Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

eROAD RACE AMAICCS EBC Brakes Endurance e Dutchman Racing's Andrew Stoud was the star of the Laguna Seca race. Chal1ens_e es_: S_en_' R_oun_d_4 Andrew Stroud and his teammate Phil Kress celebrate with MissLaguna Seca. Dutchman masters rain at Laguna Seca By Henny Ray Abrams MONTEREY, CA, APR 17 nyone who wanted to know why Dutchman Racing won the 90minute EBC Endurance Challenge at Laguna Seca needed only to watch New Zealander Andrew Stroud exiting turn 11. The final comer on the 2.214mile circuit was his showcase, powersliding the team's spanking new Yamaha FZRl000 lap after lap on a wet, but drying track. Riding a four-eylinder, l000cc machine for the first time, he took over for teammate Phil Kress at the 4O-minute mark and when the clock hit the top of the hour he was in the lead for good. Quickly he built up \I lead that would stretch to 8.341 seconds after he and Kress had completed 48 laps and 106.27 miles at an average speed of 70.082 mph. "We do a lot of riding in the rain in Japan and Malaysia," said Stroud with a big smile on his face in the winner's circle. '1t's probably a bit of an advantage A forme." 24 Stroud was a temporary replacement for Ray Yoder who'd broken both wrists at Daytona. Yoder had two pins removed from his right wrist the week prior to Laguna Seca and isn't expected to return until Elkhart Lake in mid-June.. "I was just trying to hang in there and keep the bike in the front. I knew if I was out front he could bring it home," teammate Kress said. That the Dutchman team even made it to the track was something of a miracle. The motor in their truck had expired in Rawlings, Wyoming, on Wednesday morning. Team owner Dave Schlosser borrowed a car and drove 200 miles to Casper to buy replacement parts to rebuild the head. Two Brothers Racing finished second, they, too, using borrowed talent after a freak accident sidelined regular Rick Kirk. Kirk closed a car door on his hand Thursday morning and was expected to have it placed in a cast. Sport Rider magazine editor Nick Ienatsch was drafted onto the squad, riding the first stint before handing off to Tommy Lynch who brought the Honda CBR900 home in second place. "That's probably the best four-stroke I've ever ridden," said Ienatsch, who'd previously tested the Two Brothers Honda RC30 said. "If there's a (by line, this is the bike that can hit it. I would catch somebody and know that I could outbrake them. My job was to hand it to Tommy Lynch." Third place went to Fastline/MCM Suzuki's Scott Zampach and Michael Barnes, the team campaigning their aged 1992 Suzuki GSXRll00 for the last time. Team captain Jeff Stem said the '93 models will be ready for Charlotte. Barnes said the key to racing in the rain was that "a lot more throttle control was necessary." He added that he'd come close to crashing at least once, running off the track before making the save. For Zampach, it was his first race of the big bike in the rain and that it took "a while to get up to speed. If you look at Andrew Stroud, his whole career he's been racing in the rain in New Zealand. Basically, this is my first time and I wanted to get as many points as possible." T.P M. Racing's Dave Deveau and Cal Rayborn II finished fourth, two laps down, on a Suzuki GSXRll00 with Team America's Fritz Kling and Jeff Heino fifth aboard a Honda CBR900. Fastline/MCM Suzuki continues to hold onto the GTO championship points lead with 127 points after four of 13 rounds. Two points behind is Two Brothers Racing with Team America third at 109. The GTO class was green-lighted at about 4:30 p.m., a light drizzle greeting the 21-rider field as they headed under the Toyota Bridge to begin the 9O-minute race. Fastline/MCM Suzuki's Barnes got the jump, but by the end of the first lap Two Brothers Racing's Ienatsch was in the lead, Team America's Kling second, Barnes back to third, with Dutchman Racing's Kress fourth. All but Team America had fitted full rain tires, Kling holding onto second on a pair of Dunlop SportMax's with extra rain grooves hand-eut into the tread. "We were hoping it would get sunny:' Kling said. "It was going good for a while, but I saw they didn't have to slow down for the comers as much as I did. As soon as Barnes came by, they all started coming by." The lead quartet quickly detached themselves from the field; by the fourth lap T.P.M. Racing's Cal Rayborn n was over 40 seconds behind the lead group led by Ienatsch. Behind Rayborn n the field was equally spread out