Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

onship?; then, at Daytona, your riders suddenly start blowing motors by the cratefu1 and you wonder if you can get a bike to go 100 miles, much less 200; and Colin Edwards, your championship hopeful, encounters yet another blown motor in the Daytona 200 and doesn't score a single point. Ouch! Now here's the good news: In his AMA Superbike debut at Phoenix International Raceway, Edwards finishes fourth and shows tha t right off the bat he can run with the big boys; despite all the engine problems encountered throughout the week, your fill-in rider at Daytona, four-time World Champion Eddie Lawson, goes out and wins the biggest race of the year - the Daytona 200. Yeoww! Heading into the third round of the series at Laguna, it seems as though things are beginning to return to normal for the V&H squad. James will be back, the engine problems have been cured by the team's engine guru Jim Leonard, and the team will finally get the opportunity to see how good the relatively untested 1993 Yamaha YZF750SP really is. "Jim Leonard has discovered what he was dealing with," team manager Steve Johnson explained when questioned about the Daytona engine problems. "The symptoms were the same in all conditions, except for Eddie's (Lawson) problem in qualifying. That was a pressed-in plug that came out. We're going to bring the SP to Laguna. We'll try it and see how close we are. We really need to get Colin (Edwards) back in the championship hunt, so I would imagine that he will probably use the OW. Jamie Games) is in a little bit different situation. If Colin opts not to ride the SP, then we'll give Jamie the option to ride it - it might be easier for him. Jamie's been very positive this week. He's been putting in 45 minute motos on an MX bike and his confidence is there. He's really been riding an emotional roller coaster. It's been four months (since the accident), so he's anxious to get back on." The hand injury James suffered at the Daytona tire tests was much more severe than originally thought as it was basically crushed in the crash. Still, James has pronounced himself ready for action, and he was scheduled to ride a road racer for the first time since the crash the weekend of April 4. "I'm getting a lot more motion out of the end of the finger," James said. "The knuckle has no motion, but now at least I have some motion out of the end. I've been riding a motocross bike a good bit each day. The test is basically just to go play around and see how I feel on a race bike. I've never had trouble before coming back from them (accidents), but when you come back from a bad one there's always some questions in your mind. There's always some ups and downs in your mind about being able to go as fast as you were, but I've always been able to go out and do it in the past." Edwards lies 10th in the championship, despite his Daytona non-finish, with 28 points - a full 34 points behind Polen. James is worse off with zero points but, as Polen proved last year, you can miss· a few races and still be in the hunt at the end of the season. Yoshimura Suzuki - Thomas Stevens comes into the third round of the series as the 11 th ranked rider in the point standings. Things started out fairly well for the Floridian at Phoenix where he finished sixth, proving that with a little more acceleration the new liquid-eooled GSXR750 could run with the Kawasakis, Hondas, Yamahas and Ducatis. It was an impressive effort for the new bike at the first race of the season, but the team's success was marred somewhat by Donald Jacks' crash, a high-speed get-off that left the team's number two rider with a broken arm. At Daytona, Stevens and the team hit a snag. There it became evident that the new bike lacked not only accelera tion, but also horsepower. And there was no way to hide it on the banked tri-oval. Instead of moving forward, the program appeared to have taken a couple of steps backward. Still, Stevens went hunting for points. He knew going in that with only a few months of development under their belt, Daytona would be the toughest cha lIenge of the year for the team and its new bike. It all went wrong in the 200, though, when Stevens crashed in the chicane. His 25 points puts him a whopping 37 points behind Polen in the championship. "We definitely know what the weaknesses of the bike are," Stevens said from his home in Florida a few weeks before Laguna Seca. "With any machine you're always trying to make it better, and we're working on making it better. At this point, the faster the track the more we're at a disadvantage, but as the season progresses our guys will get it better. The potential for the power is there, it's just tough when you only have three months to get it together and the other guys are using bikes that they've been developing for years. I don't think Laguna Seca will give us a problem because the bike will be that much better we're working towards the goals we set after Daytona. "There (Daytona) I just got away from my game plan. Going in I planned to just finish the best I could with what we had, but I got in too much of a hurry. I tried to make it up by riding too hard and it bit me. I didn't want to lose touch with the group ahead of me so I was trying to get a good drive out of the chicane. But I never got through it with the cold tire. Hey, I can't dwell on the past, I've got to look to the future." Jacks is expected to return to action for the Laguna Seca round of the series, and having both riders back on board should help the team develop the bike more quickly. The Rest - Team Mirage's Dale Quarterley is the very best of the rest. In fact, you can almost think of Quarterley as a factory rider because he's proven that he can run just as fast as the factory men. Armed with a brand new Kawasaki ZXR750, Quarterley lies fifth in the championship behind only Russell, Polen, DuHamel and Kipp - not bad company. Can he win a race this season? Doubtful. Can he be a thorn in the side to them all? You bet. If it rains at one of these races, don't be afraid to lay down a little cash on the tall redhead. Quarterley finished ninth in Phoenix and seventh at Daytona. Jacques Guenette, Jr. is the next highest ranking "privateer." He currently sits in eighth place after finishing 22nd at Phoenix and ninth at Daytona on his Yamaha Canada YZF75OSP. Having well known turner Mike Velasco in his camp won't hurt a bit. Behind those two come a host of others including Eric Moe and his trusty old Honda RC30, Pablo Real and his Ducati, Christian Gardner and his Gold Hill Yamaha, Scott Gray and Michael Barnes - all sit in the top 20 in the championship point standings. Based on what we've seen in the first two rounds, things are just starting to heat up. (:N (Above) Oose racing has been prominent at the first two rounds of the series. (Left) Thomas Stevens (11) and Tom Kipp (16) race at the Phoenix opener. (Below) Camel Honda's Mike Smith (68) and Team Mirage's Dale Quarterley. Smith hasn't had much luck thus far in 1993, but Quarterley is currently fifth in the standings.

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