats near the hour mark;Jan-Erik Svensson on for Eric Moe, then Phil Kress replaced Yoder, and Jim Sabin gave the N2 Racing Kawasaki to John Ashmead, the team hobbled by a too long rear tire change. Sabin explains: The spacer on the Marchesini hub looks like it's one piece. It's actually two pieces and one got left out." The team lost at least three laps with the mishap. Two Brothers pitted for gas and a rear tire on the 60th and Kirk took over for Lynch who had built up a thirty second lead on Dutchman, who'd pitted earlier. They maintained the lead with Fastline/MCM Racing in second, Barnes riding until the 75th lap when he would pit for gas, a rear lire, and a battery, and return the bike to Zampach. "1 was running around doing lOs," Barnes said of his ride. "After 15 minutes it started not to pull away on the comers. At first you lose the top end and it progressively gets worse. I pointed down to the battery as I went by on the front straight and they got the message." It cost the team about four laps. Dutchman, with Kress on, was third, with Northstar Racing fourth and Team Magic's Svensson fifth. On the 89th lap the race would be stopped when Gary Lenzmeier crashed the Northstar Racing Yamaha FZR-l000 into the hay bales in tum two. He was

• Cover