with _ Blackhawk Racing's Brian Kohl well back in sixth safely ahead of Keystone Racing. The rain increased in intensity on the ninth lap, the order shuffling with Barnes in front of Kling, Kress, and Ienatsch. But almost as soon as it started the rain ended, the sun appeared, as the storm front moved through the area causing the riders great anxiety. "I went off the track and lost it in turn four when I was going under Fritz (Kling) and (Nick) Ienatsch," Dutchman's Kress said. "I thought 'It's gone, it's gone: but it hopped up and I was back on the track." Because of his duties as a test rider for his magazine, Ienatsch probably has more wet weather riding experience than any of the other riders, but even he wasn't prepared for what he experienced. "This bike has an eighth-tum throttle:' Ienatsch said. "It picks up horsepower instantly. Once I got that in my head and once I understood that I was okay. I got greedy a couple of times out of turn nine and scared myself." Barnes found that entering the Corkscrew was an area that required caution. "Braking for the Corkscrew there's a change of pavement that you have to be off the brakes and have to have speed exiting. You have to brake for the entry," Barnes said, adding that, like Kling, he had a near-erash experience. "I went off the track in the second righthander, turn four. I was sideways and in the dirt. I just saved it. I don't know how I did it." At the 30-minute mark Fastline/ MCM led Two Brothers, Dutchman, and Team America, with T.P.M. Racing a lap down. Barnes was running lap times in the low to mid 1:50s as the teams prepared for the first rider changes. But just before the pit stops began, lenatsch was back in the lead on the 21st lap. Among the leaders, Dutchman pitted first, Kress giving way to Stroud at the 4O-minute mark. Five minutes later, at the halfway mark, Tommy Lynch took over for Ienatsch, and, a minute later, Shawn Higbee replaced Brian Kohl on the Blackhawk Racing machine. The running order for top five was unchanged from the 30-minute mark, but it would soon change. Fastline/MCM had a pair of slicks mounted and resting against the pit wall, but they decided to stay with the rains as Zampach replaced Barnes near the 50-minute point. A few minutes later T.P.M. Racing brought Rayborn n in to put David Deveau in the saddle. One hour in and Stroud was on the move, the New Zealander, who made his name in this country riding the Britten V-twin, already up to second and into the lead just a few minutes later. After a few laps out front Stroud had more than a 5.5-second lead, Lynch moving past Dutchman's Zarnpach for second, Team America's Jeff Heino a lap down in fourth, and T.P.M. Racing's Deveau fifth. Only fourth and fifth would flop by the end, though America med a protest on the scoring which was disallowed. However, another protest, filed by N2 Racing, was allowed, moving the team up from ninth in the provisional results to sixth in the official results. Blackhawk Racing moved from sixth to seventh, Hornblower Racing remained eighth, and Keystone Racing dropped from seventh to ninth. , N2 Racing's second rider Jim Sabin explained that he thought the scoring snafu had occurred when he crashed in the chicane losing one lap. "They thought we missed more than one. We protested and they fixed it," he said. The bigger problem, and the one that caused the crash, was the tire choice. "We just made a bad tire choice:' said Sabin, who teamed with John Ashmead. "We went with cut slicks instead of rain tires. We thought it we went with rains and the track dried out we'd lose too much time. Going into the Corkscrew I tucked the front end. It was sort of a dumb crash because I crashed and the bike stayed on two wheels and ran into the hay bales." The win was an auspicious debut for the Dutchman FZRl000 and team owner Dave Schlosser sees more in the future. "The engine's box stock. We didn't have time to unplug the starter or gener. ator," Schlosser said. "We concentrated on the chassis. We put on quick-change wheels, Kayaba forks and Kosman clamps to tool the offset. We made an insert for the steering head so that we could change the steering angle. And we added Brembos (brakes) and Marchesini wheels." Schlosser also made a 4-into-2into-l exhaust 'system which added "about nine to ten horsepower" and helped contribute to making the race bike 45 pounds lighter than stock. With oils, but no gas, the Dutchman Yamaha weighs 386 pOunds. "It comes with 138

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